By Cedric Prakash
Ahmedabad, May 7, 2026: The editorial in the latest Economic and Political Weekly (Vol. 61, Issue No. 22, 30 May 2026) delivers a scathing verdict on the Great Nicobar Project.
Titled The Great Nicobar Project: A Holistic Folly, it argues that claims of strategic importance are flimsy, while environmental destruction is guaranteed.
The project, worth ₹81,000 crore, is cloaked in the rhetoric of national security, though its documents reveal a purely commercial venture—one that devastates pristine islands and alienates indigenous communities.
National campaigns have branded the project “a disaster in the making,” pointing to the destruction of 160 sq. km of rainforest and the felling of millions of trees.
Indigenous groups such as the Shompen and Nicobarese, classified as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), face existential threats to their culture and livelihoods.
The EPW notes that the plan includes a container terminal at Galathea Bay, an airport, township, tourism hub, and power plant. Even the government’s own estimates admit to massive deforestation.
The proposed “compensation”—planting trees in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh—is ecological nonsense. The Nicobars lie within the Sundaland biodiversity hotspot, home to rare species and the endangered leatherback turtle.
Yet Galathea Bay was stripped of its sanctuary status in 2021 to clear the way for construction. Such decisions reveal a regime indifferent to ecological heritage.
Tokenism on World Environment Day
This year’s World Environment Day saw the usual spectacle: newspapers printed in green, government-sponsored ads, sapling ceremonies, and endless speeches. Cameras captured smiling faces, but the concern is fleeting. Cosmetic gestures mask the reality that India is in the grip of a severe environmental crisis.
A Countercurrents article (3 June 2026) highlighted the deadly heatwave: a single day of extreme heat causes thousands of excess deaths, while a five-day spell can claim nearly 30,000 lives—ten times the official annual toll.
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat bear the brunt. In May, unseasonal storms killed at least 120 people in Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, the Aravalli hills continue to be ravaged despite Supreme Court orders halting mining.
India remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels, which account for nearly three-quarters of its energy supply. Despite global commitments to phase them out, fossil fuels continue to drive climate change and pollute the air.
In 2019 alone, air pollution contributed to 6.7 million deaths worldwide. Beyond mortality, poor air quality burdens health systems and shortens lives. Transitioning to cleaner energy is not optional—it is urgent.
The theme for World Environment Day—“Inspired by Nature. For Climate. For Our Future”—echoes the UN COP30 summit in Brazil, which emphasized forest conservation and fossil fuel transition.
Yet in India, those in power remain complicit with land and mining mafias. Water bodies are drained for real estate, forests plundered for profit. India’s ranking of 176 out of 180 in the Environmental Performance Index is a damning indictment of its environmental governance.
Remembering Father Bolmax Pereira
On 26 May, India lost a courageous environmentalist, Father Bolmax Pereira of Goa. He spearheaded the #SaveMollemForest campaign against Adani’s double-tracking project through reserved forests.
He warned that Goans were breathing coal dust daily due to political and corporate collusion. His message was clear: the damage to air, water, and ecology is colossal, and unity is essential to resist further destruction.
Father Bolmax’s legacy challenges us: will we continue his fight, or shrug with indifference? The Nicobar project exemplifies the stakes. Silence means complicity in crimes against nature and people.
India’s environmental crisis is not abstract—it is lived daily by the poor, the marginalized, and indigenous communities. Projects like Great Nicobar expose the hollowness of official rhetoric. Token gestures on Environment Day cannot mask systemic destruction.
The question remains urgent: whose environment is it, anyway? Unless citizens rise to challenge this anti-people, anti-environment regime, the answer will be decided by those who profit from devastation.
Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash is a human rights, reconciliation & peace activist and writer. Contact: cedricprakash@gmail.com.
(Photo YouTube screengrab)