PHOTO OF SUPPLY-LINE DURGA PUJA IN ANDAMAN

या देवी सर्व भूतेषु...

Enjoy the Darshan's of Maa Durga at the Supply Line Puja Pandaal, near the Netaji Stadium, Port Blair:

JARAWAS ON THE STROLL IN ANDAMAN

Jarawas on the Stroll

Oh, what a spellbinding experience it was to have run into a group of young Jarawa boys and girls the other day, barely a couple of weeks ago at Collinpur, South Andaman as they suddenly appeared strolling down the road on their way back to their thickly forested reserved habitat after the day’s hunting and gathering!

I was, providentially, shooting there for a short documentary film on conservation of forests, with the Doordarshan, Port Blair team. It was almost a hair-raising experience to sight them all of a sudden and hear them speak Hindi and their own tribal dialect and interact, so amicably, with the villagers.

Serene Green view on the way to Collinpur from Port Blair

A tranquil view of the fields by the road-side…

I simply loved capturing this cool view of the lone Velodrome for cycling (see the picture above), near the Netaji Stadium on the historic Gymkhana Maidaan (ground) at Port Blair, flanked by the Marina Park by the sea. Stealing a look, on the far right, is the historic Ross Island, the British capital of the Andaman Islands.

Aah…! God bless the Jarawas

And their fellow tribes!

God bless Andamans!!!

SAVE THE JARAWA TO SAVE HUMAN RACE

Mother Nature Beckons – Save the Jarawa

The Jarawas on an elegant fishing spree

One year after the death of the last member of the Bo tribe of the Andaman Islands (January 26), the UK based International NGO Survival International, working for tribal peoples’ rights worldwide, has warned yet again that the neighbouring Jarawa tribe is also in alarming danger.

Boa Sr, the last member of a unique aboriginal tribe - Bo, died last January, aged around 85, and with her death a unique part of human civilization, culture, society and value systems, is now just a memory.

Late Boa Sr

The Jarawa tribe number about 365 people, and fiercely resisted contact with outsiders until 1998. These largely un-contacted people, who inhabit these pristine Andaman Islands and have voluntarily chosen to continue almost completely isolated, have been harassed by encroachment on their lands by the British and post-independence settlers, in the last 150 years.

Jarawa girls making flower necklaces on the ATR

Perennial pressure from poachers from the neighbouring countries like Myanmar & Thailand on the coast has driven them inland, and their nomadic and hunter-gatherer way of living has thus been increasingly threatened. Although a few Jarawas, particularly women and children, still come out onto the road or into the nearby settlements, they continue to live an admirably self-sufficient life in their forest.

They live in groups of 40-50 people, hunting pig and monitor lizard, fishing with bows and arrows, and gathering seeds, berries and honey.

Their survival became more jeopardized in 1970, with the building of a road through their forest, which brought more settlers, poachers and loggers into their land. Survival International has been calling for years the closure of that Andaman Trunk Road and removal of settlers from the tribal reserves. They have been campaigning to have the Jarawas’ rights to their land and to self-determination respected.

In 2002, the Govt. of India accepted to abandon resettlement plans for the Jarawa. And finally, in the face of strong political opposition, the Supreme Court of India accepted the recommendations of Commissioner Shekhar Singh, and issued the order to close the road, withdraw encroachers from the tribes' land, and end logging of their forests.

The order was issued in a petition about logging on tribal lands filed by the Society for Andaman and Nicabar Ecology (SANE), Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Kalpavriksh, a Pune based non profit organization working on environmental and social issues.

According to Survival’s director Stephen Corry, ‘As more and more people travel through the heart of the Jarawa’s land, the threat to their survival becomes ever more severe. If the Indian government is serious about preventing the extinction of yet another tribe, it must close the road.’

Statutory display of rules on the ATR

The government, meanwhile, has cleared the decks for creating a Buffer Zone around the Jarawa reserve in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. An amendment to the Andaman and Nicobar (Protection of Aboriginal Tribals) Regulation Act of 1956, promulgated by President Pratibha Patil on July 22, 2010 allows the island authorities to ban private tourism within the buffer zone. The proposal for a 5km-buffer zone has been sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs. It’s being heard that if cleared, the Lieutenant Governor would be able to curb commerce in the 5Km Buffer Zone.

