{"id":143232,"date":"2026-06-03T07:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/143232\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T07:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:42:11","slug":"is-the-great-nicobar-island-indias-hormuz-like-chokepoint-against-china-indigenous-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/143232\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Great Nicobar Island India\u2019s Hormuz-like chokepoint against China? | Indigenous Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Delhi, India \u2014\u00a0The southernmost point of India, the Great Nicobar Island, is closer to the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia than it is to the Indian mainland.<\/p>\n

No Indian prime minister has visited the island, which is the size of Hong Kong, since Indira Gandhi in 1984. India does not even conduct a full census on the island, relying on estimates of its population; the latest guess is that fewer than 10,000 people live there.<\/p>\n

Yet the island is now in the eye of a political storm over an $11bn project planned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government to turn Great Nicobar into a major strategic and economic outpost in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

The Modi government has greenlit plans to build a transhipment port, a civilian-military airport, a power plant, tourism infrastructure and a township for 350,000 people on the island.<\/p>\n

In its blueprint, the government highlighted the economics of maritime trade as the justification for the project.<\/p>\n

But in the face of growing criticism from global environmental watchdogs and opposition leaders in New Delhi, the Indian government has shifted its narrative to position the plan as central to the country\u2019s strategic goals in its neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

And the United States-Iran struggle over the Strait of Hormuz has given that vision a boost, serving as a reminder of the importance of a perch that can serve military and economic aims over a strategic waterway \u2014 in this case, the Strait of Malacca, through which a third of global trade and seaborne oil flows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis island has a strategic value because it is sitting right at the mouth of Malacca [strait],\u201d Shekhar Sinha, a former vice chief of the Indian Navy, told Al Jazeera. \u201cAnd if it is [developed as] a commercial setup,\u201d he added, no one would be able to object.<\/p>\n

\"greatKatchal island jetty near Campbell Bay at Great Nicobar Island, as on March 30, 2026 [R Satish Babu\/AFP]Sentry against China?<\/p>\n

Stretching into the southeastern end of the Bay of Bengal, the Great Nicobar Island sits nearly 1,600km (994 miles) from mainland India, near the western approaches to the Strait of Malacca. It lies adjacent to East-West shipping lanes that carry trade and supplies between the Gulf, Europe and East Asia, including China, Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n

It is only 2.8km (1.7-mile) wide at its narrowest at the Phillip Channel near Singapore, yet it is the principal body of water connecting the Middle East to Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

And while the world\u2019s trade depends on this strait, it is especially critical for China, which relies on the route for 80 percent of its crude oil imports and two-thirds of its trade.<\/p>\n

That geography makes Great Nicobar a potentially valuable sentry for India, watching over the Strait of Malacca.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a great place to monitor all the traffic, coming in and out of the strait,\u201d Sinha said. \u201cIt would give India an edge in maritime domain awareness,\u201d referring to New Delhi\u2019s ability to track and monitor activity at sea.<\/p>\n

The Modi government has in recent weeks increasingly acknowledged the strategic value of the island.<\/p>\n

The Great Nicobar project \u201cis a strategic project which aims to strengthen India\u2019s presence in the Andaman Sea and Southeast Asia,\u201d the government noted in a press release in May. \u201cThe project is designed to enhance India\u2019s national security, strategic and defence presence, strengthen the islands\u2019 economic position, and accelerate holistic development in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"greatA man walks along the shore of Old Shastri Nagaram Beach on the outskirts of Campbell Bay, on March 26, 2026 [R Satish Babu\/AFP]\u2018A death sentence\u2019<\/p>\n

Yet that is not how the project was envisaged, at least in the government\u2019s official vision. Rather, it was pitched to rival the deepwater port-led economies of Singapore, Sri Lanka\u2019s Colombo and even Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s plans quickly faced stiff resistance, including from the inhabitants of the island, who have since refused to give up their lands to make way for the construction and have filed cases against the government\u2019s plans in multiple courts.<\/p>\n

Last in the chain of the Nicobar Islands, the Great Nicobar is home to a few hundred Shompens, a seminomadic hunter-gatherer tribe living in dense forest interiors, and a few thousand fishing-dependent Nicobarese who survive on the elegant ecosystem.<\/p>\n

The Indigenous communities maintain distance from the outside world and the settler population on the island, which is spread over about 1,000sq km (400sq miles).<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s project is currently planned on 166.1sq km of land, roughly 16 percent of the entire island. Half of this land overlaps with tribal reserve areas, which the Shompens inhabit.<\/p>\n

In February 2024, 39 genocide experts wrote to Indian President Droupadi Murmu, warning that the project would be \u201ca death sentence for the Shompen\u201d, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s environment minister informed Parliament in 2023 that nearly 964,000 trees would be felled for the project. The development would also displace the native fishing-dependent Nicobarese community and make way for the settlement of 350,000 people over the next three decades.<\/p>\n

If that happens, it would mean a 4,000 percent population increase on the island.<\/p>\n

