Pasted below is the approach paper from the Min. of Tribal Affairs Website
of the Jarawa Seminar to be held in Cal on April 7&8.
pankaj sekhsaria

http://www.tribal.nic.in/index1.html
Approach Paper for the Jarawa Seminar
The Historical Background

On the basis of the archaeological evidences in the forms of some stone
tools, bone and shell artefacts, and potsherds, the Andaman Islands had
possibly been inhabited since last two millennia (Dutta 1978:36; Cooper,
1990:99). Though the geographical location of the islands was known to the
sailors during most part of the period, almost nothing was known about the
islanders. Though we do not definitely know how the islands were peopled,
close biological affinity between the Andaman Negritoes and the Negrtoes
from Philippines and neighbouring regions of South-East Asia has been
suggested (Nei and Ray Choudhury 1982; Omoto 1984).
Radcliffe Brown (1948) classified the Andaman Islanders into two broad
groups on the basis of their linguistic and cultural affinities. The
Jarawas, Radcliffe Brown thought, migrated at some point of time from the
Little to Great Andaman islands. Probably this was the reason the Jarawas
were in perpetual enmity with their neighbouring populations. The first
phase of British settlement in the Andaman Islands was short-lived (1789 -
1796); during that period the Jarawas behaved in a friendly manner with the
colonisers. The second phase of colonisation (1858 onwards) started in a
similar note. The Jarawas generally remained aloof of the settlers; only
occasionally, they wounded some runaway convicts. The colonisers were bent
upon 'befriending' all pre-­colonial people in the interest of the
colonising programmes (Portman 1899:49). With this purpose, a number of
expeditions were organised through many years, which ultimately took the
shape of violent conflicts with the Jarawas. To implement different
programmes of colonisation, the Jarawas were even evicted from their
habitat.
A dividing line between the colonised area and the area occupied by the
Jarawas was finally drawn in 1957. That year, the Chief Commissioner of the
Andaman Islands declared certain territories as reserved for the
'aboriginal' people of the islands. Some parts of South and Middle Andaman
Islands were demarcated for the Jarawas. However, different colonisation
programmes in the post- independence years, like settling a large number of
people in the islands, forestry operations and laying of roads kept the
Jarawas disturbed; incidents of violent conflicts between the Jarawas and
the staff of the forest department bear testimony to that.
In 1974 some personnel of the Bush Police Force could establish friendly
relations with a section of the Jarawas. Since then groups of government
officials including policemen, doctors, administrators and anthropologists
used to visit them once in a month or in two months. Such visits helped
break down the wall of suspicion on both sides to a large extent. However,
as the reasons responsible for enmity were not removed, the Jarawas
continued to treat the occasional visitors with friendliness, the villagers
and other settlers with indifference and the extractors of resources from
their habitat with unfriendliness. The relationship took a new turn in April
1996 when a Jarawa boy with a broken leg was sent to Port Blair for medical
treatment. He was released in October of the same year and sent back to his
habitat with lots of gifts. When, in the later part of 1997, a group of
young Jarawas came out at Uttara Jetty, it seemed that the message of
friendship had reached the Jarawas through the boy. After that more and more
Jarawas visited settlement areas in Middle and South Andaman Islands. They
were noticed to accept eatables, garments and several other items offered by
some non-Jarawas.
The chain of events caught all concerned unprepared. There was much guess
and debate over the probable reasons responsible for such change in
behaviour of the Jarawas. Some people felt that the Jarawas were asking for
eatables and medicines because they were suffering from shortage of food and
different ailments. A Public Interest Litigation, WP No.48 of 1999 in High
Court of Kolkata, was filed seeking a directive to the Government to provide
all sorts of facilities and rehabilitation to the Jarawas, as was done
earlier for the Onges and the Great Andamanese of the Andaman Islands.
In pursuance of the order of the Hon'ble High Court, Kolkata, dated
9.4.2001, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, constituted an
Expert Committee. The Task of the Committee was as under:
a. To spell out the reasons which have caused sudden change in the behaviour
of Jarawas.
b. To suggest remedial measures to enable Government to formulate programmes
to save Jarawas from danger of total extinction or of losing their identity
and culture by merger with the vast humanity of the so-called civilised
society.
The Expert Committee decided to get the Jarawas studied/ surveyed through
multidisciplinary research teams in three phases to cover all seasons of a
year. The Departments involved in the survey were:
(1) Anthropological Survey of India,
