For Cileme of course! And for Appa on his seventy fifth. 1 2 DEVELOPMENT AND ETHNOCIDE: COLONIAL PRACTICES IN THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS by Sita Venkateswar Massey University - Palmerston North Aotearoa/New Zealand IWGIA Document No. 111 - Copenhagen 2004 3 DEVELOPMENT AND ETHNOCIDE: COLONIAL PRACTICES IN THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS Author: Sita Venkateswar Copyright: IWGIA 2004 – All Rights Reserved Editing: Christian Erni and Sille Stidsen Cover design, typesetting and maps: Jorge Monrás Proofreading: Elaine Bolton Prepress and Print: Eks/Skolens Trykkeri, Copenhagen, Denmark ISBN: 87-91563-04-6 ISSN: 0105-4503 Distribution in North America: Transaction Publishers 390 Campus Drive / Somerset, New Jersey 08873 www.transactionpub.com INTERNATIONAL WORK GROUP FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS Classensgade 11 E, DK 2100 - Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: (45) 35 27 05 00 - Fax: (45) 35 27 05 07 E-mail: [email protected] - Web: www.iwgia.org 4 This book has been produced with financial support from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 5 CONTENTS Map ..............................................................................................................9 Preface ..........................................................................................................10 Prologue: a Sense of Place .......................................................................12 The island ecology ......................................................................................14 The passage to the field site ......................................................................18 Setting up residence ...................................................................................23 Linguistic initiations at Dugong Creek ...................................................24 A Framework for Analysis .......................................................................30 A Record of Fieldwork Introduction .................................................................................................36 Fieldwork among the Onge ......................................................................40 An extended conversation ........................................................................40 The power of secrecy, the right to withhold ............................................69 Gossip and anthropological practice ........................................................74 The Andamanese at Strait Island and Port Blair ...................................75 Some notes on a distressing field trip ....................................................77 Conclusion ...................................................................................................81 The Islanders in History Introduction .................................................................................................86 The Andamanese and the first British settlement: 1789-1796 ..................................................................................89 The penal colony 1858-1899 ....................................................................92 British policies: the ideal and the reality .................................................93 Questions of ownership: looting ..............................................................94 Questions of justice: rape/murder ...........................................................95 Colonial ethnology ...................................................................................96 The local and the metropole .....................................................................98 Civilizing the savage: the “Andaman Homes” .....................................101 The convicts and the savages .................................................................103 Disease and the islanders .......................................................................106 The subjection of the Andamanese ........................................................108 A summary of events .............................................................................109 Turn-of-the-century anthropology .........................................................110 The Jarawa .................................................................................................112 Who are the Jarawa? ..............................................................................112 6 Aggression and hostility ........................................................................115 The Onge ....................................................................................................118 The Jarawa at North Sentinel Island .....................................................120 Population counts: a table of estimates .................................................120 Conclusion .................................................................................................121 The Islanders in “India”: Policies of “Planned” Change The “independent” Andaman Islands ..................................................126 Post-independence anthropology ..........................................................127 Two decades of policy ..............................................................................128 The situation of the Jarawa .....................................................................132 The “breakthrough” .................................................................................133 “Retrieval from Precipice” .......................................................................136 Food for the islanders ..............................................................................138 The power of representations .................................................................140 An assessment of the welfare system ....................................................141 The content of policies: ethnocide/benevolent ethnocide .................144 A matrix for subjection: individual autonomy ....................................146 Subjection and power ...............................................................................148 Some observations on anthropology at Dugong Creek .....................150 Some alternatives? ....................................................................................151 Conclusion .................................................................................................152 Gender/Power Introduction ...............................................................................................156 Gender relations among the Onge The gendered anthropologist ..................................................................156 A view of Onge gender relations ...........................................................158 Language and power ..............................................................................159 Clothes make/(un)make the Onge woman .............................................161 The power of women ..............................................................................162 Pleasure as subversion ...........................................................................166 The path to collusion .............................................................................166 A note on generalizations ......................................................................167 Towards some explanations ...................................................................168 A brief note on the Andamanese ...........................................................169 Alcohol and the Andamanese ................................................................170 Conclusion .................................................................................................172 Strategies of Power: an Analysis of “Jarawa Contact” Introduction ...............................................................................................174 The politics of “contact” ..........................................................................174 The Onge ....................................................................................................177 The anatomy of “contact” .......................................................................178 7 “Friendly contact” .....................................................................................179 Markers for difference: race and culture ...............................................182 Markers of difference: gender and clothing .........................................182 Constructions of difference: gender, class and the anthropologist ...................................................................184 Fields of power ..........................................................................................185 Assembling the elements .........................................................................189 A postscript on the Onge .........................................................................192 Conclusion .................................................................................................192 The End of Fieldwork .............................................................................196 Postscript ....................................................................................................200 The Fate of the Jarawa: the End of the Road? An Epilogue ...........202 Court cases and committees ...................................................................206 Of origins and genetics ............................................................................209 Collaborative anthropology: policy initiatives and new coalitions .....................................................210