\"greatAn aerial view from an Indian naval helicopter shows extensive damage to vegetation next to Indira Point Lighthouse, Great Nicobar Island, March 1, 2005, following tsunami waves, triggered by an undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra [Deshakalyan Chowdhury\/AFP]A submerged witness<\/p>\n

The ancestral lands of the Nicobarese community have been marked for a tourism zone under the project, even as their protests against it continue.<\/p>\n

The Indian government has maintained that the criticism is unfounded and that the project will be a model for a holistic approach towards island development.<\/p>\n

But activists warn the project would severely disrupt Great Nicobar\u2019s fragile ecology through large-scale deforestation, coastal alteration and infrastructure construction in one of India\u2019s most biodiverse island ecosystems.<\/p>\n

The island also falls in seismic zone 5, the highest earthquake-risk category, making large construction projects on Great Nicobar particularly vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Rahul Gandhi, India\u2019s leader of the opposition, visited the island a month ago and met local activists and affected people. Writing on his X handle later, the Congress party leader said: \u201cThe government calls what it is doing here a \u2018Project\u2019 \u2026 It is communities that have been ignored while their homes have been snatched away. This is destruction dressed in development\u2019s language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gandhi claimed that the Great Nicobar project was \u201cone of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against this country\u2019s natural and tribal heritage in our lifetime\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also visited the Indira Point Lighthouse, the southernmost tip of Indian territory, named after his grandmother and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.<\/p>\n

That lighthouse, once surrounded by lush trees, stands partially submerged in the water.<\/p>\n

The devastating 2004 tsunami sank the land near the southern tip of Great Nicobar by about 4.25 metres (14 feet), flooding parts of the coastline around Indira Point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project is very colonial,\u201d said Manish Chandi, former member of the research advisory board of the government-managed Andaman and Nicobar Tribal Research and Training Institute.<\/p>\n

Chandi, who has spent more than two decades studying the islands and their people, said he was convinced that the main aim of the project was to develop Great Nicobar as a commercial outpost. The pushback, he said, is what made the government pitch the initiative as one tied to national security. \u201cIt suits the [Modi government\u2019s nationalist] narrative,\u201d Chandi told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\"greatA watchtower amid a dense tree cover at the Campbell Bay National Park on Great Nicobar Island, on March 28, 2026 [Shubham Koul\/AFP]Wartime role<\/p>\n

Still, while the justification for the project has shifted to include strategic goals, the world has also transformed since the government\u2019s top planning body commissioned a master plan for the Great Nicobar development initiative in 2020.<\/p>\n

Some analysts argued that these shifts require India to stay nimble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nature of rapidly changing geopolitics is becoming more challenging,\u201d said Harsh Pant, vice president of Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. \u201cIt is natural for India to relook at its own geography to find leverage to its strategic advantages.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Indian armed forces\u2019 tri-service command is based in Sri Vijaya Puram, formerly known as Port Blair, the capital of the chain of islands, about 500km (310 miles) from Great Nicobar.<\/p>\n

Building Great Nicobar up would \u201cenhance the command, make it more formidable, and use this geography for keeping a tab on what is happening in the wider Indo-Pacific\u201d, said Pant.<\/p>\n

With Iran using its control of the Strait of Hormuz as leverage in diplomacy, sections of Indian strategic thinkers have voiced the idea that New Delhi could \u2014 in the event of a future conflict with rival China \u2014 use the geography of Great Nicobar to try to choke the Strait of Malacca.<\/p>\n

Sinha, the former naval officer, laughed off such suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hormuz Strait belongs to Iran and Oman. Likewise, the Malacca Strait belongs to Indonesia,\u201d Sinha said. \u201cThe passage goes through Indonesia. And the peace in these waters is equally important to India\u2019s economy in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former naval officer argued that setting up a naval blockade is simple, but maintaining it is difficult. \u201cLook at the US: if that big a navy cannot keep [an] airtight naval blockade of a narrow waterway, how can an Indian navy block the vast Indian Ocean?\u201d Sinha wondered.<\/p>\n

Still, he said, the island\u2019s development could prove an asset for India strategically.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvance position in Malacca would make the Indian Ocean more transparent for India,\u201d said Sinha.<\/p>\n

Chandi, though, is convinced that the price that Great Nicobar \u2014 and India \u2014 will need to pay for the project is not worth it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus is not on defence expansion; it is a commercial proposal with dubious outcomes and destructive scope,\u201d Chandi told Al Jazeera. \u201c[It] will be a liability for India and for its defence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"greatThis photograph, taken on March 26, 2026, shows construction workers operating a smoke-spewing tarmac mixer to build a road cutting through forest land, as part of the Great Nicobar Island Project, a government-backed mega-development undertaking on the outskirts of Campbell Bay in Great Nicobar Island [R Satish Babu\/AFP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Delhi, India \u2014\u00a0The southernmost point of India, the Great Nicobar Island, is closer to the coasts of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[488,148,703,647,102,138,3247,1304,3636,81,101],"class_list":["post-143232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-asia","tag-business-and-economy","tag-environment","tag-features","tag-hormuz","tag-india","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-international-trade","tag-narendra-modi","tag-politics","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116685055545500184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}