POLITICAL & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF ANDAMAN

After attaining independence from the British colonial regime on 15^th August 1947, the indigenous Government of India soon began constituting a well defined administrative structure for the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT

The centre did provide for the Islands’ representation through a nominated Member of Parliament. Late Lachman Singh and then Lala Niranjan Lal were the members till 1967. Neither anything was expected of them nor did they contribute anything much significant.

Late K R Ganesh (standing third from right)

In 1967, late KR Ganesh, darling of the masses, was elected to the parliament with a thumping majority. People had very high hopes and expectations from him. But he was too preoccupied with his own ambitions. He did scale new heights in his career, first as a Deputy Minister and then as Minister of State in the Finance Ministry of the central government of India. He resigned as the emergency was lifted and contested as a candidate of Congress for Democracy, a Babu Jagjivan Ram outfit, and lost to Manoranjan Bhakta of Congress I. (See picture below)

Manoranjan Bhakta continues his marathon race till date but for a brief aberration during 1999-2004, when Bishnupada Ray of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) was elected as the Member of Parliament. Like KR Ganesh, he too pursues his personal agenda. He has well for himself. There is no reason to believe that he has a vision for the development of the Islands. At least, since 1977 he has never spelt it out.

There was a semblance of power to the people for a brief period from 1982 to 1994 with a 30 member Pradesh Parishad. It was quietly abolished for no apparent reason. It was a tactical move to scuttle any competition at the top. It was a congress monopoly those days and hence there was no voice of protest.

Economic DEVELOPMENT OF ISLANDS

Different people have different definitions of development. In A & N Islands, it is a central grant driven economy and hence, what one finds is – roads, bridges, buildings – too many of them, ships and harbours, schools and colleges, healthcare and all that goes with it. The quality of services rendered by these agencies is anybody’s guess.

Administration is the largest employer, the largest buyer and the largest construction agency. There is no industry. There were some plywood industries that packed off as a curb on tree felling was introduced. The economy revolves around traders and contractors who control the politics also. The money earned in the islands is invested in the mainland; consequently there is very little private effort to spur the economic activities.

CREATION OF DISTRICTS

Ostensibly to increase the pace of development, on August 01, 1974, the territory was divided into two districts by creating a new district of Nicobar comprising of all the islands in the Nicobar Group with its headquarters at Car Nicobar.

Similarly, a third district of North and Middle Andaman was created on August 18, 2006. But in spite of 33 years of its existence, the Nicobar district is a second grade entity. Apart from a deputy commissioner and a superintendent of police, there is nothing to distinguish it from other parts of the Islands.

The condition of North and Middle Andaman district is still worse. It rarely had a full time deputy commissioner for three months. Most of its brief existence, it shared its deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police with its big brother South Andaman district. It is a hoax played on the people of those flimsy districts. All the decision making powers are concentrated in the South Andaman district.

SUNRISE SECTORS

The administration for sometime past has been making noises in the national and international media about tourism as the mainstay of the Islands’ economy. It spends 2-3 crores of rupees on advertisement but is yet to evolve a transparent and practical tourism policy.

The other sunrise sector is touted to be fisheries and high value agriculture. But nobody in the administration has a clue how to go about it. Andaman Sea is the only sea in the world where fish die of old age whereas the administration spends millions on catching, prosecuting, feeding and transporting back the poachers from neighboring countries. About high value agriculture, the least said the better.

POPULATION EXPLOSION

Till 1952, people entering A & N Islands were required to have an entry permit. But a free India could not restrict the free movement of its people. As a result, the population that stood at a mere 33,000 in 1951 leapfrogged to 3, 56,152 as per 2001 census. Unofficial estimates peg it at 5, 50,000.

Encroachment is the law in the territory. Anybody can encroach upon land anywhere he likes, be it revenue or forest of any description. People generally, are not stinking rich yet they manage. There is no grinding poverty per se. but all the poverty alleviation programs are implemented. Poor people from mainland flock to grab free land and the benefit of such programs. Politicians swell their vote bank and the bureaucrats look the other way.

Those 11,000 people who were left behind by SS Norilla on March 11, 1942 have been overwhelmed by the economic migrant. They have lost their identity. They don’t count in the scheme of things anymore.

THE KILLER TSUNAMI – 2004

On balance, things were not too bad if not very encouraging. Come December 26, 2004 and the entire equation changed. The devastating earthquake combined with the killer tsunami waves took heavy toll of lives and properties. Parts of the Islands were swallowed by the earthquake.

