A road runs through it

The most politically potent feature of this video clip may not be the unclothed women but the surface on which their bare feet skip. It is the Andaman Trunk Road or ATR,which connects Port Blair,on South Andaman Island,to the northern tip of Middle Andaman by cutting right through the Jarawa Reserve. Built in the 1970s despite fierce Jarawa resistance,the road has become a conduit for disease,addiction and sexual exploitation — and a bone of contention between advocates for the Jarawa and the political and business establishment of the archipelago. The Supreme Court had ordered the closure of the ATR in 2002,but 10 years later it remains open. The publication of the video is a conspiracy to compel compliance with the court order,charges the local BJP president,R Mohan,adding that the mainstream residents of the islands “will never forgive” the closure of the ATR by such “hook or crook”.

That the demise of the ATR would go a long way toward protecting the Jarawa is beyond dispute. To begin with,“tourist access to the Jarawa will be much reduced,” says Samir Acharya of the Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology. Sophie Grig of Survival International,a London-based organisation that campaigns for the protection of indigenous peoples,points out that closing the road would return control to the Jarawa over who enters their land: “At the moment,you have a daily invasion.” The Jarawa have inhabited the islands for tens of millennia,being direct descendants of the first humans in the region; they have a natural right to live in their territory without interference.

To reduce traffic on the ATR,the Andaman administration has recently leased five ships that will carry passengers to Middle Andaman provoking the ire of the Member of Parliament from the islands,Bishnu Pada Ray. The MP sees the action as a prelude to closing the road. The ATR is often described as a “lifeline” by which the sick from outlying regions reach the hospital in Port Blair. But Acharya says,“taking the road means many hours of a bone-shaking journey,no patient will survive it.” Patients from up north are often evacuated to Port Blair by helicopter. As for routine trips,ships are much cheaper than the buses that ply on the ATR.

The maintenance of the road also provides considerable incomes to quarry operators who supply stone chips,and to contractors who provide sand and bitumen. Denis Giles of Search,an Andaman-based group that seeks to protect the Jarawa,adds that the ATR enables the businessmen of Port Blair to control the distribution of tourists and commodities across the archipelago. Since ocean-going ships berth almost exclusively at Port Blair,passengers and goods disembark there and travel over the ATR to Middle Andaman and further north. Should the administration close the road and instead develop the port facilities at Mayabunder,at the northern tip of Middle Andaman,the dominance of Port Blair’s businessmen will be reduced; hence their determination to keep the ATR open. Then,of course,there are the tour operators who see the roadside Jarawa as a source of profit.

Perhaps most significant,the closure of the road would increase the autonomy of the Jarawa,slow the decay of their nomadic culture,and put off the day when their pristine territory,the last tract of Great Evergreen Rainforest left on the Andamans (according to satellite imagery) is available for exploitation. The MP has reacted with fury to the administration’s effort to create a buffer zone around the Jarawa reserve by closing down resorts in the surrounding area. Rather than being protected,the Jarawa “have to be educated and brought to the mainstream,” Ray asserts. The MP has even urged that Jarawa children be seized and raised on the Indian mainland — actions similar to those for which the Australian government has had to apologise to aborigines.

“If the Jarawa come to the mainstream,people will get more access to the reserve,” says Giles. “Politicians just care about their vote bank. They can assure the settlers,‘You will get more land.’” Should the Jarawa become settled,as have the Onge and the Great Andamanese before them,their jungle with its timber,bamboo,cane,fish,crabs,wild boar,honey,and innumerable other resources will become available for exploitation by grateful voters.

The outcome of this could be that the Andamans will run dry. Everywhere else on the archipelago,the jungles,however protected on paper,have been decimated or degraded. The Jarawa forest thrives because the tribesmen have traditionally defended it with their lives — and as a result it provides South and Middle Andaman with fresh water. Raindrops falling into the dense undergrowth trickle down,seep into the soil,and enter the water table,ultimately giving rise to perennial streams that supply the settler areas. Should the Jarawa forest be degraded,rain will run right off the denuded hillsides,and the already acute water problem that confronts the Andamans every summer will become insoluble.

As for the Jarawa themselves,if integrated into the mainstream “they will become beggars,” says Giles. Many locals speak of the Jarawa as “junglees” and will never treat them as equals. Realising where they stand in our phenomenally hierarchical society,where one man may be worth millions of other men,will come as a profound shock to the Jarawa,who have a totally egalitarian culture. In any case the attempt to settle and integrate nomadic people inevitably leads to severe mental health problems,including alcoholism,depression and suicide. In 2008,eight Onge men,women and children (out of a population of around a hundred) died after drinking an unknown liquid from a jerry can they had allegedly found on a beach and assumed to be alcohol. Among the Great Andamanese,who number about 50,sexual abuse of the girls by the welfare staff is common.

Then there are infections: having been isolated since prehistoric times,the Andaman natives have no immunity to killer diseases that are common in the mainstream,and easily succumb. Since 1998,when the Jarawa laid down their arms and began interacting with outsiders in peace,they have suffered epidemics ranging from measles to malaria,with the death toll being unknown. They now number around 400,but a single virus,such as HIV,could wipe them out.

Sadly,total isolation is no longer practicable because of the proximity of settler villages to the Jarawa forest. Poachers routinely intrude,and seek to manipulate the tribesmen by offering gifts and inculcating addictions. Some of the Jarawa,those too old to be under the constant supervision of elders but too young to assume household responsibilities,and who therefore have time to kill,have taken to voluntarily interacting with settlers,exchanging honey,crabs and other valuable jungle produce for rice,cloth,and chewing tobacco.

The Jarawa should be informed about the dangers posed by such interaction. “You need to have people they trust who can serve as consultants for them,give them answers about the outside world,” says Grig. “People who can listen to their concerns and put them in a position to decide their future.” Ultimately,it should be the Jarawa who determine whether or not to retain their autonomy and culture,or to merge into a viciously hierarchical civilisation that will always see them as savages.

Madhusree Mukerjee is the author of The Land of Naked People: Encounters with Stone Age Islanders