Islands in Flux

Title: Islands in Flux – The Andaman and Nicobar Story

Author: Pankaj Sekhsaria

Publisher: Harper Litmus, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9789352643981

Pages: 268

The Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands are the largest archipelago system in the Bay of Bengal, consisting of about 500 islands with a total area of approximately 8200 sq.km. Only 38 of these islands are inhabited and the archipelago is separated from mainland India by 1200 km of open sea. The nearest landmass from the island chain is Sumatra, located at a distance of 145 km. All these factors make them unique and extremely important in the case of social and strategic implications. This book is a selection of articles published by the author between 1998 and 2016, which are related to conservation of the fragile ecology, rights and changing nature of the tribal communities, tourism development and questions on development planning and policy in the islands. This book builds upon what the author’s ‘Troubled Islands’ offered in 2003. Pankaj Sekhsaria is a researcher, writer, photographer, campaigner and academic. He has worked extensively in the fields of environment and wildlife conservation with a particular focus on the A&N Islands. His debut novel was also based in the Andamans.

A&N Islands retain most of the original names given by the British. Many of them commemorate administrators and military leaders. Hugh Rose cornered Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi and his name is given to Rose Island. Demands are afoot to rename the island as Lakshmi Bai Dweep. Similarly, Havelock Island is named after the general who retook Lucknow from the mutineers, which could be renamed as Nana Sahib Dweep. In addition to these, the local names used by the indigenous tribes can also be used. The book contains an interesting list of local names. We must not lose sight of an important fact in this renaming spree. These islands were never a part of the political and social milieu of the mainland, and the annexation of the island chain to India was a gift of the British. Without their colonizing it first, it is highly likely that those islands would now have become the naval base of some of the prominent maritime powers like what came about in Diego Garcia.

Sekhsaria paints the picture of a very successful intervention by environmental groups on the economic life of the islanders. They were instrumental in bringing out a verdict from India’s Supreme Court in 2002 which ordered a stop to felling of trees from the island’s evergreen forests, closure of the wood-processing industry, banning traffic on the Andaman Trunk Road and a host of other far reaching observations. Timber extraction had peaked in 1980-81, which then tapered down and went totally blank in 2002-03 after the judgment. The book targets tourism as the single activity that can wreak havoc with the ecology of the islands. He attacks former President A P J Abdul Kalam for proposing the idea of using tourism as a plank in development. He even asks how a person with such good education can become so little informed on environmental concerns! Sekhsaria criticizes the government order to allow airfare as part of LTC (Leave Travel Concession) scheme of government employees. This was designed to increase arrival of tourists in the aftermath of the killer tsunami of 2004. It is estimated that one per cent of the total population of the islands perished in the tsunami. However, the subsidized tourism – also disparagingly called LTC tourism on account of the meager spending of such tourists – has been a bone of contention of the local tourism industry as well. As the number of tourists goes up, the carrying capacity of the islands get filled up. Port Blair is now witnessing rationing of water in summer.

A number of indigenous tribal communities still inhabit the islands, outside the reach of civilization and modern amenities. The earliest aborigines are thought to have colonized the islands 40,000 years ago. On such a vast time scale, the British period is hardly a page and India could only be a paragraph in the book of the human habitation of Andaman. Some of the tribes are said to be cannibals but the author doesn’t make a mention of this. The Jarawas are a prominent tribe that is now showing symptoms of becoming adapted to modern civilization. The Sentinelese are still hostile, but the author argues that on this hostility ‘stands the tribe’s best chance of surviving as an independent human community for some more time’ (p.24). The author elevates the ethno-medical knowledge of the tribes even greater than contemporary scientific practice and is apprehensive of the bio-prospectors and pharmaceutical multinationals ‘stealing’ that information. Most of the islands are out of reach of foreigners.

Sekhsaria and other environmentalists of the lot treat the local tribals as little more than an endangered animal species which needs to be protected from poachers rather than as fellow human beings. Mind you, these aborigines are roaming the steamy, disease-ridden tropical jungles stark naked – men, women, children and all. They don’t have recourse to education, medical facilities or any other convenience which technology has gifted to us and which we take for granted. Interaction and intermixing with the external society is strongly protested by these environmental fundamentalists. In fact, this is the only option to save them from sexual and physical exploitation as evidenced in a 2012 video shot by a tourist which pictured Jarawa women dancing around a tourist vehicle, begging for ‘exotic’ food. The head count of the tribes has come down drastically over the decades. The population of the Onge tribe is only about 100 and the Jarawas number around 500. It is a well known genetic fact that as the number of people in an endogamous society declines, inbreeding takes place and this leads to serious congenital disorders for future generations that are also usually lethal. Commonsense dictates that it is high time for the tribals to mix with the outside world – including marital relationships – and live a happier and more prosperous life. This will definitely cause them lose their ethnic purity, no doubt, but the days of racial purity and eugenics are long gone. Education is the primary requirement and right of such a society, to prepare its children to the vagaries and pitfalls of modernity. But the author and his fellow hard-line environmentalists want to hold them down to their jungle fastnesses and are content with tossing coconuts, bananas and packets of biscuits over to the tribals when they venture out of the forest in search of greener pastures.

The book is a collection of items that appeared in newspapers and journals over a span of nearly two decades. Naturally, repetitions abound in the 25 chapters arranged over six broadly defined fields ranging from the environment, tribal communities, military significance and the dreaded tsunami which devastated the Nicobar group of islands in 2004. The earthquake which caused the tsunami had made some startling tectonic shifts on the islands. The northern part of the island had experienced an up-shift of 1.5 m, while the southern part had subsided by as much as 4.5 m. Such scope for change in the geological foundations of the islands justifies the title of the book. A very nice collection of colour photographs add much value to the book. As no credits are expressed for the photographs, we may suspect that the author has taken these pictures himself. The book includes a good index and a very informative historical timeline.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star