(2) Botanical Survey of India,
(3) Forest Department, A & N Administration,
(4) Directorate of Health Services, A & N Administration,
(5) All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health,
(6) Zoological Survey of India.
It may be noted that the Directorate of Tribal Welfare, A & N Administration
and Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samity, acted as nodal agencies in the course
of the study.
The Jarawas divide their present day habitat into three territories; Boiab,
Thidong, and Tanmad. To ensure that the entire Jarawa population is studied,
the
composite study group was divided into three teams; those teams studied all
the three territorial groups of the Jarawas simultaneously. To understand
the probable seasonal variations in economic, health and other behavioural
aspects of the population, the study was conducted in three phases, roughly
corresponding to the three major seasons of the islands. Thus the study
teams conducted field investigations in the post-monsoon, summer-dry season,
and monsoon period. It continued between December 10, 2001 and September 9,
2002.
How unique are the Jarawas
Before the present study was conducted, our knowledge about the society,
economy, health and nutritional conditions of the Jarawas was very limited.
The information generated through the study can never be called exhaustive,
but we are in a position to attempt a limited comparison of the Jarawas with
the classical foragers found elsewhere. Many people believe that the
hunter-gatherers are vanishing. The problem is not only of physical
extinction, but of forcible acculturation also. In face of all these
hurdles, there are hunting-gathering communities in forty countries of the
world right now and many of them have shown the ability to persist in face
of innumerable oddities (Cambridge Encyclopaedia).
Defining a hunter-gatherer society is not an easy job, because they pursue
the activities of hunting and gathering in many ways and also because many
of them have taken up other means of livelihood to different extents. A
descriptive definition, therefore, has been attempted recently. It has been
stated that a group of classic or typical hunter-gatherers would live in
hand societies, they would be relatively egalitarian, prefer to be mobile,
land would be a common property among them, sharing would be the central
rule of socia1 integration, there would be an emotional and spiritual
relation between humans and their environment myth and actual world would
show 'hovering closeness', and shamanism would be practiced. The Jarawas
fulfill most of the above criteria and they turn out to be another group of
classical hunter-gatherers; they show very little uniqueness in this
respect.
It may, however, be noted that the Jarawas differ from most of the mainland
India communities practicing hunting and gathering. While the former lead a
secluded life from their neighbours for millennia, the mainland India
foragers often take part in local or even regional economy. This way they
have co-existed with their sedentary agriculturist neighbours for many
centuries.
Several studies suggest that close contact of a secluded nomadic
hunting-gathering community with other sedentary populations or
sedentarisation or the former often lead to great changes in their disease
pattern; they become susceptible to smallpox, measles, and polio.
Sedentarisation might read to create a favourable situation for endemic
enteric bacterial infections; subsequent herding of animals might increase
the frequency of zoonotic diseases.
The Jarawas might face a similar fate in near future, if we do not learn
from the earlier studies. Looking from this viewpoint it becomes necessary
that we learn from the
situations faced by other groups of classic or typical hunter-gatherers,
elsewhere. This would offer us a chance to learn from the successes and
failures in dealing with such communities elsewhere and save us to a large
extent from falling into same mistakes.
Courtesy: Director in-charge, Anthropological Survey of India, Dept of
Culture, Ministry of Tourism & Culture, Govt. of India, Jawaharlal Nehru
Road, Kolkata.
The Anthropological Survey of India had proposed to organise the seminar but
time constraints guided the matter otherwise.
Two-Day Seminar
In order to have open discussions of Experts, Individuals, NGOs having
knowledge and experience in the matter related to welfare/affairs of the
Jarawa tribe of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (UT), a two-day
seminar-­cum-workshop on Jarawa, Primitive Tribe Group of Andaman and
Nicobar Islands (UT) will be organised on 7-8 April, 2004 at Kolkata.
Cultural Research Institute, Department of Backward Classes Welfare and
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development and Finance Corporation,
Government of West Bengal, on behalf of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, will
organize the seminar.
***
For the complete Report of the Expert Committee on Jarawas of Andaman
Islands, please follow the link below:
http://www.and.nic.in/ecr/contents.htm

C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239