1. CONTACT
1.7 The risk of deseases through contact
There is a widespread belief among the local Indian population and beyond that the Jarawa "live like animals" and that they must be "brought up to our level of civilization." This is no doubt feasible and perhaps advisable with some other endangered minorities in India - but quite impossible with the Andamanese. They are NOT just another tribe on the verge of extinction. There is no other population in the world that has been isolated from contact with the rest of humanity for so long (DNA research has suggested 30,000 years - at that time the mammoth was still roaming an Europe still half-buried under glaciers). "Socialization," "acculturization, "rehabilitation" and all the other reasonable-sounding Indian euphemisms are, in fact, covering up a genocide. An unintended genocide, to be sure, but still a genocide. The point about the Andamanese Negrito and a point that the Indian policymakers and their public seem unable to grasp is that the Andamanese CANNOT be "acculturized" and physically survive. In their aeon-long isolation, they have not acquired any resistance against most of the diseases that mankind has acquired since the Negrito opted out of the evolutionary rat race. It is not even known if an immune system as innocent as theirs can be boosted by inoculations, especially with so many potential killer diseases involved. It took 10 years after the arrival of the British and their prisoners in 1858 before the Great Andamanese who had friendly contact with the British started to die like flies. It is now a virtual certainty that this is what will happen to the Jarawa.
1.8 Indian policy towards the Jarawas
The then Head of the Andaman Administration, Lt.General I.P. Gupta, in the customary unctuous manner of such elevated dignitaries, commented recently on the self-created problem that "the Jarawa habitat has to be developed and enriched" and that "we must be careful not to overwhelm them." His Excellency also, at long last and more importantly, stopped the obnoxious official excursions into the jungle but it was much too late.
The sequence of events of the Jarawa outbreak during the late 1990s is as follows:
In July 1996 a Jarawa boy, En-mai, is found with a injured leg. He had fallen out of a coconut treee and broken hisleg. An Indian official found him and brought him to hospital at Kadamtala with the help of the Bush police. The local population (few of which had ever laid eyes on a Jarawa before) came en masse to crowd around the terrified boy in his bed and stare at him. En-mai was returned to the jungle on his recovery and disappeared for a while.
On 21st October 1997 a first group of Jarawa materializes in front of terrified villagers and demands food. They are fed bananas and coconuts and leave again.
22nd October 1997 two more Jarawa appear and are given food.
24th October 1997 a large group of 31 swims across a creek to come ashore at a jetty for the same purpose.
December 1999: En-mai brings his wife Jalla into Kadamtala hospital. She is very sick but recovers.
1999: a group of Indian organisations bring two court cases (one for the Jarawa and one for the Onge) against the Port Blair government on the grounds of dereliction of duty.
In the 12 months following the first excursion from the jungle the staggering number of 2008 Jarawa visitors is recorded - this when the total number of Jarawa is estimated at less than 200. Obviously, many come again and again.
Not all visits ended peacefully: a group of 30 attacked a police station in March 1998 for unstated reasons. On that occasion it is said that 600 blank shot were fired at them and one police officer remained paralyzed after receiving an arrow shot. A guilty administration was trying to keep the lid on the story as much as possible to stop embarrassing information leaking out, especially to the foreign media.
1.9 En-mai
The injured Jarawa boy En-mai mentioned earlier plays a peculiar role in the tragedy. After his release from hospital, he disappeared for a while and then reappeared among other Jarawa visitors. He became the pet of the Bush police, who allow him to be photographed and even interviewed in return for substantial gifts to themselves. He is the only (but probably not the last) Jarawa to wear western teenage-style clothing right down to the reversed baseball cap. It can only have been this boy who told his fellow Jarawa of the rich and effortless pickings to be had in the outside world. His hospital experience must have convinced him that if you can't beat them, join them. He is a natural leader, at least over the younger generation of Jarawa. Older people are noticeably absent from the drive "into town" and one astute obeserver has noted that after En-mai had returned for a while to his parents in the jungle he seemed to be sad and disturbed, although he would not say why. Later reports claimed that the older people did not approve of the youngsters' trip to town and that there were tensions between the generations. Welcome to the modern world, Jarawas!
After 2000, En-mai has become the centre of a cargo-cult like "movement" - he can bring in the goodies that the Port Blair government has spread among Jarawa until the recent court decision stopped such shenanigans. It is not yet clear how he will rescue his position with the source of his supplies cut off. Perhaps it will only be cut off officially. En-mai also now stands accused of having murdered the man he suspected to be the lover of his wife. Clearly, contact with the often quoted "civilized mainstream society of India" has not been good for poor En-mai.
