Being Pressured to Surrender Ancestral Lands For Great Nicobar Projects, Say Tribal Communities: Reports

New Delhi: Members of the Tribal Council of Little and Great Nicobar Island said that the Andaman and Nicobar administration has asked them to surrender their ancestral lands – which are villages in which they used to live before the 2004 tsunami – for the slew of infrastructure projects being planned by the union government on the island, several reports said.

The Hindu reported that members of the Tribal Council had said in an online briefing to journalists that they had been called for a meeting with Nicobar district administration officials on January 7. At this meeting, they were orally asked to sign a “surrender certificate”, giving up their ancestral tribal lands, they said, the report said. 

“At the meeting, a few officials of the district were present along with a representative of the administration's Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti. We were shown various maps regarding the project and we were asked about our opinion on the development project. And then we were asked to sign the surrender certificate,” The Hindu quoted Tribal Council chairman Barnabas Manju as saying.

In another meeting on the same day, the members of the Council were asked if they would give up their claims on a portion of their lands if they were allowed to relocate to a different section of the coast, the members of the Council added.

While it was not immediately clear what parts of their ancestral land the officials referred to, they understand that they want the surrender certificate to mention areas that are covered under what used to be the Nicobarese communities’ villages before they were displaced by the tsunami, the report by The Hindu quoted Titus Peter, first Captain of Pulobhabi village and a member of the Council as saying.

However, Peter said that they “cannot sign a surrender document like this”. 

“It is our ancestral tribal land. We will have nothing for the future generations,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. 

The Nicobarese are one of the two tribal communities that are also classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, who will be affected by the infrastructure projects coming up on the Great Nicobar island. While experts have told The Wire in the past that these communities would be affected by the projects and that tracts of the tribal reserve that they use for sustenance and livelihoods would be eaten up by the projects, the government has insisted repeatedly that the tribal communities will not be affected in any way by the projects. 

Though several villages were relocated from their ancestral villages on the eastern coast of Great Nicobar island after the tsunami of 2004, they have been repeatedly asking the administration that they be permitted to move back to these villages. However, the administration has not met their demands so far. 

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.