Andaman 'human safaris' shame
Delhi By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Video footage of semi-naked
Jarawa women being made to dance before tourists
in return for food and money has evoked global
outrage, forcing the Indian government to crack
down on tour operators conducting "human safaris"
in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The
footage, which was made public by British
journalist Gethin Chamberlain of The Observer, has
revived an old debate over whether tribal
communities, especially those like the Jarawa that
have for long resisted contact with the outside
world, should be brought into the mainstream and
exposed to so-called "development".
The
forests of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are
home to six tribal communities; four of these -
the Great Andamanese, the
Onge, the Jarawas and the
Sentinelese - are of Negrito origin and live in
the Andaman Islands, while the other two - the
Nicobarese and the Shompens - are of Mongoloid
origin and live in the Nicobar Islands.
The Jarawa are believed to have lived in
the Andamans for around 50,000 years. Just around
300-400 of them remain today; their extinction is
around the corner. They are now confined to a
"Jarawa reserve" in the Andamans
A
hunter-gatherer community, the Jarawa have been
hostile to outsiders for centuries, fiercely
resisting settlers encroaching on their land. But
British colonial settlement followed by
immigration of mainland Indians and others, as
well as a tidal wave of tourist inflow to this
picturesque island chain have forced them to
interact with outsiders.
This interaction
has been a bane to the Jarawa. It has made them
vulnerable to diseases like measles for which they
have no immunity and to exploitation by wily
traders. The video footage lays bare some of that
abuse.
For several years now, activists
have been drawing attention to how tour operators
take busloads of tourists on human safaris to see
the Jarawa, although government rules explicitly
forbid any interaction with the Jarawa, including
feeding or photographing them.
Police who
are posted in these areas to protect the Jarawa
supply the tour operators with women to dance for
the tourists. Sexual exploitation by local police
and officials as well as the settler population
has been documented.
Experts are blaming
the Andaman Trunk Road (ATR), a 330-kilometer road
that links the capital Port Blair with Diglipur
and cuts through thick forests that have
traditionally been home to the Jarawa, for the
exploitation.
The ATR's construction was
aimed at facilitating timber extraction from the
forests where the Jarawa live. Over time, the road
brought in hordes of tourists to "see" the Jarawa,
even leer at their naked bodies.
If the
ATR was not constructed, access to the Jarawa
would have been limited. They could have lived
their lives without outside interference and
preserved their identity.
"If the road was
not there, there would be no traffic and tourists
and no opportunity for Jarawa tourism or the
making of these videos," Pankaj Sekhsaria, who is
associated with Kalpvriksh, a non-governmental
organization working to prevent intervention in
Jarawa community life, told Asia Times Online.
Recognizing the negative impact of the ATR
on the Jarawa, India’s Supreme Court in 2002
ordered the closing down of the ATR in precisely
those parts where the video was made, in the
interests of protecting the Jarawa.
However, the court order was not
implemented. Andaman administration did nothing to
shut down the road. "Ten years of contempt of
court has followed and traffic continues on this
road - that is at the root of the present
controversy as well," Sekhsaria pointed out.
A Jarawa policy formulated in 2004 sought
to protect them from "harmful effects of exposure
and contact with the outside world" and preserve
their "social organization, mode of subsistence
and cultural identity". It was a "progressive"
policy, observes Sekhsaria. But this too was not
implemented.
The priority assigned to
relief and reconstruction following the 2004
tsunami was blamed for the government’s failure to
implement the policy, an environment activist
based in Port Blair recalled. However, it was
powerful vested interests that require the ATR for
their operations - the sand mining lobby, the
timber merchants and the tour operators - that
have pressured the local administration to keep
the road open to date, he said. Their plunder
depends on the road.
Those who want the
ATR open insist that the Jarawa are not adversely
affected by the road. They point out that the
Jarawa have been reaching out to outsiders since
the late 1990s, providing them with deer meat,
honey etc in exchange for liquor, cigarettes and
even junk food. They have also been seen accessing
government health care facilities.
Indeed,
in 1998 a group of Jarawa were seen outside their
forests without their bows and arrows for the
first time ever. They have been less hostile to
outsiders in recent years.
However, not
everyone is convinced that this should be
interpreted as a Jarawa nod for interaction with
outsiders. "We know little about how they live and
what their world view is," points out Sekhsaria.
The question is what do the Jarawa want?
Some have argued in favor of bringing the
Jarawa into the mainstream, ensuring them access
to modern ways of living. Why should they be
denied the fruits of modernity, they ask. In the
words of Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra
Deo, "it would be totally unfair to leave them
[Jarawas] in a beastly condition forever".
The experiences of the islands' tribal
communities provide useful pointers to what is
good for them. The Great Andamanese, who numbered
over 3,000 when the timber extraction operations
began, have been "virtually wiped out", Sekhsaria
pointed out in a 2002 article in Frontline
magazine. Just around 30 of them survive today on
Strait island. The Onge of Little Andaman suffered
a fate that is "marginally better". Although their
numbers have remained steady, their society has
been torn asunder.
In contrast those who
fiercely defended their isolation seem to have
done better. The Jarawa of South and Middle
Andaman were "better off" because until recently
they were "extremely hostile to the outside world
and defended their forests and way of life
aggressively".
But with their forests
being plundered and in the wake of increased
interaction with outsiders, "It is feared that
they too will go the way of the Great Andamanese
and the Onge," Sekhsaria observed. The Sentinelese
who live in the North Sentinel island, he points
out, "remain violently hostile and therefore stand
the best chance of surviving as an independent
human community for some more time."
Over
7,000 people were killed in December 2004 when
giant tsunami waves swept into the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands. Not a single Jarawa figured among
the casualties. Using tribal traditional
knowledge, they read nature's warning signs and
quickly made their way to higher ground and
survived the killer waves.
Ancient wisdom
helped them survive the tsunami. They will need to
summon some canniness to survive exploitation and
assimilation by outsiders.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore. She can
be reached at sudha98@hotmail.com
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