ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR - SIX YEARS AFTER TSUNAMI

Living with the Sea

 

Man has always been fascinated by power and beauty. He finds it both a challenge and an opportunity; challenge to tame the powerful and opportunity, to conquer the beauty. And oceans and seas across the world offer both.

 

Naturally, since time immemorial, large water bodies have always attracted mankind in various ways. Oceans and seafronts with vast expanse of water spread across the horizons – all the more so. Ferocious waves breaking over distant rocks with a roar, turning the shore white with foam and spreading a fine mist in the air around, is a thrilling scene to behold.

 

 

The gentle ripples whispering sweet nothings in the ears of scurrying hermit crabs in golden sandy beaches is an equally enchanting and refreshing experience. Seashores, waves and beaches have always excited and stimulated the poets, authors and painters to contribute exquisite pieces to their respective fields of creativity.

 

Oceans and deep seas have their own share of mysteries, myths, legends and parables – be it the mermaids, fire-spitting dragons, sea-demons, water spouts, whirl-pools baffling underwater currents or the scientific puzzles like the Bermuda Triangle. There are also the enticing lagoons, the captivating mangrove lined creeks beaconing the nature lovers.

 

Mangrove lined creek near Baratang Island (South Andaman)

 

Water sports have acquired their own dimensions over the years – adventure sports, more so. Wind surfing, yachting, kayaking and trans-oceanic expeditions have always allured the brave and courageous people. These events test the courage, endurance and spirit of adventure of the enthusiasts.

 

Swimming, the oldest water sport has lost much of its charm. Yet it is the first brush with water and that too physical and intimate one. It remains and will always remain man’s primary engagement with water.

 

Water Sports for tourists at Aberdeen Water Sports Complex, Port Blair

 

Sea or for that matter an ocean is not all about Cleopatra’s beauty or Wordsworth’s poetry or Michelangelo’s paintings. It is much more substantial. There is an entire universe out there in the sea – much more exciting and breathtaking. A whole world of plants and animals, the corals, the weeds etc. add life and colour to the mystery of the sea.

 

It is a major source of food for the teeming millions and so far, just about 2% of the seafood resources have been exploited. Various species of fish, sea-weeds and other organisms make a substantial contribution to manufacture of drugs and medicines. Fossil fuel and precious mineral-nodules hold a great promise to meet our future demands.

 

It is not for nothing that tens of thousands of people rush to waterfronts to get themselves refreshed and rejuvenated. The entire economy of small coastal and island nations depends entirely on tourism. Fishery is the mainstay of another dozens of nations providing direct or indirect employment to millions of people.

 

But for all the bounties we receive from the sea, what do we give it in return?

 

 

We pollute its crystal clear water, jeopardizing plant and animal lives, corals and sea-weeds. We spill millions of tons of crude oil when a super tanker bursts. We discharge all the filth into it. But it still bears all the torture with magnanimity and forgiveness.

 

Sea is, however, not a dead entity. It not only has a body but a soul, as well. It has sentiments, feelings and ego as any human being. It breathes, laughs, cries and demonstrates all the human sentiments. It feels hurt, injured, neglected and insulted when the people who depend on it for their very survival and sustenance ignore it continuously. It also needs love, respect and caring like any living being.

 

It can get furious, vindictive and utterly destructive when people fail to understand its displeasure and hurt; again, as we all do. And it did get furious – on December 26, 2004, 6 years ago from now.

 

Rajiv Gandhi Water Sports Complex, Port Blair battling with Tsunami at 7 a.m., on 26^th, Dec, 2004

 

One can surmise the fate of this victim of the Tsunami of 26^th December, 2004

 

There is no gainsaying the fact that we have been neglecting the sea for much too long – to our own peril. In fact, we have been taking it for granted as a benign, compassionate and benevolent provider of sustenance. We took it that we did not owe it anything in return. Not even the necessity of understanding it.

 

There are examples galore to substantiate my point. Though surrounded by water all around, apart from gazing at the sea from the safety of shores, we have done precious little to go near it, touch it, feel it and roll with its waves. It would have enabled us to get a feel of the varying moods of the sea expressed through the temperature, ‘charge’ and the churnings at a given moment.

 

Humanity is engaged in a self destructive pursuit of material comfort, power and status to the exclusion of everything else. Attempts to explore and understand Mother Nature is no more a virtue. No wonder, we have lost the basic knowledge that such lowly creatures as rats, snakes and monkeys possess, leave aside tribes. The result is there for everyone to see. The tribes that were farthest from civilization, as also the animals, sustained the least or no loss of life.

