By M.K.George
Rome, September 14, 2026: The Great Nicobar Project, many warn, could be an ecological disaster in the making.
But the official narrative says it is a great project promising much-needed development and a strategic gateway for India’s trade and security.
But it surprises me that the project does not worry enough people to make it a talking point across groups and tables. I can identify the usual reasons.
Some who know about the project believe it is a great effort. Many who do not know about it are not bothered.
Some who are concerned are afraid to speak up because of the current Indian mood of calling anyone questioning governmental projects anti-development or even ‘anti-national’, with the danger of being arrested.
But beyond all this, I came across an insight from historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, which I want to share in this piece.
But first, to the project:
What is the Great Nicobar Project?
It is a large-scale, strategic development programme on Great Nicobar Island comprising an international container transhipment terminal, international airport, power plant and new township intended to make the island a major maritime and economic hub. (Cf. Press Information Bureau).
The project was proposed to begin in 2025 and move through three phases over 30 years, involving Rupees 81,000 crores.
Promises
The promises are grand indeed. According to the Government of India, the Andaman and Nicobar development projects are intended to transform the islands into a major hub for maritime trade, air connectivity, tourism and strategic security.
The proposed Great Nicobar project is expected to reduce India’s dependence on foreign transhipment ports, generate employment and foreign-exchange savings, attract investment, improve connectivity and provide reliable power.
The government also argues that the project will strengthen India’s maritime and defence presence in the strategically important Andaman Sea and promote wider economic development of the islands.
Voice of the ecologists
However, ecologists and environmental activists have a different take.
They point out that the project carries significant environmental, social and economic risks. It is likely to cause large-scale deforestation, habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity in one of India’s most ecologically sensitive regions.
Coastal construction can damage mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass beds and nesting sites, increasing vulnerability to erosion and climate change.
The islands are also exposed to earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones and sea-level rise, creating additional risks for large infrastructure investment.
Socially, development may affect the livelihoods, land rights and cultural integrity of indigenous communities, including vulnerable tribal groups. Rapid tourism and population growth could increase pressure on freshwater, waste management and other limited resources.
No wonder Madhav Gadgil, renowned Indian ecologist said: “Those areas should remain inviolate. They should be community forest resources of particularly vulnerable tribal groups and they should not be touched.”
Rohan Arthur and T. R. Shankar Raman, ecologists who have studied Great Nicobar, warned: “It becomes our duty as a scientific community not to validate a planned ecological catastrophe with palliative fixes.”
Now to Yuval Noah Harari’s insight
He argues that people have been living in virtual realities for thousands of years.
“Everything around us is basically virtual reality in a way. There is the physical reality, of course, of the stones and the trees and the animals.
“But on top of that, we impose our fictions, our virtual realities, our inventions, whether it’s money or whether it’s nations or whether it’s all these religious mythologies. And most of the time what we see and what kind of moves us is the virtual reality.
“If the coral reefs or the Amazon rainforest, which is this amazing creation of nature which took millions of years to create and which really sustains our life, if this gets destroyed, people basically do nothing.
“But if some, I don’t know, the Western Wall or Al-Aqsa Mosque or some other of these, you know, buildings that we built just, you know, 1,000 or 2,000 years ago and which are not really necessary for our existence, if somebody would touch one stone there, all hell will break loose.
“And what does that prove? That fictions are far more powerful than reality in shaping human history and politics and economics.
“In the competition between fiction and truth, fiction, at least politically, usually wins because the truth is just too painful and too complicated.” (Interview with Janine Abbring, 2021)
So that is it. In a world where fiction is sold as truth, projects like the Great Nicobar Project become more valuable than nature, vulnerable indigenous people and the very sustenance of the earth.
Indian Jesuit Father George Mutholil, based in Rome, serves as the Society of Jesus’ General Counsellor and Regional Assistant for South Asia. He advises on matters specific to this region while also supporting the Superior General on broader issues of governance.