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Jarawas (Andaman Islands)

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Jarawa
Regions with significant populations
western side of South Andaman and Middle Andaman Islands (India)
Languages
Jarawa, classified in the Ongan branch of Andamanese languages
Religion
indigenous beliefs, details unknown
Related ethnic groups
other indigenous Andamanese peoples, particularly Onge

The Jarawa (Hindi: जारवा, also Järawa, Jarwa) are one of the adivasi indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands. Their present numbers are estimated at between 250-350 individuals. Since they have largely shunned interactions with outsiders, many particulars of their society, culture and traditions are poorly understood. Their name means "foreigners" or "hostile people" in Aka-Bea.

Prehistory and origins

Along with other indigenous Andamanese peoples, they have inhabited the islands for at least several thousand years, and most likely a great deal longer. The Andaman Islands have been known to outsiders since antiquity; however, until quite recent times they were infrequently visited, and such contacts were predominantly sporadic and temporary. For the greater portion of their history their only significant contact has been with other Andamanese groups; the experience of such a lengthy period of isolation almost completely lacking in external cultural influences is equaled by few other groups in the world, if at all[citation needed].

There is some indication that the Jarawa regarded the now-extinct Jangil tribe as a parent tribe from which they split centuries or millennia ago, even though the Jarawa outnumbered (and eventually out-survived) the Jangil.[1] The Jangil (also called the Rutland Island Aka Bea) were presumed extinct by 1931, sixteen years prior to Indian independence.[2]

Contact, settlements and dislocation

Comparative map showing distributions of various Andamanese tribes in the Andaman Islands - early 1800s versus present-day (2004). Notables:
(a) Rapid depopulation of the original southeastern Jarawa homeland in the 1789-1793 period
(b) Onge and Great Andamanese shrinkage to isolated settlements
(c) Complete Jangil extinction by 1931
(d) Jarawa move to occupy depopulated former west coast homeland of the Great Andamanese
(e) Only the Sentinelese zone is somewhat intact

Before the 19th century, the Jarawa homelands were located in the southeast part of South Andaman Island and nearby islets. With the establishment of the initial British settlement, these are suspected to have been largely depopulated by disease shortly after 1789.[3] The Great Andamanese tribes were similarly decimated by disease, alcoholism and alleged British government-sponsored destruction,[4] leaving open the western areas which the Jarawa gradually made their new homeland. The immigration of mainland Indian and Karen (Burmese) settlers, beginning about two centuries ago, accelerated this process. Prior to their initiating contact with settled populations in 1997, they were noted for vigorously maintaining their independence and distance from external groups, actively discouraging most incursions and attempts at contact. Since 1998, they have been in increasing contact with the outside world and have increasingly been the choosers of such contact. All contact, especially with tourists, remains extremely dangerous to the Jarawa due to the risk of disease.[5] Of the remaining Andamanese peoples, only the Sentinelese have been able to maintain a more isolated situation, and their society and traditions persist with little variance from their practices they observed before the first significant contacts were made. Today the Jarawa are in regular contact with the outside world through settlements on the fringes of their Reserve, through daily contact with outsiders along the Andaman Trunk Road and at jetties, marketplaces and hospitals near the road and at settlements near the reserve, with some children even showing up at mainstream schools and asking to be educated along with settler children.[6]

Impact of the Great Andaman Trunk Road

The biggest threat to the Jarawa in recent years came from the building of the Great Andaman Trunk Road through their newer western forest homeland in the 1970s.[7][8] In late 1997, some Jarawa started coming out of their forest to visit nearby settlements for the first time. Within months a serious measles epidemic broke out.[citation needed] Later, in 2006 the Jarawa suffered another outbreak of measles.[citation needed] There were however, no reported deaths.