 

A Jarawa woman showing her catch

 

Until a couple of decades back, fishing and hunting were the hobbies, nay a craze of a large number of local inhabitants of all hues in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. But gradually everyone gave it up and the present generation hardly knows anything about it.

 

Swimming used to be a regular event on Sundays and holidays at the Aberdeen Jetty in Port Blair, but now hardly any crowd is seen on such days. Even if children gather there to take a jump into the water and learn swimming on their own, they are shooed away. It is a matter of shame that most of the people in these islands of ours do not know proper swimming. Even those who know it, know it imperfectly that would not take them far in a crisis.

 

Our sports-persons participate in national and international events of rowing, canoeing and kayaking but in annual sports and athletic meets there are no water sports events. Such rudimentary event as swimming fails to get a place in the scheme of things. Although, with a little effort, water sports like rowing, canoeing, kayaking, yachting, para-sailing, water ski, pedal boating etc. can be promoted easily. It makes a good business sense too.

 

The Lt. Governor, his officers and the Member of Parliament with the Commonwealth Games baton, earlier this year

 

My head goes down in shame when I see people in the mainland of our country engaged in rowing and pedal-boating in lakes and we, with water all around us, do not have a rowing club. And, how many people in the islands can handle a sail boat?

 

A faint attempt was made by some interested people a couple of years ago, to get swimming included in the school curriculum. But obviously, it is gathering dust somewhere in the files of the lackadaisical administration, which is handled by the bureaucrats posted mostly only for a tenure of a couple of years on transferable basis by the Centre at New Delhi. Hence, the listlessness in the implementation of long term policies, the modus operandi of which is long-winded.

 

To add to the ill fate of the islanders, a flock of renowned NGOs like Oxfam, Save the Children, Action Aid, West Bengal Voluntary Health Association, Butterfly, Prayas and the rest, who ‘ventured to work’ for the welfare of the tsunami affected islanders of Andaman & Nicobar Islands after the fiasco of 26 December 2004, are also yet to contemplate working in the field of inculcating the fundamental protocol of living by the sea.

 

ICDS Centers built by the NGO, Save the Children at Car Nicobar

 

In the worst Chilean tsunami in 1960 spawned by a magnitude 9.5 earthquake, the loss of life was 3,500, simply because the people knew and understood the sea. We are installing Tsunami Monitoring & Warning Systems in a big way. But let that not deceive us into complacence.

 

Even if a Warning System were in place, I doubt if Southern Group of Islands could have been saved. Tsunami had hit within ten minutes of the massive tremor felt by the people there. There was simply not enough response time. In case an earthquake in Great Nicobar or Diglipur or Barren Island spawns a tsunami, there would simply not be sufficient time to avert a catastrophe.

 

Extensive awareness campaign and individual preparedness to face a tsunami and; the skill, in case someone is caught in a killer wave, would only save lives. In such a moment of crisis, it boils down to individual life and the individuals would have to prepare themselves to face it: Government efforts notwithstanding.

 

Today is yet another very significant day in the history of the great Indian Freedom Movement. These exemplary islands that once reverberated with the footsteps of the daring freedom-fighters, are today celebrating the 67^th Anniversary of the hoisting of the National Tri-color for the first time on the Indian soil by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

 

 

It was on this day i.e. December 30, 1943, that one of the greatest freedom fighters in the history of modern India, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had hoisted the National Flag for the first time at the Gymkhana Ground, Port Blair, the current capital of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, declaring the Islands, the first Indian Territory freed from the British rule.

 

***A big Salute to Netaji!!! ***

The intrepid son of Mother India!

 

And the last but not the least: a word of experience in retrospect for the islanders of the world:–

 

The sea all around us is a genuine friend of ours. We are destined to live by its side and also enjoy its bounties. Let’s do it with its leave. It will be a relationship of mistrust if we live by it but not understand it. And: love it.

 

 

Wish you all a

Happy, Prosperous & Peaceful

New Year 2011!!!

 

WORLD'S MOST ISOLATED TRIBE IN DANGER

Sentinelese –

The Heroes of Andaman

 

 

Poachers targeting rich fishing grounds in India’s Andaman Islands are endangering the world’s most isolated tribe.

