My recent trip to Andamans intrigued me with its overlooked history, especially of the Jarawas. The aborigines of the Andamans have been the victim of penal settlement that led to an increased presence of outsiders that gave impetus to their dwindling population due to disease outbreaks and encroachment raids. The Jarawas are situated in the middle and southern Andaman Islands and are estimated to be below 400 individuals. The word Jarawa is derived from the Aka-Bea dialect which means stranger. The Jarawa call themselves ya-eng-nga, meaning human beings.
There is some indication that the now-extinct Jangil tribe was the parent tribe from which they split centuries or millennia ago and eventually survived. Based on the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) they are also believed to be the first successful tribe to move out of Africa. The Jarawas are traditionally hunter-gatherers and fishermen. Furthermore, they are known to be skilled warriors. Wild pigs, turtles, monitor lizards, and fish constitute a major part of their diet. They also consume honey, fruit, and wild roots. The extraction of honey is a communal activity expressed by singing songs. The honey collector chews leaves of bee-repellent plants such as Ooyekwalin that they spray at the bees to keep them away. Then they would cut the bees’ nest and bring it home. Consuming it would be followed by taking a bath.
Before the 19th century, the Jarawas were situated in the southeast Andamans and underwent a massive decline in population with the establishment of British colonies in the 1780s. Later relocating to the west, the Jarawas became victims of continued exploitation with increasing mainland Indian and Burmese immigration and frequent disease epidemics. Throughout these instances, the Jarawas remained hostile to the nearby settlers, including the bush police members who protected the immigrants from their raids.
Such a hostile interaction made it difficult for anthropologists and researchers to assess their material culture including their weapons. From specimens found by the local police and forest department, the chief weapons of the Jarawa are their bows and arrows. The Jarawa bow is known as “aao” whereas arrows are known as ‘patho’. The simplest is the plain wooden arrow, made up of areca wood. A little more advanced is the one consisting of a bamboo shaft with a wooden or iron head. They also wear chest guards (kekad) to protect themselves during hunting and raids. Aside from weapons, they are frequently found with wooden baskets, bamboo vessels for keeping water, and collected fruits.
While the tribe has frequently opposed any interaction with the settlers for the longest time, they came under the mainstream limelight with the controversial construction of the Great Andaman Trunk Road in the 1970s. Stretching from the southern point of Port Blair to the northern port of Mayabunder, the road has been laid through the Jarawa reserve forest. It was constructed to distribute medical aid without disturbing their reserve and privacy.
The provisions of Scheduled Tribes didn’t bring major changes. Thus, increased contact led them to go to schools, and take medical aid and money. While it also allowed nearby settlers to earn by establishing small shops selling decorative ornaments and cooked foods, Jarawas weren’t given any aid to showcase their tribal cultures.
Thus, it leads to their exploitation and commodification. The Central government also allocated a budget for forming the Andaman Primitive Tribal Welfare Association (AAJVS) for the welfare and protection of the ‘primitive tribes’. It meant protecting their health to prevent extinction and implementing provisions for their socio-economic development, including environmental necessities. It is through this that controlled interactions were undertaken by the organisations constituting anthropologists, researchers, and government officers. Gifts of coconut, red cloth, and metal implements were placed to establish friendly relations. It was performed to reduce the cases of Jarawas raids over settlers for such commodities though the raids persisted.
An exemplary expedition included a group of scholars that constituted the Anthropologist Madhumala Chattopadhyay who was the first to have hand-in-hand contact with the Sentinelese. She was also the first woman to do so. Her interaction with the Jarawas manifested into her 2001 book, Tribes of Car Nicobar. She recounts she was restricted from initiating expeditions due to her gender which she refuted. She describes the interaction as being eye-opening as the curious Jarawas women pressed their chests and themselves, to convey that they were also women. She also reminisces about the time she went back only to be welcomed by them by being tapped on her cheeks. What caught my attention was her acknowledgement that during such interactions the scholars aren’t the only ones assessing but also the tribes.
Ms Chattopadhyay also emphasised the need to restrict these interactions for research purposes rather than large-scale tourism. Part of the reason was their increased exploitation. While the Jarawas have become dependent on their roadside lifestyle, there is a growing protest against encroachment. A lawsuit that later escalated to the Supreme Court litigation was filed by The Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology, the Bombay Natural History Society and others as well. It led to the court directing the administration to undertake steps to protect the Jarawas from encroachments. The court also ordered the prohibition of the highway extension.
However, this wasn’t the end as frequent cases arose of private tour operators interacting with the tribes by throwing seasoned food, and exploiting them by drugging or sexually abusing their women. There were also cases of resorts being established within the reserve. In 2012, a video shot by a tourist showed Jarawa women dancing in front of a local policeman. Many NGOs protested in support of the easement of such tourism as ‘human safaris’. Scholars protested due to the commodification of Jarawa tribes, especially their women who underwent sexual exploitation and racial trolling both on the grounds and online.
The local inhabitants, however, stated the Andaman Trunk to be a vital means of connecting 350 villages and providing means of earning. Therefore, on 5th March 2013, the Supreme Court reversed its interim order of allowing the road to be fully re-opened. However, vehicles were allowed to travel in large conveys four times a day. Today, even the Indian government policy towards the Jarawas has taken a shift to minimal intervention.
However, some NGOs are still against this tourism of witnessing Jarawas as exotic and inhumane though one can see the space it has opened for the nearby settlers. Even the Jarawas, as mentioned earlier, have become accustomed to it and are seen sitting beside the roads observing curiously the outsiders or carrying out their daily lifestyle.
Reference:https://www.worldwidejournals.com/indian-journal-of-applied-research-(IJAR)/article/the-jarawa-tribe-of-andaman-islands-and-impact-of-development-on-jarawas/MTExNDc=/?is=1
