LESSONS FROM THE ANDAMANS
The death of 26-year-old Christian evangelist and soccer coach John Allen Chau on the protected island of North Sentinel has focused international attention on the island’s reclusive inhabitants. Having had little contact with the world outside their island, and wanting even less, the Sentinelese greet interlopers, even helicopters hovering above, with arrows. It now appears no more effort will be expended by the authorities to retrieve Chau’s body.
Despite the fevered discussion about the isolation of the ‘Neolithic’ tribe, still connected genetically to the first Africans who made their way to the island tens of thousands of years ago, as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, the Sentinelese were not entirely averse to contact with the outside world. The anthropologist T.N. Pandit, a young man then in charge of the Anthropological Survey of India’s office in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, first set foot on the island in 1967 with a group of about 20, including local officials, the police and Navy. The Sentinelese hid in the trees. He was warned off aggressively by the tribe on subsequent visits. In 1991, though, as also recounted by anthropologist Madhumala Chattopadhyay, the Sentinelese seemed to be willing to engage with their would-be interlocutors, willing to take gifts of coconut and metal tools. Perhaps, having watched men at close quarters working to salvage the wrecks of ships, the Sentinelese had become less wary. The ice was being broken. But to protect the tribe, the Indian government decided to suspend all visits to North Sentinel, even for the purposes of gift-giving and academic curiosity.
While much of the coverage has, correctly, taken
Chau to task for being so reckless, for being so foolishly determined to convert the Sentinelese to his brand of Christianity, some questions too must be asked of the government. How was North Sentinel included on a list of islands subject to the easing of Restricted Area Permit rules to encourage tourism and broader ‘development’?
Of the 29 islands on the list, 12 are occupied by, in administrative parlance, Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) and indigenous Nicobari tribes. In July, the National Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Commission asked the
home ministry and Andaman administration for clarification on the implications of the order. No reply was forthcoming. A month later, the commission wrote to home minister Rajnath Singh. Again, it was ignored. Surely, it is incumbent upon the government to protect not only foolhardy missionaries but also vulnerable tribes. How could Chau evade detection for so long?
Such neglect makes the regulations seem mere lip service. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit the islands at the end of December. Up for discussion should be the haste with which the government, and the NITI Aayog in particular, is seeking to make the islands tourist-ready and the harm it could bring to local ecology and tribal people.
The crisis has spotlighted the government’s haste to promote tourism in the islands