Andaman & Nicobar Islands News
2002
Human remains: hassles for the scientists, bread for the masses
Information recived from Dr. ZARINE COOPER
in her book Archaeology and History: early settlements in the
Andaman Islands"
Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2002,
ISBN 019 565 7926)
2002
The eminent Indian archaeologist, Dr. Zarine Cooper, has recently published a book that we can recommend highly to interested readers. In it, on page 42, Dr. Cooper makes some trenchant remarks on the ways of the local establishment.
Midden (or kitchen midden) are archaeologically important accumulations of prehistoric household refuse. In the Andamans they consist mostly of sea shells and bones, but also include human bones from ancient burials. Paan is an Indian bread.
It is indeed ironical that while bona fide researchers have to put up with endless bureaucratic hassles in order to obtain permits for undertaking excavations in the Andamans, the administration and the Archaeological Survey of India appear to be oblivious to the large-scale destruction of middens, in and around Port Blair, for the purpose of extracting lime. It is still a puzzle as to whether such criminal negligence is due to apathy or the fact that the authorities are unaware of the potential of middens as valuable repositories of an ancient culture.Much of the lime thus obtained constitutes an indispensable ingredient in the making of paan which is eaten with betel nut. In other words, if one is looking for a midden, one does not have to look far; people are eating them all the time.
Jarawa Woman Raped in Port Blair Hospital
Information received from SANE
19 Aug 2002
Ms. LAPA, a Jarawa lady of about 30 years, was molested while admitted in the G.B. Pant-Hospital at Port Blair on Friday, the 16th August, 2002 at about 11 PM. The miscreant who was caught and handed over to the police when the Jarawa lady raised a hue and cry. It is learnt that the miscreant, one Mr. ...., resident of Nayagaon, came to the hospital to visit his wife who is also said to be undergoing treatment there. He was also reported to have been intoxicated.
Ms. LAPA is from the Tirur Community of Jarawa. She was admitted in the special ward at G.B.Pant-Hospital on 20th July, 2002, for Hepatitis and worm infestation. She was formally discharged on 14th August, 2002. But the Jarawa patients are normally taken out of the Hospital by an Officer of the AAJVS (Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samity). She could not go back as no one from AAJVS came to take her out.
AAJVS normally provides an attendant for Jarawa patients. Ms. LAPAS's attendant went off duty at 10 PM. His reliever did not come. Hence, there was not one with the patient when the incident occurred at about 11 PM.
It is learnt that a case has been registered by the police, under Sect.376 (Rape)/354 (Molestation) of the Indian Penal Code.
On 24th August 2002 SANE sent us the following update and comment:
The accused in the case of molestation of a Jarawa woman ... was released on 17th August on bail within 24 hours of his arrest. He was charged with "molestation" under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, which happens to be a bailable offence. Had he been chagred with an "attempt to rape" under 376/511, the offence would have been non-bailable.
The case will be tried according to the law of the dominant tribe, this is, our law. Since the Jarawa are not aware of our law or our language, they could not be present in Court to oppose the bail petition. Do the Jara feel frustrated? If the situation was reversed and the accused was taken to the Tirur forest and handed over to the Jarawa for a trial in accordance with Jarawa law/tradition practice, one wonders whether the members of the dominant tribe would not feel ass furstrated as the Jarawa lady feels now.
If only the AAJVS attendant had waited for the arrival of his reliever, or called for an alternate reliever before leaving, the Jarawa lady would not have suffered the trauma.
AAJVS, a "government non-governmental organisation" created to look after the welfare of the primitive tribes of Andamans has His Excellency Mr. N.N. Jha (Lt.Governor of the A&N Islands) as its Chairman and Sectratries and Heads of Departments as members. The AAJVS has a budget of about a crore (ten million Rupees) a year to look after about 500 tribals. This is in addition to a very generous budget of the Directorate of Trinal Welfare. So, lack of funds or power or freedom of action does not care in the way of its working.
