Andaman and Nicobar: Vital Islands, Vanishing Tribes

India’s plans for “development” on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are threatening the survival of the archipelago’s already endangered indigenous populations.

One of the projects that has been approved for implementation in the archipelago is a railway line linking Port Blair, the capital of the island chain, with Diglipur, the largest town on North Andaman Island. The 240-kilometer-long railway line will cut through a protected forest reserve where the native Jarawa live. This would increase the exposure of the Jarawa to outsiders – mainly non-tribal settlers and tourists – and impact their culture, health, and way of life, even their survival as a group.

The railway is “a harebrained idea,” Manish Chandi, who works in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on the interface between communities and the natural environment, told The Diplomat. The rail project, he said, will “cut swathes of otherwise untouched habitats,” as well as “the watersheds and drainage of the region and even beyond the Jarawa Reserve” to impact areas where the settlers live.

An archipelago of 572 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie to the east of the Indian mainland in the Bay of Bengal. The southernmost islands are located near the mouth of the Strait of Malacca, while the northern islands are just a few nautical miles from Myanmar; this location gives the island chain immense strategic value. Not surprisingly, India is building up its military infrastructure there. Importantly, the island chain is home to India’s only tri-services theater command.

The archipelago is a tourist destination too, renowned for its turquoise blue waters and pristine beaches.

Less known is the fact that this stunningly beautiful and strategic archipelago’s indigenous people are sinking under a multitude of problems.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home today to six tribal communities. Four of these – the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa, and the Sentinelese – are of Negrito origin and live in the Andaman Islands, while the other two – the Nicobarese and Shompens – are of Mongoloid origin and live in the Nicobar Islands. These tribes are believed to have lived here for over 40,000 years, perhaps more.

But now, time is running out for these communities. Their numbers are dwindling and they are on the brink of extinction.

According to figures from the 2011 Indian census, there are only 15 Sentinelese surviving today (this figure is only an estimate; officials were unable to conduct a proper census in their area of habitation due to Sentinelese hostility), while there are only 44 Great Andamanese, 101 Onge, and 380 Jarawa people remaining. In 2010, the last surviving member of the Bo, one of the ten tribes that constitute the Great Andamanese group, died and the Bo language perished with her.

Contact with outsiders has been disastrous for the archipelago’s indigenous groups.

From the 18th century on, Europeans began visiting the island chain. They were keen to access the rich resources in the forests, where the indigenous people lived, but came up against fierce resistance from the latter. Brutal pacification strategies ensued and many natives were killed in the confrontations. Many more lost their lives to diseases they contracted from the Europeans, for which they lacked immunity. Epidemics decimated their populations; 80 percent of the estimated 8,000 indigenous people living in the archipelago during colonial times were wiped out by the 20th century. By 1921, the Aka-Kols were rendered extinct, as were the Oko-Juwoi and the Aka-Bea a decade later.

Independent India’s policy planners grappled with how to deal with indigenous communities and especially isolated ones. The debate continues to this day over whether tribal populations should remain isolated and be allowed to preserve their identity and way of life or whether they should be integrated into the mainstream and allowed to benefit from the fruits of “development.”

Under the Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation, 1956, large areas of forests and adjoining seas were designated as tribal reserves. All the indigenous groups of the archipelago were provided with separate reserves. “This was a landmark regulation and the only such for indigenous communities in the entire country,” Chandi observes.

The following year, the Indian government issued a notification banning outsiders from entering the Jarawa reserve. These steps aimed at protecting the Jarawa from outside influence and exploitation. Yet other government measures undermined efforts to protect the Jarawa. For instance, tens of thousands of people from the Indian mainland, including Bengali refugees of Partition, were settled in the archipelago. As a result, the indigenous communities became vastly outnumbered by settlers.

Then development projects opened the doors to increased tribal contact with outsiders and thus to exploitation by them.

In the 1970s, for instance, the Indian government began building the Andaman Trunk Road (ATR), a highway linking Port Blair with Diglipur and running through the Jarawa reserve. Since it became operational in 1989, the ATR has witnessed a high volume of traffic. In addition to trucks carrying timber out of the forests, tourist taxis and vans travel via the ATR. Tourism companies even offer tourists “human safaris” and the chance of sighting tribal people along the ATR. In 2012, videos of tourist operators making semi-clad Jarawa women dance before tourist audiences in return for food became public and evoked global outrage.

Experts fear that the impact of the proposed railway line will be even more damaging. The financial, social, economic, and environmental costs will not only be greater but also “they will be felt for many years to come,” Chandi observed. “The most impacted region will be the tribal reserve,” he said, adding that during the construction of the railway line in the Jarawa reserve, the “large and sustained presence of laborers and machinery” would lead to “all forms of cultural exchange.” Given the experience over the past 20 years, such exchange will be detrimental to this small population of indigenous people, he warned.

The railway line is not the only thing these endangered communities have to worry about. The Port Blair-Diglipur railway is just one of the development projects that the Indian government is planning for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is also upgrading and constructing roads, port and shipping infrastructure, and developing a container transshipment terminal in the archipelago.

India is beefing up its military infrastructure in the archipelago as well, especially in the context of a perceived growing threat from China. Runways at naval air stations in the island chain are being extended and strengthened to allow bigger aircraft to take off and land.

India’s approach to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ indigenous communities is not insensitive, an official in the archipelago’s administration told The Diplomat. There have been “several strong and sensible interventions to protect the tribals and their way of life,” he argued, drawing attention to the 2004 policy for the Jarawa.

Indeed, this policy sought to protect the Jarawa from the “harmful effects of exposure and contact with the outside world” and preserve their “social organization, mode of subsistence, and cultural identity.” It advocated “maximum autonomy to the Jarawas with minimum and regulated intervention” by the government when needed. The Jarawa would be allowed “to develop according to their own genius” and no attempts will be made either to mainstream them or rehabilitate them on other islands. The policy was unambiguous in ruling out encroachments into Jarawa territory and extraction of natural resources from the Jarawa reserve, even by government agencies. No attempt would be made “to curtail, reduce, or to acquire land” from the notified Jarawa territory, the policy enunciated.

However, this policy has never been implemented. Neither have relevant judicial orders. In 2002, for instance, India’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of those sections of the ATR that run through tribal reserves. Subsequently, it banned all tourist and commercial activities in a five kilometer buffer zone around the Jarawa reserve. In 2013, it banned tourists from taking the ATR. But the Andaman administration has by and large ignored these orders. The ATR remains open to tourists, although there are timing restrictions and a ban on vehicles stopping in the reserve.

Contact with outsiders has left indigenous groups vulnerable to exploitation. There are other more insidious implications too, observes Chandi, drawing attention to the experience of the Onge and the Great Andamanese. Instead of using their own skills, resources, and ingenuity, both communities have become dependent on government handouts. It has “forced [or] coaxed sedentariness” in them, he points out.

The Onge, for instance, are provided with grain, housing, and clothes by the government. This lack of physical activity has made them lethargic and problems like obesity and hypertension are assuming worrying proportions among the Onge.

Government support to the Onge is thus undermining their health and chances of survival.  The dependency on hand-outs is destroying the last vestiges of their pride and dignity, too.

Over 7,000 people were killed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands when a tsunami hit the archipelago in December 2014. Not a single Jarawa figured among the dead. Drawing on their traditional knowledge, they realized that a tsunami was heading their way and fled to the islands’ interiors.

The Jarawa, Onge, and other tribal groups survived a devastating tsunami. Will they survive the tidal wave of development projects sweeping toward their habitations?