Indian Opposition Denounces Nicobar Megaport Plan as 'Environmental Destruction'

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Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi stated Wednesday that the proposed $9 billion port and city development project on Great Nicobar Island is “destruction disguised as progress.”

Located nearly 1,860 miles from New Delhi, this island controls the entrance to the Strait of Malacca, a critical maritime route through which roughly 30% of global shipping passes. The plan involves building a container port, airport, and urban area on the 356-square-mile island, which would result in the removal of extensive pristine rainforests, including lands inhabited for thousands of years by communities with little outside contact.

Gandhi denounced the project in a social media video, walking through the island’s forests, calling it “one of the biggest scams and most serious crimes against our country’s natural and tribal heritage in our lifetime.” He’s against the development despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis that the project “is of strategic, defense, and national importance,” and despite environmental court approval given in February.

He criticized the project further, saying, “This isn’t just a development plan. It’s a mass marking of trees for destruction—160 square kilometers of rainforest doomed to be cut down. Ignored communities are being displaced while their homes are seized.”

Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav maintained last year that the project poses no threat to the island’s indigenous groups or regional ecological sensitivity.

Approximately 9,000 residents live on Great Nicobar, including about 1,200 from indigenous groups such as the Nicobarese and the Shompen—hunter-gatherers who have avoided contact with outsiders, according to Survival International.

Sophie Grig from Survival warned that, beyond damaging local ecosystems and indigenous populations, the project would threaten the survival of the Shompen, a nearly uncontacted tribe living in the rainforest, and called the development initiative “ill-conceived,” urging its cancellation before it wipes out these communities entirely.