The tribal residents of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman & Nicobar archipelago, reminded us that there is a group of Indian citizens who live ungoverned by the Constitution; in fact, they’ve never heard of it. They are the Sentinelese, who are recognised by the government as a scheduled tribe and enjoy a protected status.As a result, their way of life, which has remained unchanged since as far back as the Stone Age, has been kept free from the influences of modern society.
American tourist Chau’s death was the result of his foolhardy insistence on visiting the Sentinelese on their native island, despite the tribe’s reputation for welcoming visitors with a volley of arrows and spears. It’s no secret that the Sentinelese people don’t want any company – the government stopped undertaking gift-giving, contact-making expeditions to the island in 1996, and the Navy has been tasked with maintaining a cordon around the island since 2004. “Complete isolation and minimal intervention” is the government’s stated approach to dealing with the indigenous peoples of the Andaman & Nicobar islands.
It’s an approach that Chau should have paid heed to instead of making his fateful final trip. The policy of isolation is in place for a reason; not just to protect outsiders like Chau, but also to protect the Sentinelese themselves from communicable diseases like flu and measles to which they have no immunity.Maintaining this state of isolation is of utmost importance, not just for security, but also to ensure the continued survival of the Sentinelese as part of modern India. Their population is estimated to be between 100 to 150 individuals, which is an educated guess, since census-takers have never been able to visit the island. The Sentinelese language is unique from the other native languages. Spoken on the archipelago by the Onge and Jarawa tribes. With no written script, their entire cultural history is encapsulated in their oral tradition, and remains uncatalogued by the outside world. Should the Sentinelese be wiped out, either through disease or assimilation, thousands of years of culture and wisdom will disappear with them.
There is a example from the very same chain of islands where the Sentinelese live: the case of the Jarawa tribe.The Jarawas once had a similar reputation for hostile greetings, fighting British guns and muskets with bows and arrows during the 19th century, when the islands were used as a penal colony by The Raj. The construction of the Andaman Trunk Road was marked by several clashes between the islanders and foreigners. Today however, this once fiercely independent tribe has become partially assimilated into mainstream life.They have been exposed to a modern way of life they cannot sustain. They have learned to eat rice and sugar. We have turned a free people into beggars.
The fate of the Sentinelese people has now reached a fork in the road. Either they will go the way of the Jangil, another island tribe from the region which went extinct in 1921, or maybe they’ll enter a liminal state like the Jarawas, existing on the fringes of mainstream society, benefiting at times from modern conveniences, but slowly losing their identity and way of life.
American tourist Chau’s death was the result of his foolhardy insistence on visiting the Sentinelese on their native island, despite the tribe’s reputation for welcoming visitors with a volley of arrows and spears. It’s no secret that the Sentinelese people don’t want any company – the government stopped undertaking gift-giving, contact-making expeditions to the island in 1996, and the Navy has been tasked with maintaining a cordon around the island since 2004. “Complete isolation and minimal intervention” is the government’s stated approach to dealing with the indigenous peoples of the Andaman & Nicobar islands.
It’s an approach that Chau should have paid heed to instead of making his fateful final trip. The policy of isolation is in place for a reason; not just to protect outsiders like Chau, but also to protect the Sentinelese themselves from communicable diseases like flu and measles to which they have no immunity.Maintaining this state of isolation is of utmost importance, not just for security, but also to ensure the continued survival of the Sentinelese as part of modern India. Their population is estimated to be between 100 to 150 individuals, which is an educated guess, since census-takers have never been able to visit the island. The Sentinelese language is unique from the other native languages. Spoken on the archipelago by the Onge and Jarawa tribes. With no written script, their entire cultural history is encapsulated in their oral tradition, and remains uncatalogued by the outside world. Should the Sentinelese be wiped out, either through disease or assimilation, thousands of years of culture and wisdom will disappear with them.
There is a example from the very same chain of islands where the Sentinelese live: the case of the Jarawa tribe.The Jarawas once had a similar reputation for hostile greetings, fighting British guns and muskets with bows and arrows during the 19th century, when the islands were used as a penal colony by The Raj. The construction of the Andaman Trunk Road was marked by several clashes between the islanders and foreigners. Today however, this once fiercely independent tribe has become partially assimilated into mainstream life.They have been exposed to a modern way of life they cannot sustain. They have learned to eat rice and sugar. We have turned a free people into beggars.
The fate of the Sentinelese people has now reached a fork in the road. Either they will go the way of the Jangil, another island tribe from the region which went extinct in 1921, or maybe they’ll enter a liminal state like the Jarawas, existing on the fringes of mainstream society, benefiting at times from modern conveniences, but slowly losing their identity and way of life.
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