Thousands died and many more thousands simply disappeared from the face of the earth. The shock was too much, the pain too severe.

The tribal people of the Nicobar district had to suffer the most. Their world has changed forever. They are still living in temporary shelters. Life would not be the same again – not for the people of the Nicobar district.

The livelihood of old inhabitants is threatened in South Andaman. But nobody has any tears to spare for them. They don’t form the major vote bank anymore. They still live in a tunnel of despair waiting for the messiah who would deliver them.

JAPANESE OCCUPATION IN ANDAMAN

A quick recap-

“History of Civilization in Andaman”

“Chequered History of Civilization”

Now, dear friends, the haunting unfinished script about the chequered history of civilization in Andaman continues ahead-

JAPANESE OCCUPATION – MARCH 23, 1942

The Japanese take over the Islands in the early hours of March 22. And another saga of human sufferings and endurance starts unfolding.

Reign of terror would be an understatement for the three-and-a-half year ordeal that the left out people had to undergo during the Japanese regime.

First, as is customary, the invading army plays havoc with the masses to create psychological pressure into subjugation. Individual houses were raided and cash, ornaments, automobiles and other valuables looted. Even good cloths were not spared. Thereafter the cattle, goats and fowls were taken away.

In such an incident only Zulfiqar Ali (incidentally, my father-in-law’s own maternal uncle) pulled his gun on a Japanese soldier. But he was overpowered and executed in public at Netaji Ground (presently at Aberdeen Bazaar in Port Blair). His tomb till date tells the tale to anyone who cares to listen.

There was acute shortage of food. The Japanese soldiers suffered equally badly. The local people were put to hard work to raise sweet potato, tapioca and other edible crops. The local inhabitants were put to the ignominy of spraying human excreta as organic manure. They were producing for the Japanese soldiers but they themselves were going hungry. Clothes had become a luxury. People used gunny bags for clothes, had to eat yam and other leaves and barks. There was no sanctity of life.

As the weeks and months progressed the old and infirm became a liability on the new masters. They were rounded up, put in a vessel, taken to Havelock Island, and thrown overboard to drown and die. The lone survivor of the incident, who later came to be known as ‘Saudagar’ is reported to have eaten human flesh for survival.

Incidentally, he stayed for the rest of his life up to 1994 beside the mosque in the neighborhood of the quarter that we stayed in at Supply Line, Port Blair, while my father was operating as an Assistant Secretary in the A & N Administration. Hence, we children had ample opportunities to interact with him and hear the details of his ghastly experience from the horse’s mouth. I shall share the details in my ensuing posts.

Meanwhile, the British were targeting every ship that tried to approach the port with pin-pointed precision. The Japanese military administrators had a nagging feeling that somebody was spying for the British. They tried to catch hold of the spy. In the process, the old human weakness took its toll. Those who were close to the Japanese started naming those they had an account to settle with. It started a chain reaction. One would name the other to save his skin.

A shiver runs through the spines of those who underwent the torture in the hands of the Japanese just at the mention of those days. Their fingers do not grow normal nails till date. Red hot pins were forced under their nails. Knee, shoulder, elbow joints used to be hit with rods, testicles were crushed, penis burnt with cigarette butts.

Incidentally, one such victim of the Japanese’ inhuman treatment was Dr. Fred Meshack, my own grandfather-in-law, who was one of the very first veterinary surgeons of the Islands and a citizen of noble repute. He was also taken into their dreaded custody on suspicion of spying for the British and tortured atrociously by piercing his nails with red hot pins. Fortunately, my grandfather-in-law was soon released due to lack of any evidence against him, whatsoever.

The process went on and on and on. Public executions were held at Duggnabad and Humphreyganj.

Educated male members of the society had to suffer the most. Those who were the cream of the society became paupers. Their gold, ornaments, cash, cattle – everything was snatched away by the Japanese. No one has ever tried to fathom the pain, the agony, the sufferings, the deprivation and the sacrifice made by this small population of 11,000 people.

1945 – BRITISH RE-OCCUPATION

The Nuclear holocaust caused by atom bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki crushed the Japanese dreams of a trans-national empire. The Japanese forces surrendered before the British on October 08, 1945 at Andaman Club near Gymkhana ground. When the British Government reclaimed the Islands in 1945, those lucky ones who survived the ordeal were only a shadow of their previous selves. A devastated lot of unfortunate people who had to start everything from scratch again! Like those in 1858.