But the islands’ Tribal Welfare department is understood to have appealed against the apex court’s order. The ATR road is a lifeline that links the South Andaman with the Middle and North. If closed, the sizable number of settlers in those areas is going to have a tough time in the absence of a suitable alternative arrangement for their essential connectivity with the capital.

Present-day Diglipur (N/Andaman)

Meanwhile, Bishnu Pada Ray, the MP for the Andaman Islands, who wants to keep the road open, called a couple of months ago for the government to ‘civilize’ the Jarawa. He has demanded, “Quick and drastic steps be taken to bring the Jarawa up to the basic mainstream characteristics and the restrictions imposed on development activities for national highway level maintenance of Andaman Trunk Road be lifted immediately. The restrictions posing to be an impediment to the laying of railways linking Port Blair with Diglipur are lifted immediately to facilitate initiation of the project. This would require going hand in hand with the lightening mainstreaming of the Jarawas, which will also ensure survival of the Tribe as an entity blatantly threatened in the present context.”

The Bo, the Jarawa and other aboriginal tribes are known to have lived on the Andaman Islands for about 55,000 years, making them the descendants of some of the oldest human cultures on Earth.

The Bo were one of ten tribes now collectively known as the Great Andamanese. Most of the Great Andamanese were killed or died of diseases brought by the British, who colonized the islands in 1858. The British tried to ‘civilize’ them by capturing them and keeping them in an ‘Andaman Home’, where many died.

A rare picture of the Great Andamanese of the yesteryears

Survival’s Sophie Grig said, ‘The Jarawa are perfectly capable of deciding their own future, as long as the forest they rely on is protected and they are not forced to live in the way someone else t hinks best. History has shown that attempts to impose development on tribal people and remove them from their land are disastrous.’

I vehemently feel that it’s indeed an agonizing irony that these tribes, the only people who are enlightened and erudite enough to be able to offer the so-called civilized world some of the rarest techniques of survival in this era of frequent disasters of mammoth degrees, are being mercilessly led to the most hapless extinction, much, in fact, to the peril of their civilized counterparts.

The grand ancient knowledge of the movement of wind, sea, underground vibrations and birds that was prudently passed on from one generation to another had superbly saved the five indigenous tribes on the archipelago from the gargantuan Tsunami that had hit the Asian coastline on Dec. 26, 2004, in stark contrast to the Nicobarese tribe that are now completely civilized, who suffered the maximum loss of life and property.

The author donating Rescue Kits to the Tribal Captain of a Nicobarese village after the 2004 Tsunami

What good did the civilized world do for the welfare of the hapless Nicobarese tribe by civilizing them, thereby forcing them away from their lifestyle in the lap of Mother Nature, and what good would they do again by meting the same treatment out to the other primitive tribes of the land?

An insightful, prudent and truly humane deliberation is indispensable before venturing to meddle with the future of these precious jewels of the human race. We have just watched the horrendous fate of Japan…

Wake up! If not for them, dread digging your own graves, at least…!!!

INDIA OF OUR DREAMS

What is India?

 

A nation where pizza reaches home faster than ambulance and police...

 

 

Where you get car loan @5% but education loan @12%...

 

 

Where rice is Rs. 40 but Sim card is free...

 

 

Where people standing at tea stalls, reading articles about child labour in newspapers, condemn vociferously and say, "Yaar! Bachchon se kaam karwaane waalon ko to faansi per chadha dena chahiye" and then they shout, "Oye, Chhotu! Do chaai la..!"

 

 

This is our India!

Incredible India!!!

 

As I always say, if we don’t see even a glimpse of the great India that was in the India that we see today, it clearly means that we are not working up to our actually enviable potential; and that if we do, we could once again be an ever shining and inspiring country setting a bright path for the rest of the world to follow.

 

Dear friends, if you agree with what I’ve said, please help spread this message across to our Indian brethren and make them realize their mistakes and vow to work towards building the India of our dreams…

 

JAI HIND!!!

