A national newspaper has now reported what Indigenous Nicobarese communities have been warning about for months.
According to The Hindu, members of the Tribal Council of Little and Great Nicobar have alleged that district officials pressured them to sign a “surrender certificate”, effectively giving up their ancestral forest lands to make way for the ₹92,000-crore Great Nicobar mega-infrastructure project.
These lands are not vacant.
They are ancestral villages, forests, and coastlines where Nicobarese people lived before the 2004 tsunami, and to which many are still waiting to return.
One council member is quoted saying:
“We cannot sign a surrender document like this. It is our ancestral tribal land. We will have nothing for the future generations.”
What is deeply troubling:
Tribal Council members say they were not given clear details of what land was being surrendered
They were allegedly told officials would “help draft” the surrender document
This comes 21 years after displacement by the tsunami, with unresolved demands for rehabilitation and return
Forest lands at Galathea Bay, Pemmaya Bay, and Nanjappa Bay—ecologically critical areas—are involved
The Tribal Council is the apex representative body of the Nicobarese people and is officially recognised. Allegations of coercion against such a body raise serious constitutional, legal, and ethical concerns.
This coverage reinforces why our petition matters.
Development cannot be built on silence, pressure, or dispossession—especially not of Indigenous communities who have already borne the cost of disaster and displacement.