During a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on March 12, Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram made a number of assertions about the mega-infrastructure project proposed for the Great Nicobar island.

Replying to questions by Saket Gokhale of the Trinamool Congress, Oram said that he was not aware of any objections to the project raised by the tribal communities of Great Nicobar. The island is home to two communities, the Nicobarese and the Shompen, which is classified as a “particularly vulnerable tribal group”.

Oram asserted that the project will not have any negative impact on the environment or the tribal communities there, that no one will be displaced and that only a little more than 7 sq km of tribal reserve land will be used for the project.

He also professed ignorance of a video report with the opinions of these two communities put together by anthropologist Vishvajit Pandya as part of an empowered committee constituted in September 2020 by the island administration for assessing the impact of the mega-project.

Oram’s statements are in line with the government’s public position on the project but a closer scrutiny of the facts, including his own statements in the recent past, reveals a conflicting picture. In fact, in one of his first interviews after taking charge of the ministry, he had told The Hindu in June 2024 that he would look into matters related to the clearances granted to the Great Nicobar project.

The violation of the rights of the Shompen and the Nicobarese communities and non-consultation with the National Council for Scheduled Tribes was also brought to the notice of the President of India in January 2023 by former bureaucrat EAS Sarma. A group of 70 former civil servants, under the banner Constitution Conduct Group, had written to the National Council for Scheduled Tribes in April 2023 raising concerns that “the project will be extremely detrimental to both these groups”.

It is rather unlikely given all this correspondence and reporting in the media that the matter would not have come to the notice of the ministry.

Similar is the case with the November 12, 2022, letter sent to several authorities by the Great and Little Nicobar tribal council withdrawing its no-objection certificate, given in August 2022, for the diversion of the forest and denotification of the tribal reserve there for the project. Gokhale had made a particular reference to this letter and Oram’s claim that he is not aware of this is surprising, to say the least.

Not only was this letter widely reported in the media, the withdrawal of the no-objection certificate was explicitly highlighted in a series of letters written by Congress MP Jairam Ramesh in August 2024 to Bhupendra Yadav, Oram’s counterpart in the environment ministry. Yadav had responded that due process had been followed and the tribal communities had not raised any objections during the official public hearing.

The letter is also part of a recent petition in the Calcutta High Court filed by former environment and tribal secretary, Meena Gupta, which argues there are several violations of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, in the grant of permissions to the project.

Oram’s ministry, which is one of eight respondents, has also filed a response, denying the allegations and also asking to “be removed from the list of respondents”. This position notwithstanding, Oram’s claim that he is not aware of any objections clearly flies in the face of available facts.

He in fact refused to answer arguing the matter was sub-judice, suggesting again that he is aware of the petition and the concerns it has raised.

It is also important to note that more than 84.10 sq km of tribal reserve land is sought to be denotified for the project. The government and the minister are claiming the reduction in the area to be only about 7 sq km because another 77 sq kms of forest is to be re-notified as a tribal reserve. However, this 77 sq km area was actually a tribal reserve until a denotification was effected in 1972.

What is happening now is only a renotification of land that was already meant for the tribal communities and has always been used by them.

On the ground, the actual loss of access to land and forest is therefore higher.

There is another rather interesting claim Oram made when he said he, as a tribal leader, met the Shompen, Jarawa, and Great Andamanese tribes and spent time with them. Barely anyone speaks the language of the Shompen, so it is not clear what he may have understood if he had a conversation.

All of this is in addition, of course, to a more fundamental question that should be asked about the role and the purpose of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. Great Nicobar is home to some of the most remote and vulnerable communities in the country.

One would have hoped that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the minister in charge would be right up there looking out for these people, their rights and their forests. What we have instead is not just an absence of that initiative, but a river flowing pretty much in the opposite direction.

Pankaj Sekhsaria is author/editor of five books on the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the latest being The Great Nicobar Betrayal, in 2024.

Also read Scroll’s ground report: On the Great Nicobar island, why the future is fearful