 

More than a hundred illegal fishermen from Burma have been arrested in recent weeks. Fourteen were fishing off North Sentinel Island, home to the Sentinelese tribe, who attack anyone approaching their island. Members of the tribe killed two fishermen in 2006.

 

Burmese and local poachers also threaten the survival of the Jarawa tribe, who have only had contact with outsiders since 1998. A local poacher and a Jarawa man died in a conflict in the Jarawa’s reserve in 2008. The Jarawas denounce poachers who invade their land.

 

The Indian Coast Guard has announced a series of arrests of more than a hundred Burmese poachers since late August this year, mostly in the vicinity of the Jarawa reserve. However, local poachers are rarely targeted.

 

 

Poachers catch turtles and dive for lucrative sea cucumber for the Chinese market, and also hunt in the Jarawa’s forest. Local poachers often enter by the illegal Andaman Trunk Road that cuts through the tribe’s land. Many NGOs like Survival International have repeatedly urged the local authorities to close the road, but it remains open.

 

Local sources say the scale of the problem is much greater than the recent arrests suggest, with most poachers going undetected. Both the Jarawa and the Sentinelese are hunter-gatherers, and theft of the fish and animals in their territory endangers their food supply. Poachers also risk introducing common diseases to the tribes. The Sentinelese are especially at risk: their complete isolation means they are likely to have no immunity to diseases such as flu and measles.

 

 

Survival campaigner Sophie Grig said recently, “The Indian Coast Guard’s recent crackdown shows they are taking the poaching problem seriously, but it also reveals the huge scale of the threat. The Jarawa and the Sentinelese have lived on the Andaman Islands for about 55,000 years, but if this invasion of their territory continues, their days could be numbered.”

 

The Sentinelese are believed to be the World’s Most Isolated Tribe, and have had no contact with outsiders. The neighboring Bo tribe of the Great Andamanese group on the Andaman Islands became extinct in January this year with the death of its last surviving member, Boa Sr.

 

Boa Sr, the last surviving member of the Bo Tribe, who expired in January this year.

 

The Sentinelese live on their own small island, North Sentinel, and continue to resist all contact with outsiders, attacking anyone who comes near. They hit the headlines in the wake of the 2004 Tsunami when a member of the tribe was photographed firing arrows at a helicopter.

 

 

A Sentinelese man, as seen in the picture above, aimed his bow and arrow at an Indian Coast Guard helicopter as it flew over his island on Dec. 28, 2004, surveying for Tsunami damage. Circumstantial evidence suggests that these indigenous tribes used precious ancient know-how to save themselves from the catastrophic Tsunami.

 

Like the Jarawa, the Sentinelese hunt and gather in the forest, and fish in the coastal waters. They live in long communal huts with several hearths, and use outrigger canoes to travel the seas around their island.

 

The Government of India has made several unsuccessful attempts to establish ‘friendly’ contact with the Sentinelese. According to the NGOs, contacting the tribe would almost certainly have tragic consequences, as their isolation makes them very vulnerable to diseases to which they have no immunity. The government now says it will make no further attempt to contact them.

 

Since the coastal waters around the Jarawa reserve have been so heavily used by poachers, these illegal fishermen are now turning their attention to the waters surrounding North Sentinel. In 2006, members of the Sentinelese tribe killed two fishermen who had illegally approached their island.

 

 

The Sentinelese are a real inspiration - Heroes not only of the Andaman Islands, but of the entire Indigenous world. They even seem to be heroes to the mainstream. The amazing photographs in the media of the warriors firing upon a helicopter were meant to elicit pity for the Sentinelese, "left behind" by the modern world.

 

The articles backfired. Fervent responses from indigenous and non-indigenous readers alike indicated more envy than pity. One reader, claiming to be sick of ‘civilization’ with nothing but work and bills and sex and worry, said, "I wish I was on the beach with my bow and arrow."

 

Stats courtesy: Survival International/ Woorama (Suite101)

POST-TSUNAMI REVIVAL OF IAF STATION AT CAR NICOBAR

The Indian Air Force's base on the Car Nicobar Island was devastated in the Tsunami five odd years ago from now, on December 26, 2004. One hundred and sixteen IAF officers and men, their wives and children died in the horrendous disaster. Little remained of the air base, which was established as India's southernmost defence post, a sentinel against the unseen forces lurking in the regions nearby. The morning of December 26, changed all that.