THE NAGGING WATER CRISIS IN ANDAMAN

In Water…Without Water

 

‘Water, water everywhere /nor any drop to drink…’ these lines from The ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge define our Indian Islands. Wondering why? Read on…

 

The Indian islands comprise of the historic Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea. In spite of being surrounded by water, water has been a major problem in these Union Territories. Let’s take a trip of the taxing water crisis in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

 

The Dhanikhari Dam in South Andaman

(Picture courtesy: atcrossroads)

 

Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a group of 572 north-south running islands. The Andaman group covers 6,346 sq km, and the Nicobar group covers 1,953 sq km. This beautiful archipelago gets an average annual rainfall of 3,000mm. But, most of the rain water is lost as surface runoff due to the islands’ rugged physiography (physical features).

 

 

The soil cannot retain water, as it is composed of clay and sand. The soil has to be rich in sand and gravel to provide high permeability, which is necessary for constructing groundwater-harvesting structures like dug-wells.

 

For ages, the aboriginal tribes in the different islands here followed different methods of harvesting rain and groundwater. Here are a few examples:

 

Water storage system of the Shompen and the Jarawa Tribes

 

The Shompen and the Jarawa tribes use bamboo to direct water to shallow pits called Jack-wells, built in increasing order of sizes. In the lower southern part of India’s last and the largest, the Great Nicobar Island, the Shompen tribal-folk make bunds using logs of hard bullet wood. For irrigating crops, they direct the flow of rains to the fields situated at lower elevations by digging channels.

 

The Shompens and the Jarawas cut a full length of bamboo longitudinally and place it along a gentle slope with the lower end leading into a shallow pit called Jack-well. A series of increasingly bigger Jack-wells is built, connected by split bamboos so that the overflows from one lead to the other.

 

A jar or pitcher is often placed under a coconut tree during a shower of rain. A conducting spout made from stem or a branch is inserted into the mouth of the jar to fill it up with freshwater.

 

Among the Onges of the Little Andaman Island, buckets made of logs and giant bamboo are often found suspended from the roofs of the huts along with nets and baskets to trap rainwater.

 

 

Unfortunately, most of the traditional water harvesting systems have been neglected and are in a bad state. For instance, the Dilthaman Tank, built by the British to provide water during the construction of the infamous Cellular Jail, is languishing due to excess silt that has reduced its storage capacity. Though the Andaman & Nicobar Administration tried to revive the traditional water harvesting systems in the late 1980s, it is now promoting drilled bore-wells in the new colonies.

 

The Dilthaman Tank at Gandhi Park, Port Blair

 

In 2007, the Port Blair town faced unprecedented water crisis due to failure of north-east monsoon in the end of 2006 & delay in setting of South West monsoon in 2007. As a result, distribution of water to general public was being made once in 4-5 days. This necessitated A & N Administration to initiate a number of schemes as well as to cope up with situations which arose in 2007.

 

The situation is worsening by every passing year as there has been a drastic reduction in the amount of rainfall that the remote islands now receive, in addition to the severe damage that has already been done to the environment because of the tremendously relentless series of earthquakes after the disastrous Tsunami of 26^th December, 2004.

 

But unlike the Tsunami, this is a man-made disaster. Over the past 54 years, the population on the islands has soared, rising from just 30,000 in 1951 to a staggering 480,000 now. Three summers ago, water supplies ran so low that the local administration, the largest employer by far in this Union Territory, took the unprecedented step of granting mass leave to its staff, hoping they would return to the mainland during the summer vacations of the children’s schools in the two months of May & June, leaving more water for those who stayed back.

 

And a sudden rise in tourism after the unforgettable fiasco has increased the requirement of fresh water manifold as the consumption has increased to almost an unmanageable extent now. The Administration is found helpless to cope up with the increasing crisis despite the multifarious ongoing projects like building of small dams to collect rain water in and around the hills and the valleys and setting up salt water treatment plants for desalination of sea water, to boot.

 

The status quo is unpromising with the Administration cutting down domestic water supply to once a week, now, to make matter worse for the questioning islanders, who have been left in the lurch by their so-called ‘care-takers’ at the receiving end for ages…

I CAME, I SAW AND I WAS ENCHANTED

“I Came, I saw & I was Enchanted!”