The impact of the highway, in addition to widespread encroachment, poaching and commercial exploitation of Jarawa lands, caused a lawsuit to be filed with the Calcutta High Court, which has jurisdiction over the islands. The case escalated to the Supreme Court of India as a Public Interest Litigation (or PIL). The Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology, the Bombay Natural History Society and Pune-based Kalpavriksh joined in the petition, resulting in a landmark High Court judgment in 2001, directing the administration to take steps to protect the Jarawa from encroachment and contact, as well as preemptively ruling out any program that involved relocating the Jarawa to a new reservation. Planned extensions of the highway were also prohibited by the court.[9] However, the Light of Andamans editorialized that the changes to the Jarawa were likely irreversible and should have been assessed more thoroughly before the road was built.[7]

Impact of tourism

A major problem is the volume of sightseeing tours that are operated by private companies, where tourists view, photograph or otherwise attempt interactions with Jarawas, who are often begging by the highway. These are illegal under Indian law, and in March 2008, the Tourism Department of the Andaman and Nicobar administration issued a fresh warning to tour operators that attempting contact with Jarawas, photographing them, stopping vehicles while transiting through their land or offering them rides were prohibited under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation, 1956, and would be prosecuted under a strict interpretation of the statute.[10] It has been alleged, however, that these rules are openly being flouted with over 500 tourists being taken to view Jarawas daily by private tour operators, while technically being shown as transiting to legitimate destinations and resulting in continuing daily interaction between the Jarawa and day tourists inside the reserve area.[10]