In true military spirit, the IAF personnel worked night and day to ensure that India's southernmost Air Force station in the Bay of Bengal was operational again, ‘Combat Fit’ to be precise, just three-and-a-half months after the unbalanced ocean, turned ferocious by man’s inhuman treatment to Mother Nature’s blessings, claimed 3,513 lives in Andaman and Nicobar reducing the base to a wasteland of rubble and corpses.

On April 14, 2005, the Car Nicobar Air Base resumed operations once again. The runway was repaired, navigational aids and the basic infrastructure was put in place. The operational capabilities of the station were back to normal and the station was once again ‘Combat Fit’.

There were no frills, no luxuries and there was every possibility that the officers would continue to fight extreme adversities like they had been doing those past three and a half months. The amenities were very rudimentary but they knew they were working in unusual circumstances 1,300 km from the Indian mainland where the geographical location and the destruction of infrastructure had torn life and affected communication.

Picked up from different air bases in India, they were sent to Car Nicobar immediately after the Tsunami to rebuild the air base from the dust.

Sergeant Y S Sinha, one of the few officers who were still posted at the Car Nicobar Air Base on a second extension until last year i.e. September, 2009, narrated some of his unforgettable experiences to me while I was at Car Nicobar during the Child Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) project for the welfare of the Nicobarese tribe, sponsored by the NGO – ‘Save the Children’.

He said that for a first time visitor to the base, the sight could be shocking. The destruction was so overwhelming that just imagining what it must have looked like when the waters raged in on December 26, left you numb. In fact, the scale of the devastation on Car Nicobar Island became most evident only on entering the Air Base because en route all villages had been flattened reducing them to an empty ghost land with sinister boards reading 'Erstwhile Perka, Erstwhile Small Lalpathy, and Erstwhile Malacca.' The – ‘Erstwhile’, indicated where the villages and their inhabitants once stood and lived.

“In fact, the homes in those villages did not have much concrete and were made of wood, so they were completely washed away. Hence, only a few pillars could be seen in the debris, the rest had been flattened,” said Sergeant Sinha.

The Air Base, on the other end of the island, was a full-fledged helicopter station with a huge infrastructure. Around 700 staff and personnel lived there with their families. It had two schools, VIP guest houses for the Air Chief Marshal and other visiting dignitaries, a shopping complex and homes for the Station Commander, officers and airmen.

The concrete rubble, the partially destroyed structures and the 160 acres of land lost to water ingress here had to be seen to understand the quantum of destruction.

After clearing the debris for six months after the disaster, what remained was a chilling reminder of the tragedy. Cars lay in mangled heaps, homes seemed to have been blasted into unrecognizable shapes - second floors flung upside down, blackened trees lying in gigantic tangled piles. A refrigerator flung out of someone's kitchen was now lodged in the branches of a tree.

The author at the 45 feet tall, huge fuel tank lying in Malacca village, where it was thrown by the Tsunami from its original location a kilometer away within the Air Force Station’s premises at Car Nicobar. It was packed with fuel when the Tsunami had struck. Such dreadful was the impact of the Tsunami which was traveling at the speed of about 700 km per hour, the speed of a jetliner from the epicenter of the massive under-water earthquake.

The very first priority was to get the runway working for relief activity and the men made use of whatever came their way - even axes to chop the wood and manually pushed it off the runway.

The 9,000 feet runway originally measured around 3,000 feet when it was constructed by the Japanese during their occupation of the island between 1942 and 1945 during the Second World War. It was taken over by the Indian Air Force in 1956, post independence.

As Sergeant Sinha told me, about forty-five tons of epoxy was used to repair the runway. The repairs began everyday post 4 pm, after the flights for the day ended. The work went on through the night till 4 am. The epoxy needed three hours to dry and the flights resumed at around 7 am.

The Air Base lost 116 officers, men and family to the tsunami. Those who survived were immediately evacuated, given a month's leave and subsequently transferred to other stations. The base was no longer deemed a family station and new officers and men were sent to replace, rebuild and carry out the relief operation – ‘Operation Madad (help)’.

The officers and men got down to clearing the debris, disposing the bodies and spent all their waking hours bringing some semblance of order. The officers and men used to consume rice, dal and vegetables from a common kitchen. Pilots who flew down as part of the relief activity sometimes stayed on to work for a month or so and would feel sad about leaving. The first break from work came on January 16, 2005 when everyone went for a picnic.

