Last Frontiers On The Market

Alarm echoes over push for fancy resorts on Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep islands.

- Jeevan Prakash Sharma

IN the age before tourism, these were ‘imp­ure’ heathen homes of cannibals. The chroniclers in the Chola dynasty called them thus. Then these morphed into Brit­ish penal islands with the wheel­shaped Cellular prison, the tenebrous Kalapani, as the painful centerpiece. When the coloni­ alists left, these wind­swept, coral­fringed atolls and sun­soaked, jungle­clad beaches became India’s off­grid frontiers—taken from Burma in exchange for two Manipur districts during the remapping of territory. And they remained so, their raw beauty most­ ly unexplored and their naked minimalism untouched. But now, Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the east are at the front edge of the conservation versus development battle; as is Lakshadweep to the west.

These two pretty-as-a-peach archipelagos are goldmines waiting to be prospected. And the prospectors will soon fly and sail from the mainland. The government has a ‘holistic’ scheme, a NITI Aayog brainchild for promoting tourism on these islands in collaboration with global hospitality players. In other words, it’s a head to head competition with popular touristy tropical islands around the world to attract foreign and high-rolling vacationers, and their money.