Andaman & Nicobar Islands News

1995-1999

Onge Youth Murdered

Information received from Prof. Vishvajit Pandya

26 Feb 1999

The Andaman Herald of Port Blair reported the following item on 26th February 1999 and we are most grateful to our Indian informants for drawing our attention to this news item.

The murder of two young Onge men from the Dugong Creek reservation on Little Andaman is reported. They were found floating in a creek near their settlement after they had failed to return from a turle-hunting expedition. The cause of death was not known but it is said it was not by drowning. Foul play could not be ruled out and post-mortem as well as cremation of the bodies is said to have been done with "undue haste." It was also reported that one of the two dead was a constable with the Andaman and Nicobar Police [the first report to reach us here of an Onge being appointed to such a position].

One of the dead youths is said to have complained to an advisor of the Planning Commission recently about the depletion of resources on Little Andaman due to illegal logging operations and poaching in the forests.

There are also reports that recent investigations [by whom is not stated] have "brought to light glaring irregularities, and the two reported deaths are believed to be the latest and the most obvious consequence of the process.

Settler dies in own "Jarawa-trap"

Information received from SANE

1998

A horrifying sidelight is being thrown on real conditions within the Jarawa reservation by the following story circulated in an unpublished manuscript circulating at Port Blair that was written by a respected non-government observer. It can be confidently prediced that the manuscript, at least in its present form, will remain unpublished if the local government has any say in the matter. It is not clear when the incident reported took place but it must have been 1997 or 1998. The manuscript says:

"Settlers on the fringe of the reserve have also used wire traps at times to ward off (the Jarawa - editor) raids on their plantation: one case of a settler using simple electronic fencing was observed... The settler, later in 1998, died due to electric shock accidentally stepping on his own Jarawa trap. "

Jarawa come out of the jungle:
the Indian authorities had "befriended" them for years and invited them to come,
but when they did, the same authorities do not know what to do

by George Weber. The Andaman Association

21 October 1997

From the 19th century until 1997 and beyond, there was (and in some quarters still is) a belief widespread among the local Indian population and their administration that the Jarawa "live like animals" and that they must be "brought up to our level of civilization." This is no doubt feasible and perhaps advisable with some other endangered minorities in India - but quite impossible with the Andamanese. They are NOT just another tribe on the verge of extinction. There is no other population in the world that has been isolated from contact with the rest of humanity for so long (DNA research has suggested 30,000 years - at that time the mammoth was still roaming an Europe still half-buried under glaciers). "Socialization," "acculturization, "rehabilitation" and all the other reasonable-sounding Indian euphemisms are, in fact, covering up a genocide. An unintended genocide, to be sure, but still a genocide. The point about the Andamanese Negrito and a point that the Indian policymakers and their public seem unable to grasp is that the Andamanese CANNOT be "acculturized" and physically survive. In their aeon-long isolation, they have not acquired any resistance against most of the diseases that mankind has acquired since the Negrito opted out of the evolutionary rat race. It is not even known if an immune system as innocent as theirs can be boosted by inoculations, especially with so many potential killer diseases involved. It took 10 years after the arrival of the British and their prisoners in 1858 before the Great Andamanese who had friendly contact with the British started to die like flies. It is now a virtual certainty that this is what will happen to the Jarawa.

The then Head of the Andaman Administration, Lt.General I.P. Gupta, in the customary unctuous manner of such elevated dignitaries, commented recently on the self-created problem that "the Jarawa habitat has to be developed and enriched" and that "we must be careful not to overwhelm them." His Excellency also, at long last and more importantly, stopped the obnoxious official excursions into the jungle but it was much too late.

The sequence of events of the Jarawa outbreak during the late 1990s is as follows:

• In July 1996 a Jarawa boy, En-mai, is found with a injured leg. He had fallen out of a coconut treee and broken hisleg. An Indian official found him and brought him to hospital at Kadamtala with the help of the Bush police. The local population (few of which had ever laid eyes on a Jarawa before) came en masse to crowd around the terrified boy in his bed and stare at him. En-mai was returned to the jungle on his recovery and disappeared for a while.
• On 21st October 1997 a first group of Jarawa materializes in front of terrified villagers and demands food. They are fed bananas and coconuts and leave again.
• 22nd October 1997 two more Jarawa appear and are given food.
• 24th October 1997 a large group of 31 swims across a creek to come ashore at a jetty for the same purpose.
• December 1999: En-mai brings his wife Jalla into Kadamtala hospital. She is very sick but recovers.
• 1999: a group of Indian organisations bring two court cases (one for the Jarawa and one for the Onge) against the Port Blair government on the grounds of dereliction of duty.

In the 12 months following the first excursion from the jungle the staggering number of 2008 Jarawa visitors is recorded - this when the total number of Jarawa is estimated at less than 200. Obviously, many come again and again.

Not all visits ended peacefully: a group of 30 attacked a police station in March 1998 for unstated reasons. On that occasion it is said that 600 blank shot were fired at them and one police officer remained paralyzed after receiving an arrow shot. A guilty administration was trying to keep the lid on the story as much as possible to stop embarrassing information leaking out, especially to the foreign media.

The injured Jarawa boy En-mai mentioned earlier plays a peculiar role in the tragedy. After his release from hospital, he disappeared for a while and then reappeared among other Jarawa visitors. He became the pet of the Bush police, who allow him to be photographed and even interviewed in return for substantial gifts to themselves. He is the only (but probably not the last) Jarawa to wear western teenage-style clothing right down to the reversed baseball cap. It can only have been this boy who told his fellow Jarawa of the rich and effortless pickings to be had in the outside world. His hospital experience must have convinced him that if you can't beat them, join them. He is a natural leader, at least over the younger generation of Jarawa. Older people are noticeably absent from the drive "into town" and one astute obeserver has noted that after En-mai had returned for a while to his parents in the jungle he seemed to be sad and disturbed, although he would not say why. Later reports claimed that the older people did not approve of the youngsters' trip to town and that there were tensions between the generations. Welcome to the modern world, Jarawas!

En-mai in 2001

After 2000, En-mai has become the centre of a cargo-cult like "movement" - he can bring in the goodies that the Port Blair government has spread among Jarawa until the court decision of 2001 stopped (or at least put a break on) such shenanigans. It is not yet clear how he will rescue his position with the source of his supplies cut off. Perhaps it will only be cut off officially. En-mai also now stands accused of having murdered the man he suspected to be the lover of his wife. Clearly, contact with the often quoted "civilized mainstream society of India" has not been good for poor En-mai.

George Weber

 Jarawa group on the Andaman Trunk Road

Shopkeepers use Jarawa as tourist attractions

Information received from SANE

1995

On the "Trunk Road" (completed 1989) right through the Jarawa reservation heavy traffic is now rolling. The Jarawas have started to build their huts with a full panoramic view of the road so they can sit there and watch the cars. They clearly find this a fascinating spectacle.

Settler-shopkeepers have also set up their stalls along the road to sell refreshments to travellers. Jarawa children (and some grown-ups) are encouraged to linger around the stalls by being given nasty little biscuits by the shopkeepers. The children attract passing trade and the sweet biscuits are so attractive to the children that many eat little else. The consequences of such a diet do not seem to disturb the local administration - no effort is being made to stamp out the custom. The Jarawa also pester travellers for presents (pens, sweets, etc) and can get quite aggressive if denied an item they had set their hearts on.

All these activities,including the building of the road right through the allegedly protected reservation) are quite illegal under the government's own laws. Filming is prohibited and the ban, unlike other laws, is very strictly if not entirely successfully enforced.

 

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