At the peak of the relief effort, around 5,000 men were pressed into service. Around 10,000 residents were evacuated during ‘Operation Madad’ from the Car Nicobar Island. The IAF flew around 226 sorties till January 26, 2005.

As the crisis grew, Heroes were born!

Tributes to the Bravado of the Heroes of Indian Air Force!!!

TRIBUTE TO 13 YEARS OLD CHAMPION OF TSUNAMI

Meghana Rajshekhar

the gallant13 years old D/o an Indian Air Force Officer posted at Car Nicobar, survived the killer Tsunami for 3 days at the Kakana coast in Car Nicobar.

The mystery unfolds further…

Human Spirit Shines Through Tsunami-cast Gloom

Dear friends, Meghna Rajshekhar is the 13 year old girl from the Car Nicobar Island, survivor of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26^th December, 2004. She survived by clinging on to a door plank in the ocean near Car Nicobar for two days without any water and food.

The gallant daughter of late Indian Air Force Officer, Squadron Leader Raj Shekhar, Meghna was swept out to sea along with her father, her mother, younger brother and 77 others. While the others drowned she floated for two days on a wooden door plank.

On 26 December 2004 morning, 35 feet high gargantuan waves of the catastrophic Tsunami struck the Indian Air Force Base in Car Nicobar. She was washed away in the ocean with her parents. She cried 11 times when rescue helicopters hovered over the Andaman Sea in search of feebly possible survivors. After two and a half days, the door plank on which she was clinging drifted towards the shore. She was swarmed by snakes and suffered severe bruises. She was found walking in a daze by the local Nicobarese tribal people of Car Nicobar, one of whom helped her reach the Indian Air Force airport on his damaged bicycle.

Her parents, however, were not spared by the 35 feet high wave which destroyed the air base. She was sent to Hyderabad to stay with an uncle, her closest living relative.

Meghna trembled visibly when she sighted her favorite coffee mug in the rubble that had once been her home on the Car Nicobar Island. "I want to see my home," the 14-year-old girl said on reaching the remote Island on 26th December 2005 for a memorial service for the 119 Indian Air Force personnel and their relatives who died on December 26, 2004.

I still have vivid memories of her graphic interview that we watched on NDTV on the 29 December, 2004, sitting in the verandah of our house at Port Blair as we didn’t dare to go indoors due to the unrelenting series of hundreds of aftershocks of the massive earthquake. My eyes are invariably filled with tears every time I reminisce about it.

Meghna was so astonishingly eloquent about her unimaginably horrendous experience of the fiasco. "I remember seeing choppers passing overhead 11 times and several times relief planes passed but they did not spot me and finally a wave threw me back on the shore," Meghna said. The badly-bruised girl was found 20 kilometers (12 miles) from her wrecked home two & a half days later.

"I fought off sea snakes to stay alive and today I want to see my home for the last time," the 9th -grader said.

Trembling, she walked gingerly through the cordoned-off rubble near Car Nicobar's golden beaches. Tears glistened as she picked up household objects.

"Hey, my bangle… and… Oh! Here's, dad's shoes!" she said of her father, an Indian Air Force meteorologist.

"I've found my coffee mug... mom used to fill to the brim with milk," Meghna whispered after picking up a bone-china cup filled with snails and sea garbage.

“Meghna's escort, Lieutenant Colonel N Chakravarty, broke down while the top-ranking commanders attending the memorial service at Car Nicobar watched in silence as the young orphan walked through the debris,” reported Vishnu Som of NDTV on 28 December, 2005, a year after the disaster.

Chakravarty's two children were Meghna's best friends until they too perished in the Andaman Sea along with their mother.

Following medical treatment, Meghna was handed over to her grandparents in the southern city of Hyderabad where she was enrolled in a boarding school.

"During holidays I go and spend time with anyone I like," she said pointing to surviving Indian Air Force officers and their families attending the service.  "They are my fathers and mothers. I love them as much as they love me," she said, tears staining her flowing white shirt.

The girl said she was determined to write a book about her spine-tingling ordeal.

"I have already completed two and a half chapters of my experience and I want to record the experience of others in the rest of my book but first I want to complete my studies."

Commander Salil Mehta, a former colleague of Meghna's father, was at her side like a shadow.  "It takes guts to come back to a location of such unimaginable tragedy," said Mehta, unable to conceal his own emotions as Meghna tugged at the sleeves of his ceremonial naval uniform jacket.

