“We are not against the presence of the US military base on Diego,” reiterates Bancoult . “We are ready to cohabitate and work for them, but they must realise we belong in Chagos more than they do.”

Interestingly, Mauritius too claims Chagos, which initially belonged to it and which it ceded only in a trade-off with the departing British, for independence. On the heels of the British verdict, that claim is likely to grow louder. Of the existing Chagossians, around 2000 live in Mauritius, 1500 in Seychelles and roughly 500 of the few who could afford the exorbitant cost of gaining British passports and repatriating entire families to the west, in impoverished circumstances in Britain. And almost everywhere, they have been treated like social outcasts.

Further and 40 years after the Chagossians were first evicted, many of the older generation are dead.

So are younger Chagossians excited by the prospect of rebuilding their remote island, when they have a choice of getting a British passport and moving to London?

Chagossian handyman Gianny Augustin can barely contain his excitement at the thought of moulding Chagos into a revenue-earning tourist destination as prosperous and well-run as the Maldives or Mauritius. “Many young Chagossians may go to England to gain some education, some expertise first,” he says. “But if the British rebuild the infrastructure in Chagos speedily and leave local administration to us, they will certainly return.”

On Tuesday, the sitting justice at the Appeals Court in London elaborated on his verdict. “Few things are more important to a social group than its sense of belonging, not only to each other but to a place. What has sustained peoples in exile, from Babylon onwards, has been the possibility of one day returning home,” he wrote.

... contd.