India's Tribal Land: Can Both Development & Conservation Be Andaman's Priority?

Projects can't be without human sensitivity & history as muscularity yields electoral harvest but every life matters

Image: Aroop Mishra/The Quint

Recently, 100 former civil servants and well-meaning citizenry wrote to the President of India, protesting the proposed mega infrastructure at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that entails a transshipment port, an airport, a power plant, and a greenfield township.

At stake is the displacement of the indigenous and vulnerable Shompen tribe numbering approximately 400 and the clearance of approximately 15% of forest land of the Great Nicobar Island of the southern tip of 572 odd Islands. A classic case of genuine community-environment concern conflated with the ‘costs’ of development. However, development ought not to be a binary ‘either-or’ case, but an ‘and’ decision that accounts for both sides of the argument.

How Must the Government Tackle Andaman Crisis?

The daunting reality in governance is often about having to choose a path of least ‘cons’ (not least resistance), driven by the principle of ‘larger good’, with the full know and acknowledgment of the inevitable flipside. Decision neuroscience is a complex web of topical urgencies, local sensitivities, and the ‘larger picture’ with the implied ‘larger good’ needing to triumph the alternative options of status quo or even rash implementations.

History is instructive that procrastination or bluntness is never a good plan and at the cost of sounding inconsistent, one must put forth the holistic ‘and’ plans with full facts, assumptions and rationalities that underlie any clearance.

As an administrator of the distant Andaman and Nicobar Islands (2006-2013), one faced the conundrum of simplistic binaries of either ‘opening up’ or, retaining the protectionist ‘status quo’, there were solid arguments for both sides. In an ideal situation, ‘opening up’ without any disturbance to the people and ecosystem was aspired, but that is easier said than done.

There will always be consequences, both positive and negative, and therefore only a measured and optimum approach that imagines the entirety of possibilities, consequences, costs and benefits can define the way forward.

The Many Issues of Andaman's Ecological System

Andaman & Nicobar has certain peculiarities eg, six indigenous tribes (primitive and vulnerable) and native only to these distant Islands, a reserved/protected forest cover of 94%, abundance of flora and fauna, unmodernised economy with tourism and fishing as mainstay and in desperate need for additional investments for socio-economic uplift.

But where would the additional land for such investments come from, given the reserved or protected forest cover? How do you ‘protect’ the most vulnerable tribes, within? How do you leverage its unmatched geographical and strategic potential hosting the only ‘Chinese chokepoint’ of Malacca Straits in close proximity, without strengthening its militaristic wherewithal, therein?

How could you partake in the ‘Look East’ policy and its fruition without creating an infrastructure to tap into its transformational potential? How do you protect the unique biodiversity that is given to the land without exposing the same to the usual ‘development’ imperatives?

One such moment of having to nuance multiple choices and articulating the optimum way for the protection and betterment of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and furthering the ‘larger good’ of India, with the Prime Minister in the audience, was my proposal at the National Development Council in 2012. I had invoked the mantra of ‘inclusive growth’ and sustainability (with the inviolable duty of protectionism to the vulnerable, wherever possible) as hardwired consideration.

Excerpts from that presentation may now seem contradictory at some level but they were presented with the full know of pros and cons of various sub-proposals, without losing out on the big picture.

Have The Safety Of Indigenous Tribes Been Insured?

The protectionist instinct was manifest on my insistence, “The welfare of Particularly Vulnerable Tribals living in the Islands is one of our most important priorities.

Recently, with the approval of the Central government, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribe) Regulation 1956 was amended, empowering the Administrator to declare or modify the Buffer Zone around Tribal Reserve Areas, to prohibit certain commercial/tourist establishments in such Buffer Zone and to impose stringent penal provisions against those who exploit the tribes like encroaching/poaching tribal area, promoting tourism through the advertisement on Aboriginal Tribe or introducing of any form of alcohol/intoxicant to the tribe.

The administration is strictly implementing the policy laid down by the Central government in the year 2004, to protect and preserve the Jarawa Tribe through an autonomous body, namely Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti (AAJVS).” In short, the dedicated area and protectionist wherewithal for the local tribes was sought to be enhanced.

Whereas, besides proposals for the ‘opening up’ space for upgrading fisheries, tourism (including eco-friendly), connectivity, energy (renewable) requirements, submarine optical fiber cable, waste management, education, health, IT, India’s first seaplane etc, one also to concurrently table the economic and geopolitical (emerging Chinese threat) concerns, concurrently. Andaman and Nicobar held the sole and irreplaceable key to the ‘Chinese chokepoint’ at the mouth of Malacca Straits. Period.

How Strategically Viable Is Andaman & Nicobar Islands

The strategic ‘opening up’ was expressed by stating, “The importance of these islands to the country in terms of strategic defence and the "Look East" policy cannot be over-emphasised and one of the world's busiest trade sea routes passes through our waters.

It is therefore but natural, that a Joint Command of the Defence Services, the six only one of its kind in the country, has been established here and we work closely with them to ensure the coastal security and integrity of our territory.” A lot was left unsaid and implied. India needed to assert, dominate, and leverage the locational opportunity.

Consequently, the cost of ‘opening up’ in terms of land and its imperatives was laid threadbare, “the green cover of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is an unprecedented ninety-four percent of the land, an almost unheard of level of green canopy anywhere in the world.

Out of six percent of lan available (520.5 sq km) for development and revenue purposes, 512.8 sq. kms is already under utilisation, leaving only 7.7 sq kms area for further developmental purposes. Consequently, development options in the islands are seriously constrained due to the non-availability of land.

Additional land is thus, a pre-requisite for planned development and for the required expansion of the Joint Command”. Put simply, land was physically available for development and security projects, but it would entail diluting the green canopy on a few Islands with the collateral impact of ecosystem, therein. A mitigative and restorative plan had to be stitched along with.

Govt To Step Up Measures That Safeguard Andaman's Interest

The conflation of serious national threat from China, the crying need for local development and social projects with the accompanying concerns for vulnerable tribes, biodiversity etc, all had to be put into the calculus to invoke the principle of national ‘larger good’ for defining the optimum level of ‘opening up’. Certain environmental costs were inevitable and sought only to be paid up should they be lesser than the ‘pros’ of going forward, as proposed.

However, the natural paradox of seemingly binary choices can problematise optics and India’s history of managing human and environmental displacement initiatives in the past does not make for a reassuring picture. Resettlement and rehabilitation projects have invariably fallen short of promises.

The harsh reality is also that most of the displaced populace in development projects have often been the tribals at the margins of society and national imagination (Shompens in this case) who have never really been the direct beneficiaries of the said ‘development’ and struggled to articulate their woes. Exploitation in resettled areas and the existence of civic facilities only on paper as opposed to the ground, makes any new promise of resettlement and rehabilitation questionable.

The counterarguments of uncharitably calling those who raise such concerns as ‘urban-naxals’ or ‘anti-development’ is also uncalled for – fact is that the ‘cost’ of development must be debated and planned-for in all honesty. Facts are usually the casualty in such polarised times and perhaps a more inclusive, sensitive and open approach to the concerns, may just address the issue optimally (though never perfectly)

Development projects cannot be bereft of human sensitivity and history – postures of muscularity may yield electoral harvest for politicians, but every life matters, hence absolute necessity of demonstrating resolve and will in executing rehabilitation and resettlement plans (eg, logical concerns on compensatory afforestation in Haryana, in this case).

No one is ‘anti-development’ or against the principle of ‘larger good’, it is just that the absence of adequate facts, necessary debates and history that complicates the situation.

(The author is a Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)