 

 

Thanks to the requests of a good number of my esteemed readers here over the past one year, I’ve been tempted to publish the rich, chequered, extraordinarily spine-tingling but very momentous history of these exemplary group of serene islands of Andaman & Nicobar, in a summarizing fashion, for the benefit of students, anthropologists, scientists, archeologists, sociologists, linguists, environmentalists, tourists and other general readers alike.

 

So, dive in and treat yourself with a unique and enchanting saga of human settlement that rekindles the reaction of Daniel Defoe’s legendary Robinson Crusoe, who said, “I came, I saw and I was enchanted!” J

 

Floating in splendid isolation, south-east of the Indian mainland is the archipelago of 572 emerald islands, islets and rocks known as Andaman & Nicobar Islands. This Union Territory is stretched over an area of more than 700 Km. from north to south with 36 inhabited islands and is divided into three districts – North & Middle Andaman and South Andaman to the North and Nicobar to the South. The North and the South districts are separated by about 90 nautical miles of sea – The Ten degrees Channel. These islands are the continuation of the ‘Arakan Yoma’ mountain range which extends from Myanmar up to ‘Achin Head’ of Indonesia.

 

 

These undulating islands are covered with dense forests and endless variety of exotic flowers and birds. The topography of the islands is hilly and abounds in evergreen forests. The sandy beaches on the edge of the meandering coastline are fringed with coconut-palms that sway to the rhythm of the sea. The sea around the islands offers excellent scope for water sports.

 

The rare flora and fauna, underwater marine life and corals, with crystal clear water and mangrove-lined creeks, offer a dream-view of the rare gifts of nature. The clean and wide roads, free of filth as well as unpolluted fresh air attract any nature-lover, who seeks absolute peace and tranquility in the lap of nature. Adventure tourism like trekking, island camping, snorkeling, scuba diving etc. are the real attractions. A visit to these islands is, undeniably, a memorable lifetime experience.

 

 

Mythologically, the name ‘Andaman’ was presumed to be derived from ‘Hanuman’, who was known to the Malays as ‘Handuman’. The name ‘Nicobar’ seems to be a corruption of the South Indian term ‘Nakkavaram’ (Land of the Naked) as indicated in the great Tanjore inscription of AD 1050.

 

Since prehistoric times, these islands have been the home of aboriginal tribes. The tribes of the Andaman group of islands are the Great Andamanese, Onges, Jarawas, and the Sentinatese, all of Negrito origin, while the tribes of Nicobars are the Nicobarese and Shompens, both of the Mongoloid stock.

 

The first settlement by the British took place in 1789, which was later abandoned in 1796. The second settlement was basically a penal settlement, taken up in 1858, after the First War of Indian Independence, followed by the settlement of convicts, ‘Moplas’, some criminal tribes from the then Central and United Provinces, refugees from the erstwhile East Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar) and Sri Lanka as well as ex-servicemen.

 

The Social Make Up

 

In these exemplary islands, people of all faiths - Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs etc., and of all languages like Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Nicobarese etc., live together in complete peace and harmony. Inter-religious and inter-regional marriages are common. This amazing racial and cultural mix is correctly described as ‘Mini India’.

 

An old picture of a street in Port Blair, the present-day capital.

 

Forests are the green extension over gold of the islands. The reserved and protected forests extend over 86% area of the territory and the forest cover is more than 92%. About 50% of the forests have been set aside as Tribal Reserves, National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries, which are inviolate.

 

Luxuriant Mangroves, perhaps the richest in the world, occupy nearly 11.5% of the territory. More than 150 plant and animals species are endemic in nature. Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park is rich in corals, varieties of colored fishes, sea turtles etc., besides other marine life. It is a bird’s paradise - more than 271 varieties of birds inhabit the idyllic landscape, out of which 39 are endemic. Megapode, Swiftlet, Hornbill and Nicobar Pigeon are some of the specialties of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

 

The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago comprising of 572 Islands, islets and rocks, float in the clear blue waters of the Bay of Bengal, 700 nautical miles off the South Eastern coast of India. Andamans are the Weather Windows to the Indian Peninsula as majority of the systems which affect the Mainland have their origin in the Andaman Sea. The Isles experience a tropical monsoon climate. Temperature is moderate and relative humidity is high. With both North-East & South-West monsoons being received, it rains for about eight months a year. December to March is the season of relatively fair weather with winds, generally East/North-Easterly, accompanied by occasional showers.

