It started with a video uploaded by a UK-based daily showing semi-clad Jarawa tribal women allegedly being forced to entertain tourists, went through the traditional format of accusations by the Government, police and activists, visits were made to the island, probe was ordered and finally two persons were arrested by Superintendent of Police who in turn was awarded with the President’s Police Medal for meritorious service. And we came safe out of it!
Ask a local for his opinion on the matter and he will tell you that much has been made out of that video. The present reality, however, has no titillating storyline. A telling incident only a few weeks ago barely generated a stir reflecting the gravity of a decades-old issue that has found no ready answers from administrators, experts or well wishers. Probably, they were waiting for the outsiders to reveal the matter to the Nation.
On January 7 at about noon, a group of Jarawas, locally referred to as Tirur Jarawas, simply walked out of the forest reserve and ventured into the revenue villages of Tusnabad Gram Panchayat in South Andaman District. Laden with baggage neatly packed in baskets on their backs and tied with woven creepers, the Jarawas evidently were prepared for a long stay away from homes deep in the reserve forests, as they also carried raw material to make new baskets, unfinished bows and arrows, and basic tools meant for hunting and fishing.
One-litre PET bottles packed with rice grains; and floats made of table-sized thermocol sheets and tightly capped empty plastic cans in the hands of the ‘protected’ Jarawas’ group were surprising enough for everyone but the locals.
During their visit to the revenue villages, Jarawas bring forest produce for barter with local residents living at the fringes of the forests. Bringing crabs, honey and other products, they were lured by the offer of tobacco and old clothes, and more interestingly, cash. This, undoubtedly, is the most disturbing aspect of recent transgression by the Jarawas.
The sight of 10 or 100 rupee notes changing hands between the Jarawas and the villagers is a far cry from the Jarawa Policy of 2004 laid down by the Calcutta High Court aimed at “protecting the Jarawa from harmful effects of exposure and contact with the outside world while they are not physically, socially and culturally prepared for such interface”.
Characterised by their dark skin and frizzy hair, this Negrito race is believed to be amongst the first migrants to have reached the Andaman Islands, many thousands of years ago. Today, the 400-odd surviving members of the tribe present a unique combination of a community that continues to use its traditional wisdom for sustainable livelihood security while leaving the rich biodiversity of the fragile forests intact. The reserve forest they know as home is presently the largest single contiguous stretch of untouched and undisturbed forests that remain in the islands.
Till 1998-99, the Jarawas resisted all contact with outsiders. Later, on their own, they started coming into contact with the outside world. Much of the disaster that followed is blamed on the construction of the Andaman Trunk Road. A 35 km section of this road cuts through the restricted Jarawa Reserve Territory, truncating their area of habitat. Primarily hunters and gatherers, they are today confined to 765 square kilometers of reserve forest in the South and Middle Andaman Islands. The fall outs were inevitable.
Despite the orders of the Supreme Court in 2002 to shut the road in the interests of the Jarawa, the Andaman administration has continued to defy the ruling by permitting traffic on the ATR, in the larger interest of the communities originally hailing from Bengal, Tamil Nadu and other Indian States who have settled on the northern islands since Independence.
In view of the alarming rise in increase in interactions between the Jarawas and others, the court recognised the need of reviewing the Jarawa Policy of 2004 and constituted an ‘expert committee’ to assess the perceptions of the Jarawas. Their report records its observation that rice has found its way into the lives of Jarawas through clandestine barter between Jarawas and non-Jarawas. If rice becomes a preferred and sought after item by overtaking their traditional indigenous food items, the Jarawas would become not only dependent on others for their food but become victims of exploitations by unscrupulous non-Jarawas, hence there is an urgent need to control the inflow of the rice among the Jarawas!
Manish Chandi, a research scholar working in these Islands since 1995 and a member of the committee, presents his own perspective on what is increasingly a complex issue with no ready answers, “From what I understand, they come out and go back on occasion with varying regularity and irregularity at some places, and they do not do so because of any miseries that we assume afflict them. It is an opportunity that they are using ever since hostile stances from both colonisers and Jarawas transformed into spectacles of barter, negotiation and our perception of being capable to serve their needs through welfare.”
“Our intervention should be based on the least intervention, in terms of ‘welfare measures’, in terms of messing with other peoples affairs. The Jarawas and other hunter gatherers have worked out their strategy — hunt and gather, forage and pillage where possible,” says Chandi. “We have to be able to desist from the temptation to give them a strategy, but we must rather allow them to devise their own — henceforth, and as always.”