The 18-year-old went into a shell the day she also gave up collecting butterflies. It was the day the tsunami struck their home and took away her parents and eight-year-old brother.

Five years after the tragedy, now, the emotions she can’t speak about may yet find release. Every night before going to bed, Meghna sits at her desk in her hostel to pour her emotions into a diary. Some day she might get it published.

Meghna had been a curious child. She had got up early that Sunday morning for some “fishing and for collecting butterflies and insects” for her “zoological collections” when the waves came.

She spent the next two days and nights alone on the beach surrounded by the dead, turning them over one after another to see if her parents and brother were among them.

A year on from then, the news channel ‘Aaj Tak’ telecasted another interview of the brave-heart… The teenager seemed to have coped somewhat as she finished her exams, refusing to let the tragedy cost her a year. But she’s turned a loner. “She doesn’t watch movies; she won’t even accompany her classmates to picnics,” a teacher said. “She is afraid of the waves; she sometimes has hallucinations.”

I take my hat off to the exemplarily gallant Meghna Rajshekhar who can undeniably be considered a true idol for all the children the world over. It was her late father’s prudent teachings and upbringing that helped her understand the nature of the waves, sea creatures like snakes, flow of the wind and the position of the constellation of the stars in the sky to her life-saving advantage in such unheard-of adverse conditions. And, of course, the supremely brave composure that’s the benchmark attribute of the daughter of a valiant Air Force officer.

God bless her!!!

TRAGEDY IN INDIA'S LAST ISLAND– THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Tragedy of the Shompen

The Shompen are as precariously poised on the brink of extinction as the four other hunter-gatherer tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the home to four Negrito and two Indo-Mongoloid tribes. Those belonging to the Negrito racial reserve – the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawas and the Sentinelese - are still at hunting-gathering stage of economy. Small in number, sensitive and isolated, they have been under severe stress. The Indo-Mongoloid clan of the Nicobarese, relatively sturdy and resilient, has accepted the challenge of change and have prospered and multiplied. The members of the other Mongoloid community, the Shompen, semi nomadic and living in small, scattered settlements, still shy away from outsiders. They are somewhat better off than the Great Andamanese and the Onge, whose numbers have sharply dwindled. However they are not as isolated as the Sentinelese and the Jarawas.

Ancient tribe, The Shompen: Their self-sufficiency is slowly being undermined.

It is India’s last island and its largest. Beyond it stretches the mighty Indian Ocean. One of the historic archipelago of over 572 islands & islets in the Bay of Bengal, known as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Great Nicobar first entered the wider public consciousness in December, 2004, when the catastrophic Tsunami wreaked havoc on the island. Great Nicobar, with its rather large habitation, of settlers from the mainland India at Campbell Bay suffered colossal damage, both in terms of human lives and in terms of property and infrastructure. The scars are still hauntingly vivid, about five years later.

The lighthouse at Indira Point, Campbell Bay, left submerged by Tsunami

Its Tsunami connection apart, “Great Nicobar is also known as the land of the Shompen, one of the last surviving stone-age tribes in the world. Not as well known as the Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands, the Shompen are as precariously poised on the brink of extinction as the four other hunter-gatherer tribes (the Jarawa, the Andamanese, the Onge and the Sentinelese),” wrote an astounded Meena Gupta in The Hindu about three years ago, which stimulated me to write this post, today.

Classified as a Primitive Tribal Group (PTG), the Shompen have light yellow-brown skins, straight hair, narrow eyes and stocky build, giving them a strong resemblance to the people of Myanmar (the erstwhile Burma) and Indonesia.

“Like the Jarawas, they are skilled hunter-gatherers but, unlike them, also raise plantations of various crops such as pandanus and lemon and colocasia. They subsist primarily on these plants, wild boar, wild fruits, honey and fish. And like the Jarawas, they are, by and large, disease-free.”

“The tragedy of the Shompen — indeed, of all the primitive tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands — is that until a few decades ago, they were monarchs of all they surveyed. Only 50 years down the line, their lands have been occupied, their forests chopped down, their animals hunted and they themselves outnumbered by people from an alien culture.”

History has it that unlike the major islands of the Andamans and some Nicobar Islands, Great Nicobar was, by and large, undisturbed by incursions of outsiders until the late 1960s. The Shompen lived in the interior of the island, inside the forest and along the rivers; the Nicobarese lived along the coast, to the north of the island. The two tribes lived in a kind of armed truce after intermittent skirmishes.