 

 

Continue Reading Here.

GOVT SCHOOL TOPS CBSE EXAMS IN ANDAMAN

Adieu To A Teacher!!!

 

The results of the CBSE class XIIth exams in respect of all the schools in the islands have been made available on 20 May, 2010. According to a press release issued by the Directorate of Education, the overall pass percentage of the students in the islands stood at 75.75% while for the government-run schools, the percentage was 73.14%. Out of the 4023 students who took the examinations this time, 3047 have come out successful, 717 have been placed in compartment and the remaining 256 have been declared failed.

 

 

The three schools, which have secured 100% result in the examination, include Govt. Sr. Sec School Malacca, Car Nicobar, Navy Children School, Port Blair and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Panchavati, Middle Andaman. The students who secured the Top Ten positions in the islands are Nithya Nair of Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya (96.4%), who got the first rank as the Islands’ Topper, Arnab Biswas of Carmel Sr. Sec. School (96.0%) has stood second and Mayank Chadha of Kamaraj English Medium School (95.6%) has been placed on the third rank.

 

The remaining positions are as follows: Gaurav Chauhan of SSS Carmel (95.2%), Arjit Raj of GSSS Model (95.0%), Priyanka Sankaran of GSSS Model (94.4%), Sanjana Upadhyay of GSSS Model (94.0%), Deepti Kumar Paladugu of GSSS Model (93.2%), Pritam Mazumdar of Navy Children School (93.2%), Annu Janardhan of Navy Children School (93.%), Nitin Chandran of SSS Carmel (93.%), Varun Singh of GSSS Model (92.8%) and Praveen Ganesh of VKV (92.8%).

 

Meanwhile, the Principal Secretary (Higher Education) as also the senior officers of the Directorate of Education, A & N Administration have congratulated the heads of schools, toppers and their parents for bringing out good results, the release added.

 

Personally, it’s a matter of immense delight for me to see a girl student of the Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya, Port Blair, of which I have been a student of the very first batch way back in the eighties, securing the glorious first rank in the entire island territory. The august institution has been a stalwart alternative for the students of these far-flung islands who earlier had to make do with the slapdash herd of government-run schools and merely a couple of other private educational institutions.

 

It’s a truly refreshing feeling, nevertheless, to see the government-run Model Senior Secondary School doing exceedingly well this time producing most of the top-ranking students in the islands, under the sincerely proficient direction of the out-going Principal, an ever vivacious leader, Dr. Veena Parekh.

 

She is retiring on superannuation from an outstanding service on June, 30, 2010, emphatically establishing the fact that government-run institutions can work wonders if those managing them mean business and are devoutly dedicated. It’s now for her successors to uphold the refreshingly proud change that Dr. Parekh has brought about.

 

There couldn’t have been a better souvenir for her from her students than the enviable result they have come out with, at the twilight of her brilliant career as a devoted teacher with a persistently optimistic eye for a consummate future. Hearty congratulations to all the successful students and…

 

Thankful kudos and farewell to Dr. Veena Parekh!!!

 

News courtesy: The Daily Telegrams

WHITE CHILDREN BORN IN JARAWA TRIBE

Non-Negrito Children Born in Jarawas

 

The Member of Parliament of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bishnu Pada Ray has said that he had the list of three non-Negrito children ''born'' in a Jarawa family.

''As refugee settlements were established in the nearby Jarawa areas, they now keep connection with the villagers. They sell crab, deer meat in exchange of food items like rice, masala (spices), oil etc,'' the MP informed UNI a couple of days ago, to the quaking astonishment of all those concerned.

Allegations were leveled in the past that the Jawara women were being exploited by the non-tribal population, living or working near the Jarawa Reserve area. The MP said that he had already highlighted this issue in the Parliament on 28 April, 2010.

''Their connection with the villagers is increasing. In a Jarawa house, non-Negrito children have born. As a proof, the names of the three children are with me,'' he added. Mr. Ray requested the government to look into the problems of the Jarawas and increase the staff strength, appointed for the protection of the aboriginal Jarawa Tribes. He also urged the government to appoint employees on regular basis with proper salary.

