Te Jarawa of the Andamans Rhea John and Harsh Mander* India’s Andaman Islands are home to some of the some scholars describe appropriately as ‘adverse most ancient, and until recently the most isolated, inclusion’.1 Te experience of other Andaman tribes peoples in the world. Today barely a few hundred like the Great Andamanese and the Onge highlight of these peoples survive. Tis report is about one of poignantly and sombrely the many harmful these ancient communities of the Andaman Islands, consequences of such inclusion.2 Te continued the Jarawa, or as they describe themselves, the Ang. dogged resistance of the Sentinelese to any contact with outsiders makes them perhaps the most Until the 1970s, and even to a degree until the isolated people in the world. On the other hand, 1990s, the Jarawa people fercely and ofen violently the early adverse consequences of exposure of the defended their forest homelands, fghting of a Jarawa people to diseases and sexual exploitation diverse range of incursions and ofers of ‘friendly’ by outsiders, suggest that safeguarding many forms contact—by other tribes-people, colonial rulers, of ‘exclusion’ may paradoxically constitute the best convicts brought in from mainland India by the chance for the just and humane ‘inclusion’ of these colonisers, the Japanese occupiers, independent highly vulnerable communities. India’s administration, and mainland communities settled on the islands by the Indian government. Since However, the optimal balance between isolation the 1990s, two of the three main Ang communities and contact with the outside world of such have altered their relationship with the outsider of indigenous communities is something that no many hues, accepting their ‘friendship’ and all that government in the modern world has yet succeeded came with it, including health care support, clothes, in establishing. Perspectives about what indeed is foods like rice and bananas that were never part of in the best interest of hitherto isolated hunting- their hunting-gathering existence, trinkets, roads, gathering communities continue to vary hugely. a range of intoxicants, tourists, and sexual and economic exploitation. Methodological Note Te conundrum of reporting in an Exclusion Report about a community like the Jarawa is that, Before we proceed further, another caveat is in in many ways, what we conventionally describe order. Writing about people who do not participate as ‘inclusion’ is actually exclusion—or what in the discourse to which the text seeks to contribute * Rhea John and Harsh Mander are the lead author and contributing author, respectively. ** Advisors for this chapter were Samir Acharya, Shekhar Singh and Alia Allana. *** Tis chapter has been reviewed by Sophie Grig 259 India Exclusion Report necessarily runs the risk of misrepresentation. their rights and the policies enacted by the state— With the indigenous peoples lumped into the without the disruptive interaction that such a evolutionary-anthropological classifcation of study might impose on the tribe. It is hoped that ‘tribes’, taking their views into account has itself only this limited methodology would not be construed recently become part of the approach adopted by as ignoring the voice of the Jarawa. Our object has academic and policy establishments. Te discourse not been to cast an anthropological spotlight on a continues, for instance, to refer to the people studied relatively isolated tribe3 but to critically evaluate in this chapter as the ‘Jarawa’ ignoring the name they state and society in the Andamans, in relation use themselves—‘Ang’—and their right to decide to a specifc population with diferent rights and what they are to be called. In the present chapter vulnerabilities from most of the rest. we have used the two names interchangeably, in an efort to acknowledge the history of this contact. Historical background Despite the objective of this chapter being to represent the Jarawa as fairly as possible, its Te Jarawa tribe, along with the Great Andamanese, methodology is constrained not just by difculties Onge and Sentinelese, constitute the four major in understanding those whose language and culture tribes of the Andaman Islands. Of these, the longest are profoundly diferent from our own, but by the and most extensive colonial interaction was with the policies in place. To protect what is still ofcially Great Andamanese, initially through violence and a relatively uncontacted tribe, the administration repression, and thereafer active assimilation, from proscribes interactions with the Jarawa except with the side of the colonialists. Te Great Andamanese a permit, or for members of the welfare society were resettled on Strait Island, but by then they that forms the interface between the state and the had been exposed to diseases to which they had no tribe, the Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti prior exposure, and consciously to tobacco, alcohol (AAJVS). Given the problematic outcomes of their and drugs to foster submissiveness, as a cumulative interactions with the ‘outsider’, including health result of which they have seen a rapid decline in problems, the restrictions on our meeting Jarawa numbers. Te Onge have lost most of their former people was not unreasonable, but became a major territory to logging interests, and have been made challenge to writing the chapter. dependent on regular handouts from the state 4 As a result, this account relies on secondary administration for all their needs. Te Sentinelese literature, interviews with those who interact with have persistently and fercely rejected contact with the Jarawa or have authority over them, as well as on the rest of the world till date. some limited primary observation. Te Ang or Jarawa occupy large forested tracts Te administration was willing to discuss of Middle and South Andaman Islands, which are their work with the Jarawa, their policy and its being reduced by both ofcial and encroached outcomes. Even if speaking to the Jarawas directly settlements of outsiders. Tere are three main had been ofcially permitted, there would still groups of Jarawas, each referred to by the name be many challenges, both practical and ethical. of the town closest to their location: Kadamtala Te translation—of not only language, but also Jarawas in the North, Middle Strait Jarawas close cultural context—was impossible within the time to Baratang, and Tirur Jarawas in the South of the and resource limitations of the study. We wished to reserve area. Te groups visit and maintain relations accomplish the objective of the chapter—to describe with each other, but each defnes itself as distinct the situation of the Jarawa specifcally in relation to from the others. 260 The Jarawa of the Andamans Te reserve area was frst created in 1956, but If the Indian state had not taken the two crucial its size has changed multiple times over the years measures of resettlement and constructing the in the absence of clear demarcations on both maps ATR, the current situation of the Jarawa—fraught and the ground. Today the reserve consists of 1,024 in certain ways that we will observe—could have square km of forests, creeks and coastal waters (out been avoided or at least minimised. of the A&N Islands’ 8,073 square km). In 2007, Te construction of the highway was a bufer zone of 5-kilometre radius was added, accompanied by temporary settlements of workers within which no large-scale commercial activity is along it that became permanent villages over time, permitted. Under the tribe’s protection, the Jarawa encroaching on the reserve territory. Te Jarawa reserve area remains the best-preserved ecosystem undertook punitive expeditions to surrounding of the islands. settlements to protest the invasion of their space, Te Jarawa were considered a ‘hostile’ tribe by even taking lives in the process. Te Bush Police was the British from the time of the initial settlement formed before Independence, frst to protect British at Port Blair, as they were at war with the ‘friendly’ interests, and then to protect settlers from the Great Andamanese tribes who occupied the same Jarawa. Today the Bush Police has been reaggregated territory, and resisted all attempts by outsiders to as the Jarawa Protection Force to protect the Jarawa enter their area. Te Jarawa were also subjected to from outsiders. In 1975, the Andaman Adim Janjati extreme violence during the Japanese occupation Vikas Samiti (AAJVS) [Te Andaman Primitive of the Islands during World War II, which further Tribes Development Society] was created under the 5 alienated them from outsiders. Te Indian aegis of the government to work directly with tribal government, in an attempt to gain fuller control groups for their welfare. over this outlying territory, began to send ‘friendly contact’ expeditions to the western coast of the In 1998, for the frst time, small groups of Jarawa territory with gifs of food, cloth and iron Jarawa began to initiate friendly contact with from the 1950s. In the meantime, thousands of the outside world. Tey began to engage with the people arriving in India as refugees afer Partition local administration and with travellers along were resettled by the Government along the the Andaman Trunk Road, asking for bananas uncertain borders of the Jarawa reserve. Tis and coconuts—familiar gifs from the contact settlement by the Indian government on territories missions—and later demanding rides on vehicles. adjacent to the Jarawa territory paved the way for Te popular story used to explain this shif is of a their increasing interaction with outsiders, which Jarawa boy named Enmei who, having been treated has especially grown during the last three decades. for a broken leg in Port Blair for three months, returned to the reserve with positive news about ‘First voluntary contact’ by the Jarawa with the outsiders. He led the exuberant ‘contact party’ outsiders was made in 1974, when some Jarawa of the Jarawa who arrived at Uttara jetty unarmed, emerged from their forest unarmed and met the causing shock and panic among those present, and expedition’s boats to collect the gifs themselves.