A major influx of population started in 1969 with the settlement of several hundred ex-servicemen from the mainland India on the south-eastern coast of Great Nicobar, and a proposal to settle several hundred more on the western coast. Even more damaging, the East-West road (measuring 43 km in length) was constructed through the pristine Shompen territory. Thus, a tribal reserve area under the Andaman and Nicobar (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956, was opened to outsiders.

The area of the reserve has also shrunk over the years. The ‘reserved area’ in Great Nicobar, which initially covered the whole island (1044.54 sq km as per the notification dated 2 April, 1957, issued by the Chief Commissioner of the Andaman and Nicobar islands), has been reduced to 853.19 sq km. The population of outsiders has been growing steadily since 1969, while the number of the Shompen, which is alarmingly low, has remained stagnant or is shrinking.

According to the Census, the population of the Shompen was 212 in 1971, 223 in 1981, 131 in1991, and 398 in 2001. These figures are, of course, estimations and the discrepancies, particularly in the last figure, are quite obvious, as the Shompen, being forest-dwelling, nomadic hunter-gatherers and averse to the entry of others into their settlements, do not lend themselves to easy or accurate counting.

Several development activities are currently being carried on in Great Nicobar, all with an inevitable deleterious impact on the Shompen. Some are security-related given the strategic location of Great Nicobar almost at the southern end of India and its proximity to many international shipping routes. Such activities cannot, perhaps, be avoided.

A Shompen family (1980s)

But the three major issues that pose the greatest danger to the Shompen are not defence or security-related: the burgeoning population of outsiders, the renovation and construction of the East-West road through the heart of the Shompen reserve, and the free food and other items being given to the Shompen by the government.

Despite the fact that Great Nicobar was severely affected by the 2004 Tsunami, it does not seem to have had any permanent impact on the number of people who wish to live there; the population today has grown considerably from that in 2001. Apart from the impact on the Shompen, the numbers need to be controlled and reduced from the point of view of the island’s carrying capacity.

The island’s ecology will indisputably be destroyed by such large numbers and so will the people who live in harmony with it. And this, my dear friends, is not an alarming issue that is confined to the Great Nicobar Island only, but is rather a very burning issue in the larger interest of the entire delicate coral islands of Andaman & Nicobar that have been rendered even more vulnerable after the massive earthquake & Tsunami of 26^th December, 2004.

Permanent shelters constructed in Great Nicobar after Tsunami

The construction and repair of the East-West road is an even greater threat to the Shompen. This road, which had been constructed long ago and abandoned, fell into disrepair and was not used for several decades. Indeed, there was no real need to maintain it since the settlement on the western coast which the road was supposed to link, never came up. Since the Tsunami, however, repair work on a lot of structures was taken up, including on the East-West road.

Thus the Shompen are faced with the renewed danger of incursions into their territory. Moreover, the laborers from the mainland bring with them a totally different culture. Even more worrisome, they bring diseases to which the Shompen have little or no immunity. Such diseases can spread like an epidemic, as happened some years ago when diarrhoea killed a large number of the tribe.

But, by far, the most damaging activity is the administration’s new-found practice of doling out free rations. This has been in operation for some years, but increased after the tsunami, in the mistaken belief that the Shompen were being protected from hunger and starvation. The Shompen, who are a totally self-sufficient hunter-gatherer-grower people living on wild animals, fruit, tubers, fish and honey, are being given rice and biscuits and alien food products. They are also being given cloth, though the Shompen have an ancient tradition of making cloth out of tree bark, which they wear swathed around their waists.

Thus an insidious culture of dependency is being created, undermining the self-sufficiency of these people so closely attached to Mother Nature, precisely on the lines of what is being done with the originally self-reliant Nicobarese. And all this is irrefutably thanks to the worsening culture of vote-bank politics in India.

As a matter of fact, the issues of the aboriginal tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar islands are so different from that of the other tribes elsewhere in the world that it calls for an extremely sensitive, prudent and specialized administration. Unfortunately, most senior officials in the Andaman and Nicobar come to the islands from the mainland India, for a brief period and do not have a clue about the adept approach required for these rare heritage tribes. Such officials also end up resisting any kind of sensitization, invariably.