The Jarawa tribals of the Andaman Islands chose to resist contact with all outsiders until 1998. However, they have been under serious threat of going extinct, of late, due to regular contact with the outside world.

Meanwhile, talking to UNI, a local environmental activist, Samir Acharya said that this was not the first such incident that has come in limelight. ''If the MP's statement is true, then it is surprising that the non-Negrito children are still alive. Earlier, people belonging to the Jarawa tribe never used to tolerate mix-up in their community. There were cases when they had killed non-Negrito children after they were born,'' the Secretary of SANE (Society of Andaman and Nicobar Ecology) told UNI.

Appalling, to say the least…!!! Well, what gamut of convolutions are the authorities waiting for before deciding to act potently and judiciously, if they really mean to do so, at all, to secure the fate of the Jarawas, who are nearing extinction, in many and various ways…?

News courtesy: http://www.netindia123.com

A TRIBE & LANGUAGE GO EXTINCT IN ANDAMAN

Alas!

A Tribe is Wiped-Out!!!

The last member of a unique aboriginal tribe has died on the Andaman Islands…

Boa Sr, who died last week aged around 85, was the last speaker of ‘Bo’, one of the ten Great Andamanese languages. The Bo are thought to have lived in the Andaman Islands for as much as 65,000 years, making them the descendants of one of the oldest human cultures on Earth.

Boa Sr was the oldest of the Great Andamanese, who now number just 52. Originally ten distinct tribes, the Great Andamanese were 5,000 strong when the British colonized the Andaman Islands in 1858. Most were killed or died of diseases brought by the colonizers.

Having failed to ‘pacify’ the tribes through violence, the British tried to ‘civilize’ them by capturing many of them and keeping them in an ‘Andaman Home’. Of the 150 children born in the home, none lived beyond the age of two. The surviving Great Andamanese depend largely on the government for food and shelter, and abuse of alcohol is rife.

Boa Sr survived the Asian tsunami of 26, December 2004, and told linguists, “We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us ‘the Earth would part, don’t run away or move’. The elders told us, that’s how we know.”

Linguist Prof. Anvita Abbi, who knew Boa Sr for many years, said in an interview to the Hindu, “Since she was the only speaker of ‘Bo’, she was very lonely as she had no one to converse with… Boa Sr had a very good sense of humor and her smile and full throated laughter were infectious.”

“You cannot imagine the pain and anguish that I spend each day in being a mute witness to the loss of a remarkable culture and unique language.”

Boa Sr told Abbi she felt the neighboring Jarawa tribe, who have not been decimated, were lucky to live in their forest away from the settlers who now occupy much of the Islands.

Stephen Corry, Director of ‘Survival International’, an organization that supports tribes worldwide, said, “The Great Andamanese were first massacred and then all but wiped out by paternalistic policies which left them ravaged by epidemics of diseases, and robbed of their land and independence.”

“With the death of Boa Sr and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory. Boa’s loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands.”

“One of the world's oldest dialects, which trace its origins to tens of thousands of years ago, has become extinct after the last person to speak it died on a remote Indian island.”

She died last week in Port Blair, the capital of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Great Andamanese had the biggest population of all the island tribes until the early 20th century.

As I’ve written in my earlier posts, too, the cluster of more than 572 islands, of which only about three dozen are inhabited, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home to six tribes of Mongoloid and African origin, who have lived here for thousands of years.

The current home of the Great Andamanese is Strait Island, a small island in the Middle Andaman Region.

It indeed is very distressing to see that such rich heritage has been lost and we could not preserve it. We have not just lost a person in Boa, but also many unknown ancient facts and hidden secrets of environment which we will never be able to know, now. I hope I’m wrong.

Indigenous people the world over have received a raw deal at the hands of the colonizers. The death of languages in the Andamans is a huge setback for the common human heritage. Languages do not only help one to communicate but are also are a loaded repository of knowledge. A great deal can be learnt from the fast vanishing languages.

Haplessly, preservation of languages also is not a priority in the governmental policies apart from the scores of other such grossly neglected issues. It is unfortunate that we are brazenly failing in our efforts to conserve these unique languages.

