Erased by design: India’s Indigenous tribes face extinction amid tourism boom and state expansion

NEW DELHI, India — Just days ahead of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration invited aviation operators to launch commercial helicopter services to 11 remote islands. 

Framed as a push for connectivity and luxury tourism, the plan has triggered alarm among Indigenous rights advocates and environmentalists.

The archipelago—a fragile chain of 572 islands in the Bay of Bengal—is home to some of the world’s oldest and most vulnerable Indigenous communities. These include the Jarawa, Sentinelese, Shompen, and Great Andamanese, whose cultural survival is now in direct conflict with India’s expanding infrastructure and tourism ambitions.

While the Andaman group of islands is largely settled by mainland migrants, the Nicobar group still hosts Indigenous Nicobarese fishers and the reclusive Shompen, whose territory lies deep in the forests of Great Nicobar. 

The Nicobarese and Shompen are of Mongoloid origin, while the Andaman tribes—including the Jarawa, Onge, and Sentinelese—are of Negrito origin, tracing their roots back to early Homo sapiens migrations from Africa over 50,000 years ago.

The Sentinelese, who inhabit North Sentinel Island, are believed to have remained isolated for over 55,000 years, rejecting all contact. Short-statured due to the “island effect,” they are a pre-Neolithic society using stone tools, bows, and spears. 

Their continued survival depends entirely on remaining undisturbed—yet their territory too is threatened by external curiosity and policy overreach.

Protected under the Andaman and Nicobar (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956, many of these communities lack immunity to common diseases. The Great Andamanese population was decimated by colonial-era epidemics. 

But disease is only one danger. Tourism, displacement, climate change, and “development” now pose existential threats that law alone cannot hold back.

The mega-project that could cause “Ecocide”

At the center of the storm is the Great Nicobar Island mega-development, dubbed the “New Hong Kong project”—a $9 billion plan to build a deep-sea port, international airport, power plant, military base, and smart city.

The proposal requires the felling of over three million trees and envisions bringing in 650,000 settlers—nearly an 8,000% increase in the island’s population.

The project directly threatens the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) of about 250 people who live in near-total isolation and rely on the forest for food and medicine.

Experts say the project violates both national and international legal protections by proceeding without free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) from affected communities. 

In February 2024, 39 genocide scholars warned the Indian government that the plan could wipe out the Shompen people entirely.

While the government promotes the project as “eco-sensitive” and strategic, many experts argue this is greenwashing at best, cultural destruction at worst.

On the brink of disappearance

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands once supported over 5,000 Indigenous people across multiple tribes. Today, only a few hundred remain.

• The Great Andamanese, originally ten tribes with distinct languages—Jeru, Bea, Bo, Khora, and others—now number fewer than 50.
• The Onge, reduced to just 100–120 people, were devastated by the 2004 tsunami and a poisoning incident in 2008. Today, they depend entirely on government assistance, having lost their traditional ways of living.
• The Jarawa, once fully isolated, are now estimated at 300–400, exposed to disease and exploitation through the Andaman Trunk Road, which cuts through their forest.
• The Sentinelese, the most isolated of all, number between 50 and 150 and continue to reject any contact.
• The Shompen, at ~250 individuals, now risk total dislocation from the forests that sustain their diet, medicine, and spirituality.

The destruction is not only physical—it is linguistic and epistemic.

Dying languages, dying worlds

Nowhere is that erasure more stark than in the vanishing voices of the Great Andamanese. Once consisting of ten distinct tribes—Jeru, Bea, Bo, Khora, Pucikwar, and others—each with its own language, they are now collectively grouped as one endangered community.

In an interview to Muslim Network TV, Dr. Anvita Abbi, one of India’s foremost linguists and a leading expert on endangered languages, offered a sobering view of what’s being lost.

“There are only three semi-speakers left of the language called Jero, which belongs to the Great Andamanese language family,” she said. “The day these speakers leave this world, the entire language family will be wiped out from this Earth.”

But the consequences go deeper than lost grammar.

“The extinction of a language does not merely erase a means of communication; it severs communal roots, disrupts historical continuity, and blocks access to Indigenous knowledge systems,” Dr. Abbi explained.

“Indigenous communities possess unparalleled ecological knowledge, rooted in their relationship with nature. This understanding is embedded in their languages—in the lexicon, in the grammar, and in their worldview. The bond between the land and the language is inseparable.”

Can this be revived?

“I don’t have any hopes left,” Dr. Abbi said. “The community has lost the willpower to revive their language and culture.”

Cultural erasure under a tourism banner

Tourism in the Andaman Islands has long walked the line between economic promise and ethical disaster. Even outside mega-project zones, Indigenous communities are struggling to maintain their cultural and physical autonomy.

Roads like the Andaman Trunk Road have turned the Jarawa Reserve into a human safari, where tourists slow down to throw food or take photos of tribal children.

Now, with helicopter tourism poised to bring new waves of visitors to once-inaccessible islands, the risk of disease exposure, cultural dilution, and illegal contact only escalates.

In March 2025, a foreign YouTuber illegally landed on North Sentinel Island, filming his stunt and triggering widespread condemnation. The incident served as a reminder that even a momentary breach could lead to epidemic-level consequences for tribes with no immunity.

Should they be counted or left alone?

The Sentinelese, perhaps the most isolated tribe in the world, are now at the center of another ethical storm. As India prepares for its 2027 census, officials have debated whether—and how—to count them.

While some tribes struggle with forced contact, the Sentinelese have made their resistance clear. They are hostile to outsiders and protected by law under a 5-kilometer exclusion zone.

Some officials have proposed drone-based enumeration, but experts warn that even this could cause panic or aggression, violating their right to be left alone.

After the 2004 tsunami, Sentinelese famously fired arrows at a helicopter sent to check on their welfare — a reminder that even well-meaning surveillance can traumatize.

A future worth saving?

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands once echoed with ten languages, dozens of cultural traditions, and thousands of years of uninterrupted human history. Today, that chorus is falling silent.

Development may bring ports, airports, and helicopter pads—but if it continues without genuine consultation, consent, and protection, it will come at the cost of some of the world’s last remaining Indigenous civilizations.

As the world observes Indigenous Peoples Day, the question is no longer whether these communities are at risk. The question is whether we are willing to let them disappear in silence.

And unless India rethinks its idea of development, the next generation will inherit beaches, resorts, and ports—but no memory of the people who first called those islands home.