Greater Andaman Nicobar Project: India’s Strategic Necessity, Not Ecological Folly

Part 1: The Centre’s Greater Andaman Nicobar project seeks to bolster maritime security and economic growth in the Indo-Pacific. However, its critics are masking their opposition to it as ‘environmental concern.’ Our two-part series examines the controversy.

As India seeks to assert itself as a global power, few initiatives illustrate the collision between strategic ambition and domestic dissent more sharply than the Greater Andaman Nicobar Integrated Development Project (GANIDP). Announced with great fanfare by the Narendra Modi government, this Rs. 72,000-crore venture aims to transform the Andaman and Nicobar Islands into a regional economic and military linchpin. Its proponents envision a sprawling transshipment port, an international airport, a power plant and a modern township, turning the archipelago into India’s equivalent of Hong Kong.

Yet the Opposition, using rhetoric couched in the language of ecological and tribal preservation, has turned the project into a political flashpoint. The project’s strategic rationale is unambiguous. Situated astride key maritime routes in the Indo-Pacific, the Andaman-Nicobar chain holds the potential to reinforce India’s naval reach, particularly in an era of rising Chinese assertiveness. As Beijing expands its military footprint across the region, India sees the need to counterbalance China’s presence at Coco Island - a strategically placed Chinese base in Myanmar that was acquired by them due to a diplomatic oversight by Jawaharlal Nehru’s government in the 1950s.

If left unchecked, China’s hold on Coco Island risks threatening India’s control over the critical Malacca Strait, through which a substantial portion of India’s trade passes.

Despite this, the Opposition and a clutch of environmental activists have seized upon the project as emblematic of reckless development. Congress leader Sonia Gandhi described the project in a national daily as “an ecological disaster,” warning of its potential to uproot tribal communities and push unique species such as the Andaman-Nicobar long-tailed macaque and sea turtles toward extinction. The Opposition’s rhetoric is potent given that the image of vulnerable tribes and fragile ecosystems under siege resonates deeply in India’s public discourse.

Inconvenient truths

But this narrative fails to reckon with inconvenient facts. The Jarawa tribe, often held up as the most endangered by the project, has not only survived but grown in number. From a meagre 380 individuals during the UPA regime, their population now stands at 647, according to the latest estimates. Rather than representing an existential threat, the current government has rigorously enforced the 2004 ‘Minimal Interference Policy’, clamping down on illegal tourism, hunting, and exploitation of tribal women. The data suggest a conservation success story rather than ecological catastrophe.

Similarly, India’s broader wildlife record tells a more nuanced story. Elephants and tigers - symbols of India’s biodiversity - are all experiencing population rebounds. From 27,000 elephants in 2014 to nearly 30,000 in 2025, and tigers rising from 2,226 to 3,682 over the same period, these statistics belie the narrative of Modi-era environmental negligence as alleged by a certain group of environmentalists. Such numbers indicate that India is capable of pursuing economic development without sacrificing ecological stewardship.

Moreover, historical perspective reveals a clear double standard in the outcry over the Andamans. In the 1980s and ’90s, activist Medha Patkar led the Narmada Bachao Andolan against the Sardar Sarovar Dam, decrying it as an environmental and humanitarian tragedy. For years, the project stalled, depriving millions of arid farmers in Gujarat of irrigation and drinking water. Only in 2000 did the Supreme Court allow the dam’s height to increase, unleashing long-delayed progress.

Retrospective evaluation suggests that the movement was politically manipulated to slow India’s growth. The current opposition bears striking similarity. Several NGOs opposing the Andaman project reportedly received foreign funding before India’s tightened restrictions on external financial support in 2014. Since then, many such organisations have gone silent, either shuttering operations or refocusing their efforts abroad. The obvious question that arises is whether these actors truly motivated by environmental preservation, or is this part of a broader political strategy to stymie India’s development trajectory?

Victimhood narrative

Sonia Gandhi’s focus on tribal displacement evokes a familiar narrative of sanctity and victimhood. But if developmental displacement was overlooked when farmlands gave way to New Delhi’s urban sprawl (where once jackals roamed, now high-rises dominate) why treat Andaman tribes as uniquely sacrosanct? The inconvenient truth is that no industrial or urban project proceeds without displacement. The central issue is not whether land will be taken, but whether the affected communities are treated with dignity and offered adequate compensation - a standard that should apply universally.

Environmental activists and Western publications alike have jumped on the bandwagon, casting the project as part of Modi’s alleged ‘war’ against the environment. But why has there been little outrage when China expanded its military footprint on Coco Island, home to similarly rare flora and fauna? The silence on this issue is telling. If biodiversity were truly the primary concern, activists would have raised the alarm decades ago when China began militarizing the island. Instead, their focus is selective, surfacing now, when India dares to assert its own security interests.

Beyond the politics, the economic case for the Greater Andaman Nicobar Project is compelling.

The Indo-Pacific is the fastest-growing economic region globally, with trillions of dollars in trade transiting through its waters. India’s ability to establish a transshipment hub in the Andamans would not only reduce reliance on foreign ports but also enhance the nation’s connectivity with Southeast Asia and beyond. With the world’s supply chains becoming more fragmented, the strategic value of a secure, modern port cannot be overstated.

Moreover, the power plant and airport components are designed to overcome the islands’ long-standing infrastructural bottlenecks, catalysing local employment, boosting regional economic output, and improving living standards. The modern township would aim to provide not only accommodation for workers but also critical public amenities, setting a precedent for sustainable island urbanisation.

That said, the Modi government has not ignored the environmental component. Comprehensive impact assessments, adherence to strict regulations under the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, and explicit commitments to the ‘Minimal Interference Policy’ all form part of the project’s official blueprint. These measures seek to strike a balance between development and conservation, although opponents prefer to see only the risks, not the safeguards.

Ultimately, the Greater Andaman Nicobar Project is not an ecological sin, as critics insist, nor a luxury vanity project. It is a strategic shield designed to safeguard India’s sovereignty, secure vital trade routes, and project influence in the increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region. Far from being a symbol of reckless ambition, it reflects a nuanced, carefully calibrated strategy to achieve economic growth, security, and ecological balance in parallel.

The opposition, when examined closely, reveals itself less as a defence of environmental or tribal welfare and more as political doublespeak in their fervent attempt to weaponize sentiment against development. As the great Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar once poignantly observed, “The battle is not over, the sin lies not only with the aggressor. Those who stand neutral, shall also be judged by time as guilty.”

India’s vision for the Andaman-Nicobar archipelago is about sovereignty and security. To oppose it in the name of the environment while ignoring strategic threats and the lessons of history is not just myopic but downright dishonest.