It’s indeed a very gloomy day when a language dies because with that a unique culture, society and value systems also die. The menace is very real and due to happen to the languages in the mainland India too. All our languages are in danger of dying out if the onslaught of English is not reversed.

It can be lucidly deciphered that in the cities all over India, the Indian languages are already dying amongst the English educated families. Most of these families speak a very pidgin variety of the language with English words predominating. The younger generation is getting further out of touch with the 'mother tongue'. When the mother herself cannot speak that language, what happens to the 'Mother Tongue'! The generations to come would get further aloof from their mother tongue.

If you look around, the entire public space is dominated by English. Indian languages are restricted now to just being 'spoken'. None of the so called elite write or read their mother tongue. Since they are the role models for the others lower down the ladder, this trend will only go burgeoning. This is the common state of affairs even in the rural areas and mofussil towns in the country.

My rueful guess is that in 50 years from now, all Indian Languages will be near extinction unless something far-reaching is done to reverse this trend, on a war-footing. Is anyone listening…?

Stats & figures courtesy: http://www.msnbc.msn.com

ANDAMAN ISLANDS TOURISM FESTIVAL

Islands Tourism Festival

Staying far away from the Indian mainland deep in the Bay of Bengal, farther from the country and at a stone’s throw away from Indonesia and Myanmar, the local Islanders of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands had no mode of social/public entertainment, other than the enormously gorgeous natural surroundings and a few under-developed tourists’/picnic spots around Port Blair, the capital.

With the advent of the nineties in the last century, the handful of below-par cinema theaters that ever existed closed down as they couldn’t sustain with the exorbitant operational costs as against the feeble turn out of viewers owing to a petite population in the Islands. Satellite television or ‘cable TV’, as we know it, had already made way into the Islands around the late eighties making the matters worse for their survival.

The Andaman & Nicobar administration, under the visionary leadership of Lt. Gen. (Rtrd.) Tirath Singh Oberoi, the then Lieutenant Governor of the Islands, began organizing an annual exhibition in the historic Gymkhana Ground at Port Blair with the name – “Islands on the March” during the late eighties. The intention was to showcase the development activities of various departments under the Administration and also the future projects to be taken up for the benefit of the Islanders with notable emphasis on promotion of tourism in these Islands.

A number of cultural and entertainment programs were organized during the annual exhibition in which the local Islanders including the high-spirited tribal population of Nicobar were encouraged to participate with immense fervor. The tourists visiting the Islands used to have the phenomenal benefit of enjoying the ambiance as well as exploring a great deal about the unique history, cosmopolitan culture and remarkable tradition of these exemplary Islands.

Under the most competent headship of Vakkom Purushotthaman, the subsequent Lt. Governor, one of the best administrators that these Islands have ever seen, the exhibition underwent a conspicuous metamorphosis in the early nineties, with the venue shifted to the police ground near the Veer Savarkar airport and the nomenclature also was shuffled and the event renamed from the erstwhile “Islands on the March” to “Islands Tourism Festival”.

Thanks to the glossy influential leadership of Vakkom, who had earlier been the Speaker of the Kerala Legislative Assembly for years together, more and more funds began to be allocated for the annual gala and the Islanders were treated for the very first time, with the best of talents & celebrity performers from Bollywood and other high class cultural troupes from multifarious corners of the country, right here in the Bay of Bengal.

It was made sure that the culture, art and tradition of these Islands were promoted by way of the annual gala and that tourism, Islanders’ welfare and development received the premium impetus. The festival was to be used as a potent innovative medium to highlight these attributes of the Islands before the visiting tourists, primarily, and the media at large.

Come the 21st century and the only annual state-level festival in these Islands underwent another transformation, and this time it was for worse, thanks to the change of hands and heads at the administrative leadership, which made sure that the best golden era of development in the history of the Islands came to a screeching halt after Vakkom was replaced by his successors.

The ITF has now been left to nothing but the theater of the absurd fabricated by the infamously inert Andaman & Nicobar Administration... A categorical farce and nothing else...!!! It has, in fact, been reduced to a brazen exhibition of the A & N Administration's paucity of brain and utter indifference towards the local residents of the Islands.

