For years people of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, some 1,000 kms from the mainland, have proudly described their Union Territory as a casteless Mini India. Indeed, official records of the ANI administration haven’t had Other Backward Class categorisations. But now a job reservation plan of the administration is creating a rift among islanders. The Andaman & Nicobar Commission for Other Backward Classes (OBC) has recommended the reservation of 38 per cent government jobs, to be shared by two broad groups: sons of the soil, and post-1949 settlers. The former are descendants of families of freedom-fighters incarcerated here by the British, and the latter are mainly Bengali Hindu groups resettled here by the government post-1949. Other groups given OBC status are the Moplahs of Kerala, the Karens, and the Bhatus, brought to the Andamans for labour. “The communities that have been included in the OBC list are those who came here for historical reasons, have been settled here by the government and don’t have any other Indian state to go back to. For them, the process of implementation of the recommendation is already underway,” said G.C. Joshi, secretary, Tribal Welfare Department of the ANI administration. About the others, he said: “Why did these people come here? They came here for leisure and started their own business and settled down. Their case is different from the settlers and they should not expect to get job reservations.” But this is hotly contested. Said Sanjay Chowdhury, president of the Hotel & Restaurant Association of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, “In the 1950s, thousands of people were recruited by the central government to help develop the islands. In those days, only one ship came here in a month, quality education was lacking, the whole area was thickly forested, malaria was rampant. Even potatoes were brought from the mainland. To say we settled here for leisure is an absurd idea and the commission’s recommendations are incomplete and hideous.” He is supported by other groups representing the settlers from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. The three groups — the Andaman Tamizhar Sangam, the Andhra Association and the Malayalee Settler Association of A & N Islands — have teamed up to launch a widespread agitation against the “divisive policies of the government.” Malayalee association president Dr R Tulasi Dasan alleges a bias: “Why did the commission survey mostly Bengali-populated areas and not visit places like Keralapuram in Diglipur, Betapur in Middle Andaman, Burma Nallah, Hope Town and Dundas Point in South Andaman, where Malayalees have been settled? Now that the administration is dividing society, there will be big disputes between communities.’’ G Dinakaran of the Tamizhar Sangam argues on similar lines. “Why weren’t Tamils, brought her to develop plantations, as labourers, considered for the list? The work of the OBC commission was done in a hush hush manner and clearly some vested interest was at work.” Government jobs — some 33,000 of them, for a population of over 3.5 lakh — are among the most coveted here, since there’s hardly any industry, and only a fledgling tourism sector. Many are of the opinion that the same reservation policy that was successfully and unanimously accepted for the higher education sector should have been applied to the employment sector as well. Under the yearly allocation of seats for ANI by the Central government for higher education in the Indian mainland, 50 percent of the seats were reserved for pre-1942 and post-1942 settlers, 20 per cent for those with 10 years continuous education in the islands, 20 per cent for tribal groups and 10 per cent for children of central government employees. Thulasi Dasan says that if this scheme never created any problems, why change it for jobs. S Choudhury, general secretary of the A & N Territorial Congress Committee, says his party is clamouring for a broader reservation base through the application of domicile status rule, which will naturally disqualify applications from the mainland. The Bengal Association of ANI has also protested. It says only 21 per cent of the Bengalis have been surveyed, and those not settled here by the government were left out. The secretary of the Tribal Welfare department of ANI administration, which will implement the quotas, brushes aside the fears being expressed about society being divided. But people like Dhinakaran say they shudders to think of the day when youths hit the streets in protest.
