‘The Shompen way of life is set to be eroded,’ says Nicobarese anthropologist Anstice Justin

The Great Nicobar Island Development plan feels like a violation of their rights, he says. ‘They don’t have the needs we have. They are uninterested in contact'He grew up on the island of Car Nicobar and was India’s first anthropologist from a Nicobarese tribe.In his 30s, Anstice Justin was part of early contact missions organised by the government of India to North Sentinel island. He was among those who handed over gifts of coconuts to the Sentinelese at the island's shore.Justin retired as deputy regional director of the Anthropological Survey of India in Port Blair.Now 71, he has spent a lifetime, he says, trying to understand the communities straddling modern civilisation on the one hand, and the loss of their independence, autonomy, land and way of life on the other.

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The Great Nicobar Island Development Project is an unjust plan; it is a threat to every aspect of the tribes’ way of life, he says. Excerpts from an interview. What are your biggest concerns about the Great Nicobar Island Development Project?My primary concern is that it does not appear to be constitutional. It appears to be a clear violation of aboriginal rights, as far as the Shompen, who are considered a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, and the Nicobarese, who have the constitutional status of Scheduled Tribe, are concerned.At least one Shompen village, three Nicobarese villages, and other hamlets adjacent to those three villages will be gravely affected by their proximity to the project site.| am also concerned that we as a country can impose such a mega-development project without having a meaningful dialogue with these tribal communities. The Shompen are a semi-nomadic, self-contained community. They have never asked anything of the gover