His Excellency is also the convenor of the Expert Committee studying the Jarawa in compliance with the orders of the Hon'ble High Court of Calcutta. A study team of doctors and health officers cancelled a field trip to study Jarawa health ten days back alleging lack of logistic support that was supposed to have been provided by the AAJVS. The doctors, in their letter, stated that the AAJVS had not arranged for even drinking water for the team in spite of a seven day notive.
AIDS in the Andamans
Information received from a medical source at Port Blair who wishes to remain anonymous
2002
It is disturbing is that no death figures on Jarawas under Indian government health care are given anywhere although these areavailable to the authorities. - but kept under lock and key. From a private communication we have learnt of at least one Jarawa death from AIDS. . If the death rate among sick Jarawas is indeed so low, that would be a most unexpected and (almost) happy development. But with the authorities suspected of cooking their figures in many cases to make themselves look better, one is left to wonder.
The presence of AIDS among Jarawa continues to be officially denied but several sources have now unofficially admitted that the number of AIDS cases among the general population and among Jarawa are increasing. We at the Andaman Association only have old figures from 1999 when there are said to have been one HIV positive case and four AIDS cases in the Andaman settler population (2 female, 3 male). Among Jarawa, 4 HIV cases are said to have been found then, 2 males and 2 females. Crew members of Burmese and Taiwanese boats illegally fishing in Andamanese waters were blamed (of course, to the Indian bureaucrat, AIDS is a foreigners' disease). The infected foreigners are said to have been briefly jailed and then deported.
AIDS in India is still treated largely as a taboo subject and this is even more so in the Andamans. Since 1999 the AIDS epidemic has increased quietly but dramatically in India and is sure to have done the same in the Andamans.
Hepatitis B widespread among Jarawa
Information received from a correspondent at Port Blair who wishes to remain anonymous
July 2002
I did meet The Jarawa on the ATR [Andaman Trunk Road] and at the hospital. I believe a lot of them have died in the forest of disease, for every single Jarawa I met had recently lost a loved one - a father, a child, a brother. I took along some pictures from 1998, and of about seven recognizable Jarawa faces three had died (two of disease and one from falling off a tree).
Although I wasn't given permission to visit the Jarawa area, enormous research camps were placed in the forest. The high court had asked for research to determine whether the Jarawa had enough food and why they were coming out of the forest. The administration has taken the pportunity to place researchers of every description - zoologists, anthropologists, medical researchers, social workers, etc, along with their help (for no upper-class Indian can survive in the forest without servants to cook and clean) - in the forest. There were some seventy to ninety people overall - no one knows for sure. Given that the Jarawa number 250 or less (the estimate has declined by 100 since two years ago) that means one outsider for every three Jarawa. The camps have broken up for the monsoons and will resume in a few months. From what I could gather, they had no proper means of trash disposal, and whatever toilet facilities they had were not being used - that is, the men would use the beach or the forest.
The last epidemic was malaria. There is no AIDS as yet (at least, detected). There is, curiously, Hepatitis B, which 30 percent of the Jarawa have. They don't have the symptoms, however, and might be immune carriers. Most of the recent deaths have been in the Tirur forests. I don't know what the official death toll is, probably close to zero.
One very urgent question that all this research has not addressed is which vaccines the Jarawa can safely be given. As a consequence they remain vulnerable to easily preventible but readily fatal ailments such as tetanus.
Some of the Jarawa are now asking routinely for tobacco. There are reports of alcohol being given to them as well, though I got no first-hand evidence. And there are reports of truck drivers stopping on the ATR to vanish into the forest with Jarawa women. The bus I was on stopped at a Jarawa camp on the ATR and got fruits and possibly honey from some Jarawa boys. The driver said he gives food in return; I'm suspicious of that claim.
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Editor's note: |
Jarawa over-run by government anthropologists
Information received from SANE
4 June 2002
|
Editor's note: |
Q: "What is the composition of an average (Red) Indian
family?"