Unless the administration wakes up to the fact that they have a very uncommon and precious commodity in the form of these heritage primitive tribes, one that needs extremely delicate and sensitive handling, it is more than likely that these few hundred people will, in due course, disappear, leaving an indelible scar in history about the thoughtlessness of the so-called caretakers of humanity, something which would trigger a state of emergency vis-à-vis the very existence of our habitat, at large.

Excerpts courtesy: Meena Gupta, the Hindu; Stats: world's oldest tribes

MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE HITS INDONESIA - THOUSANDS FEARED DEAD

Yet another horrendous disaster struck Asia hours after the devastating Tsunami that battered the Pacific yesterday. 

Rescue teams struggled on Thursday to find people trapped under debris after a powerful earthquake hit the Indonesian city of Padang, possibly killing thousands.

The 7.6 magnitude quake struck the bustling port city of 900,000 people on Wednesday, toppling hundreds of buildings. Telephone connections were patchy, making it hard for officials to work out the extent of destruction and loss of life. 

"We need aid as soon as possible. We need food and medicine. Our houses have collapsed," said Siti, a resident of Padang, the capital of West Sumatra province. 

 

"There are people still trapped inside after their houses collapsed." 

Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari told reporters at an airport in Jakarta before leaving for Padang that the number of victims "could be more (than hundreds or thousands). I think it's more than thousands, if we look at how widespread the damage is. But we don't really know yet". 

The national disaster agency put the confirmed death toll at 220. Officials said 500 houses had collapsed. 

 

A second quake, initially put at magnitude 6.8 but later revised down to 6.6, hit another part of Sumatra Island on Thursday, causing fresh panic. The second quake's epicentre - inland and further to the southeast -- was 154 km (96 miles) northwest of Bengkulu, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The area could not immediately be contacted. 

A Reuters’ reporter at the partially collapsed Jamil hospital in Padang said there were at least 40 corpses on the ground. Many patients had been evacuated to the hospital's yard. 

The reporter, whose own house collapsed, said some medical tents had been set up nearby but that many people who had gathered were still waiting for treatment.

A woman clutching her dead baby cried for help: "My son is dead. My son is dead." TV footage showed troops carrying a woman on a stretcher, blood seeping from wounds on her legs and her body covered in dust. 

 

Heavy rain initially hampered rescue efforts and officials said power had been cut in Padang, which lies on a coastal plain and is surrounded by steep mountains that stretch far inland. 

Damage to roads had affected transport of rubber in West Sumatra, the fifth-largest producing province for rubber in Indonesia. 

Sumatra also has some of Indonesia's largest oil fields as well as a liquefied natural gas terminal, but there were no reports of damage at those facilities. 

 

People Crowd Airport to Flee City 

Sumatra is one of the most seismically active parts of Asia. 

A 9.15 magnitude quake, its epicentre 600 km (375 miles) northwest of Padang, caused the 2004 tsunami that killed 230,000 people in Indonesia and other Indian Ocean nations. 

Australian businesswoman Jane Liddon told Australian radio from Padang that the city centre was devastated. 

"The big buildings are down. The concrete buildings are all down, the hospitals, the main markets, down and burned. A lot of people died in there. A lot of places are burning." 

 

TV footage showed piles of debris, collapsed houses and multi-storey buildings, with scores of crushed cars. 

Padang's airport was operating, although many people were camping out on prayer mats as they tried to flee the city, while soldiers and aid groups such as the Red Crescent arrived. 

Patrick Werner, 28, a German tourist at the airport, was on a beach when the quake struck. Some overseas visitors use Padang as an entry point to visit nearby beaches and mountains. 

"We saw some cracks emerge in the soil and water come out of the ground like it was Universal Studios. We grabbed our passports and some money and ran up to the street," he said. 

 

Officials said, heavy equipment such as bulldozers, excavators and concrete cutters were badly needed, although getting into the area would be difficult given many severed roads. 

The disaster is the latest in a spate of natural and man-made calamities to hit Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 226 million people. 

Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie said on Wednesday that the damage could be similar to that caused by a 2006 quake in the central Java city of Yogyakarta that killed 5,000 people and damaged 150,000 homes. Padang sits on one of the world's most active fault lines along the "Ring of Fire" where the Indo-Australia plate grinds against the Eurasia plate to create regular tremors and sometimes quakes. Geologists have long warned that Padang may one day be destroyed by a huge earthquake because of its location. 

 

Courtesy: “Yahoo News” (John Nedy and Sunanda Creagh). Pictures courtesy: BBC World News