In 2006, the Indian travel company Barefoot had established a resort 3 km distant from the Jarawa reserve. The development was the subject of a recent court case brought by a small section of Andaman authorities who wanted to stop the resort, and appealed against a Calcutta High Court ruling allowing it to continue.[11] The case and the attempt to deflect attention from the core issues and instead single out and target a legal business operation rather than address wider problems was the subject of much debate. Barefoot won the case on firm legal grounds and because the case against it had very little popular support.[12] The Light of Andamans editorialised an accusation of hypocrisy on the part of international and local NGOs in this and other related issues as ultimately unhelpful, and highlighted Survival International for procuring and using alleged contraband images of the Jarawa for fund raising for themselves, in violation of the very ideals they claim to campaign for.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference portman1898 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ George van Driem (2001), Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region : Containing an Introduction to the Symbiotic Theory of Language, BRILL, ISBN 9004120629, ... The Aka-Kol tribe of Middle Andaman went extinct by 1921. The Oko-Juwoi of Middle Andaman and the Aka-Bea of South Andaman and Rutland Island were extinct by 1931. The Akar-Bale of Ritchie's Archipelago, the Aka-Kede of Middle Andaman and the A-Pucikwar of South Andaman Island soon followed. By 1951, the census counted a total of only 23 Greater Andamanese and 10 Sentinelese. That means that just ten men, twelve women and one child remained of the Aka-Kora, Aka-Cari and Aka-Jeru tribes of Greater Andaman and only ten natives of North Sentinel Island ...
  3. ^ Sita Venkateswar (2004), Development and Ethnocide: Colonial Practices in the Andaman Islands, IWGIA, ISBN 8791563046, ... As I have suggested previously, it is probable that some disease was introduced among the coastal groups by Lieutenant Colebrooke and Blair's first settlement in 1789, resulting in a marked reduction of their population. The four years that the British occupied their initial site on the south-east of South Andaman were sufficient to have decimated the coastal populations of the groups referred to as Jarawa by the Aka-bea-da ...
  4. ^ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Francesco Cavalli-Sforza (1995), The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution, Basic Books, ISBN 0201442310, ... Contact with whites, and the British in particular, has virtually destroyed them. Illness, alcohol, and the will of the colonials all played their part; the British governor of the time mentions in his diary that he received instructions to destroy them with alcohol and opium. He succeeded completely with one group. The others reacted violently ...
  5. ^ "Jarawa", Survival International, 2009, retrieved 2009-07-06, ... The principal threat to the Jarawa's existence comes from encroachment onto their land, which was sparked by the building of a highway through their forest in the 1970s. The road brings settlers, poachers and loggers, who steal the tribe's game and expose them to disease...
  6. ^ Jarawa"primitives" and welfare politics in the Andaman Islands by Dr. Vishvajit Pandya 2 June 2007 http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/originals/PandyaWelfare/pandya-jarawawelfare.htm "The early history of Jarawa hostility towards outsiders was brought to a gradual end by a series of friendly contacts by the Indian administration which continued till 1998-99 when the Jarawa community on its own came in close sustained contact with the outside world. Despite the changing trajectories of the history of contact between Jarawas and outsiders, what remains significantly unchanged are perceptions of the Jarawa from colonial to post-colonial times." "The Jarawa no longer loiter on the roadside, waiting for charity from passing people. They now allow themselves to be photographed against payment in kind. The ATR has changed the Jarawa and made them conscious that they are objects of discipline for the administration or commodities for gawking tourists in search of the "exotic" in the Andamans. This understanding has helped them to negotiate situations involving outsiders with increasing confidence." "Jarawa seeking medical help are moved to the local medical establishments at once. It is no longer a situation of outsiders trying to convince Jarawa to come out and seek medical assistance. They do so willingly at their own initiative" "These Jarawa, as has been experienced, are very friendly, speak Hindi very fluently and regularly visit the local inkmhbgymljkhabitants for food. It has also been observed that a group of about 80 Jarawa who regularly visit the Tirur area are so friendly with the people that a few of the Jarawa children recently approached the local teacher for admission in the school as they had observed other children studying in the school".
  7. ^ a b Template:Ci ation
  8. ^ Anvita Abbi (2006), Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands, Lincom Europa, ... The building of the Andaman Grand Trunk road has exposed Jarawas to the city dwellers and exploitation. Their fish catch and game are bought for a simple packet of biscuits. Jarawa children have become very fond of biscuits and loiter on the street to il;jyhniomoijsatisfy their desire from visiting tourists. These are highly endangered tribes, yet a slight increase in the population such as an increase from 19 in 1961 to 50 [refer to the table 2 given above] of Great Andamanese builds some hope. Nine days after giant waves struck the Little Andaman Island, a child was born at a relief camp at soccer stadium and the Ongre tribe of hunters and gatherers took a step away from extinction. Post-Tsunami life for tribes is varied. While Jarawas are least affected by the calamity ...
  9. ^ "The road to destruction", India Together, retrieved 2008-11-19, ... In 1998, in an issue relating to excessive logging activities in Little Andaman and the danger posed to the Onge tribe, the Pune-based environmental action group Kalpavriksh, the Port Blair-based SANE and the Mumbai-based Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) filed a writ petition before the Kolkata High Court. The administration stonewalled it. It was argued that the matter could be taken up only in the Supreme Court, and the case landed there ...
  10. ^ a b "जारवा के इलाकों में पयर्टकों का प्रवेश बंद (Tourists' entry to Jarawa areas forbidden)", oneIndia.in, 2008-03-05, retrieved 2008-11-24, ... इस आदेश का उल्लंघन करने वाले आपरेटरों के खिलाफ कड़ी कानूनी कार्रवाई की जायेगी. बयान में कहा गया कि यह जनजाति क्षेत्र केन्द्र शासित प्रदेश के प्रोटेक्श्न आफ एबोआरिजिनल ट्राइब्स रेगुलेशन एक्ट (1956) के अतंगर्त आते हैं (Violators will be prosecuted strictly. These tribal areas fall under the purview of the union territory's Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation, 1956)... अंडमान ट्रंक रोड (एटीआर) पर पर्यटकों को ले जाते समय वाहनों को रोका नहीं जाये और न ही जारवा जनजाति के लोगों को अपने वाहन में बैठाया जाये. उन्हें यह भी कहा गया कि वे यह भी ध्यान रखे कि न तो जारवा जनजाति के फोटो लिये जाये और न ही उनकी वीडियोग्राफी की जाये (Vehicles in which tourists are transit via the ATR are not permitted to stop or offer rides to Jarawa tribal members. Photography and videography of Jarawas is prohibited) ... गणेशन ने कहा कि आधिकारिक तौर पर यह दिखाया जाता है कि पर्यटकों को एटीआर होकर बारातंत द्वीप की सैर कराई जाती है ... हर रोज करीब पांच सौ से अधिक पर्यटकों (Ganeshan said that, while on paper tourists are shown as transiting to Baratang Island ... over 500 are being taken to view Jarawas every day) ....
  11. ^ "Indian Luxury Resort Endangers Isolated Jarawa Tribe", Ecoworldly, retrieved 2009-07-03, The survival of the Jarawa tribe, on the Andaman Islands in India, is threatened by the construction of a luxury resort ...
  12. ^ "The Buffer Zone that was not to be", AndamanNicobar, retrieved 2009-08-07, The Buffer Zone notification was an ill conceived and impractical idea exploited to the hilt by the subordinate officers of tribal welfare department to create hype through local and outside NGOs
  13. ^ "Jarawa: why this hypocrisy", AndamanNicobar, retrieved 2009-08-07, The international community and tribal right activists including Survival International maintain a studied silence over their incursions, including long halt with the Jarawas. LoA has put this question and drawn a blank consistently. Why this hypocrisy? {{citation}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 20 (help)
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