A: "The Brave, the Squaw, a couple of kids and an
anthropologist."
So goes a joke common in anthropological circles in the US. Now the
Andamans are catching up.
The (Indian) Ministry of Home Affairs had constituted a Committee of Experts under the notification no. U-14040/24/99A of 21st July 2001, as directed by the Hon'ble High Court of Calcutta in a PIL (WP 48/1999). The Committee consisted of six persons in addition to the Lt.Governor of the Andamans, as Convenor. The purpose of the Expert Committee was for "undertaking scientific study, research and survey to find out the cause of change in behaviour of the Jarawas."
Three study teams had been frequenting the Jarawa habitat for the past six months, consisting of 21, 20 and 19 persons, a total of 60 to study 189 Jarawas. We have one Scientiftic Observer for every three Jarawa today. If the Social Workers and Managers of the AAJVS, Tribal Welfare, Forest and Revenue Officials charged with demarcation of Jarawa Reserve Boundary and Jarawa Protection Force personnel are taken into consideration, the Jarawas today are officially outnumbered in their natural habitat. This happened in spite of the restrictions on entry imposed by the High Court.
Thanks to such interaction on a massive scale, the Jarawas have perhaps studied us better than we have studied them. We find five- and six-year-old Jarawa kids standing bravely in the way of a speeding bus or truck until the vehicle stops. They know that no vehicle will hit them. On the other hand, if a well-meaning tourist refuses to give them small eatables, a Jarawa may raise his bow and arrow and the tourist ends up giving anything he has. We are not confident that the savage has given up his hostility. To the Jarawa, our behaviour pattern iin a given set of circumstances is entirely predictable. To us, they remain inscrutable. The Jarawa today refuse to be photographed unless bribed with some eatables, etc. They threaten the tourist with fierce gestures and it normally has the desured result. On occasions, they are known to have snatched cameras. At Kadamtala, most locals have a camera now, thanks to the Jarawa, who happily part with cameras for some tobacco or puffed rice.
Thirty years back, the Onge used to visit government servants and settlers in Little Andaman, seeking tea leaves and tobacco in exchange for forest produce like honey. The Jarawa today believe in direct actuion and take whatever they want through intimindation. They have studied our fear-pschosis very well. Even two years back, the Jarawa never behaved in this manner. The report of a Jarawa anthropologist about our society would make interesting reading. Only a few of us can articulate some Jarawa words. But the majority of Jarawa boys and men encountered on the Andaman Trunk Road speak passable Hindi and sing popular Hindi film songs. Many of them also have learnt to chew tobacco and smoke. A few have learnt the pleasure of alcohol ("180" in common parlance). The Jarawa males, particularly young ones, encountered on the Andaman Trunk Road have a rich vocabularly of choicest Hindi slang. This is not at all suprising considering that they were tutored by truck drivers, cleaners and policemen and not by the researchers or social workers. Jarawa women are sometimes seen being "helped" by truckers to climb on board with a shove on the bottom or a bear hhug from behind. It should be remembered that while the Jarawa males on the road are frequently clad in T-shirts and shorts, the woman aremost found in their traditional garb [i.e. naked].
Abouth a month ago, there was a report of a Jarawa baby being killed and buried. The reason given was illegitimacy. One wonders whether it was fathered by a non-Jarawa.
Supreme Court Judgment backs Andaman Environment: great victory for SANE and sanity
Information received from SANE, Port Blair
7 May 2002
The tireless Samir Acharya and his organisation SANE (Society of Andaman and Nicobar Ecology) has won a great legal victory against the Port Blair administration and the logging industry. Details of the extremely tough judgment can be found in Appendix N3.
Logging in the (allegedly) protected reservation has been quite illegal under the local government's own laws. Thos laws, however, were not successfully enforced. For some reason, filming was prohibited and the ban, unlike the laws on logging laws, was very strictly enforced. One is left innocently to wonder why.
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