India, March 23 -- 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.
The Great Nicobar Island Development Project is an unjust plan; it is a threat to every aspect of th...