1946 – 47 – INDIAN INDEPENDENCE

The British Government wanted to retain Andaman and Nicobar Islands under the Crown. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru strongly argued that the Islands should go to India as the inhabitants are almost all Indians. His counter argument was that the British had deported the English convicts to Australia and only Indian convicts were sent to the Andaman Islands.

Thus, the 11,000 odd famished, emaciated, devastated and hapless ex-convicts and their descendents won the argument in favour of the Indian Union.

Life limped back, slowly to normalcy again. The Indian Government declared the Andaman & Nicobar group of Islands a union territory administered directly by the central government at New Delhi. Chief Commissioner, an ICS (Indian Civil Services) and later IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer, continued to be the head of the administration.

CHEQUERED HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION

Hi, Folks,

So you must have already started feeling the goose-bumps after reading the first part of my illustrations about the “History of Civilization in Andaman”. Let me tell you, here, that it’s going to be an unfinished script about the chequered history of human settlement in Andaman. Let’s go further, now. Read on…

1881 – A NEW SOCIETY IS BORN

The convicts serving life term were not likely to go back to their home and hearth as the crimes they had committed were heinous and unpardonable from the moral standards of those times. Many of the convicts did try to go back and resume normal lives with their families in the mainland. But in a very large number of cases, they were not accepted by their families and they had to come back to the only other place they knew on the face of the earth.

The British government also wanted a permanent settlement to come up in the islands. To this end, it was necessary to bind the people to the land.

THUS – THE PENAL SETTLEMENT CAME INTO BEING

The female convicts after satisfactorily serving a term of 5 years and males after similarly serving a term of 10 years could opt to settle down with family. They had to apply to the District Officer with their intent of marrying a woman convict. Upon which, on a given date a parade of the convict women would be arranged where the “groom” could select his bride. They were afforded a chance to familiarize themselves by talking to each other under the watchful eyes of a warden or jailor. Thereafter, the consenting couple would be declared man & wife after due registration. The male convicts were advised to treat their wives fairly, take proper care and desist from ill treating them.

The couple was then allotted a piece of cultivable land on lease basis and some assistance in cash or kind to build a shelter and settle down.

In the meantime, the construction works were going on in full speed. Ross Island was developed into a capital housing the bungalows for the high officials and offices for the administration of the islands. A settlement was also started in Nancowry Island of Nicobar district. The Jail at Viper Island was completed, various village settlements, named after the Chief Commissioners and other officers of the time, were established. Free entrepreneurs also started arriving and setting up small trades to cater to the government officials and the departments. Roads were laid, medical facilities etc. were created.

The mutineers followed by the revolutionaries from Bengal and other parts of the country were not put to labour outside the jails. They too were put to impossibly hard work but the emphasis was more on humiliating them to the extent that they broke down mentally and morally. Finally, all the political prisoners were released and sent back to mainland in 1938.

1923 – MOPLAHS

There was a huge Moplah uprising in the Malabar district of the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin state in 1921. The rebels were tried and imprisoned in the Presidency Jail in the state of Madras. In 1923, they were deported to Andamans. They also became an inseparable influence in the evolving social fabric.

The confluence of various cultures, languages, religions, customs and traditions from Maharashtra to Assam and Afghanistan to Kanyakumari wove a unique cultural matrix.

Everything was going on fine. A new civil administration was in place. People were pursuing their business in peace and harmony and their children were looking forward to a bright future.

But destiny had its own designs. The condemned convicts and their descendents had some more dues to pay.

The rumblings of Second World War started shaking the countries and continents. Japan also joined the fray. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had his own plans to wage a war against the British Raj (regime) in collaboration with the Japanese Government. Andaman and Nicobar Islands provided the ideal springboard to launch an attack against the mighty British Empire on the mainland India. The Japanese Bombers started making sorties. The British forces were engaged in theatres that were more important to them. To the British, it was neither important nor necessary to spare any tears for the islands having a population of just about 30,000. The evacuation process was set in motion. All those who wanted to leave the Islands were free to do so.

MARCH 11, 1942 – THE FATEFUL DAY

The fateful date recurs with equal horror. Eight-four years ago, almost on the same date, the same month the British Raj had forced a batch of reluctant Indians to land on the inhospitable Island. And now the same British Raj was forcing another batch of reluctant Indians to board the last ship leaving for the mainland – to the safety of motherland. But they were not enthusiastic about boarding the ship this time either. A large population of about 11,000 people had nowhere to go. No state, no land, no home, no relations to look up to.

The last ship slides past the jetty, a huge crowd of condemned people – subjects of the British Crown – are left behind to fend for themselves.