There’s almost nothing to do with the display of development of tourism or the current tourism related activities and initiatives in the grossly neglected pristine Islands, which if potentially utilized could give a gung-ho competition to the neighboring countries like Thailand & Malaysia, which have been doing a tremendously commendable job of promoting their tourism potential in the name of the “Andaman Sea”.

The very first attribute of the only annual exhibition or “Tourism Festival” as the administration relishes calling it, which haunts me, is the very name. Why is it called the “Islands Tourism Festival”, at all, when most of the participants in the various cultural programs/performances & exhibition stalls are invited from the mainland India? I think it’s an absolute thoughtless misnomer!

I mean, if it was truly meant to be an Islands' Tourism Festival; which it is supposed to be at least in the name of organizing something entertaining yet meaningful for the sake of the luckless Islanders of these vulnerable and disaster-prone Islands and the welfare thereof; then most obviously and befittingly, most of the participants/performers ought to be from amongst the Islanders and about the Islanders.

On the contrary, the administration, now invites mostly substandard performers from the mainland India not to present anything related to the Islands’ tourism or the amazing cosmopolitan culture, but to present various other cultural arts and acts that are not related to the Islands’ tourism development in any manner, at all.

Gone are the days, when the Islanders used to be treated with the likes of the famous Bollywood singers Kumar Sanu, Abhijit, Suresh Wadkar, Meenakshi Seshadri, Johny Lever, and Baba Sehgal and so on.

Artistes from South Zone Cultural Centre, East Zone Cultural Centre, Song and Drama Division, Kolkata and many other troupes are invited to take part in the Islands Tourism Festival every year and paid handsomely to the tune of 2.5 to 3 lakh rupees per troupe apart from the free up and down travel fares and accommodation at Port Blair, whereas the Islanders’ troupes are paid to the tune of a measly defamatory sum of 3000 rupees per troupe only.

And on top of it all, the participation of the local indigenous tribes is drastically thinning, year after year, despite the fact that the buoyant Nicobarese tribe is immensely talented and their cultural performances are a real treat to watch for anyone from anywhere in the world. The proud fact that Full Birth, one of the Nicobarese tribal youth has been India’s National Cycling Champion, seconds my contention.

The only silver lining in the cloud in this year’s ITF, which began on January 7, 2010 and wound up on January 15, 2010, was that the “Andaman and Nicobar Administration, after a long hiatus, have come out with a comprehensive tourism policy document, which seems promising, but the distrust that it has created for decades may be the toughest stumbling block in its implementation”, as reported by the Light of Andamans.

“The Tourism Trade, as the press statement claims to have been involved in its preparation, seems to be totally indifferent towards the approach of the tourism department. Their univocal feeling further shows how the whole system runs and also the people behind it. Without a total change in mindset, nothing drastic can be done by the policy.” - (LoA)

“The Tourism Policy is not going to bring about any miracle overnight. Small steps that one takes towards the goal define how the projects and dreams are going to come true within the timeframe. The website of tourism department is in shambles. It was last updated a decade ago. The information it contains are obsolete. The Island Tourism Festival it features was held in 2002. Do you really need a policy to update the information on a website? At the same time, hundreds of small and amateurish websites developed and hosted by small tour operators and auto rickshaw drivers is the face of Brand Andaman on the internet. As Vivek Rae, CS mentioned in his speech at the inaugural function of Island Tourism Festival, the media campaigns are all spontaneous reactions without any strategy.” - (LoA)

In a nutshell, the fact that these serene historic coral Islands have an encouraging coastline of 1912 sq km and umpteen number of striking virgin beaches to complement it with, there are stupendous prospects of development in the field of tourism and other related sectors, but the issues, nevertheless, remain unaddressed, plainly because there's a supreme lack of intent on the part of the doers - the brazenly sluggish administration.

And to add to the long-standing misery of us Islanders, the political leadership whom the Islanders themselves elect, are either squarely incompetent or too busy trying to make sure that they don't miss out on their chunk of fortune. And that has been the customary response, of their glorious predecessors throughout the entire country, to coming to power for a full five years a term.

Well, where are we heading…?