One of the questions raised by former environment minister Jairam Ramesh in his correspondence with current minister Bhupender Yadav about the Great Nicobar Project refers to a video report prepared by anthropologist Vishvajit Pandya.
The report “shows members of the Shompen community clearly stating that they are against any disturbances to their forested and riparian habitats”, Ramesh’s letter notes.
A largely uncontacted tribe of about 250 people, the Shompens live on the Great Nicobar island, the southernmost landmass of India. In 2021, the Modi government announced plans to develop a massive infrastructural project on the island at a cost of Rs 72,000 crore, which many fear could endanger the island’s native tribal communities and unique flora and fauna.
In the run-up to the announcement, the administration of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands formed an empowered committee to examine proposals drafted by the government think-tank Niti Aayog for the “development of various projects” on the Great Nicobar island.
Among those on the committee was Dr Vishvajit Pandya, a professor of anthropology at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information Communication Technology, Gujarat, who is also the founder and honorary director of the government-run Andaman Nicobar Tribal Research Institute.
Pandya submitted a video report to the administration, which included interviews he had conducted with members of the island’s tribal communities, the Shompens and the Nicobarese, as well as settlers from the mainland who had been living there for decades. “We never heard from the administration after that,” Pandya told Scroll.
In excerpts of the video report shown by Pandya at an online discussion, a Shompen man can be seen clearly stating: “If you want to cut the forest, cut in on the coast. Do not climb our hills.”
The full report, however, was not made public by the administration – nor was it included in the records of the empowered committee, according to the letter written by Ramesh. Pandya told Scroll that had the report been released, “it would have been like opening a can of worms”.
Pandya first started ethnographic research in Little Andaman among the Onge tribal community in 1983 as a part of his doctoral work at the University of Chicago. Over the next three decades, the 69-year-old anthropologist was involved with both research and policy work related to islands’ tribal communities, including the Jarawas and the Shompens. In 2015, he helped draft the administration’s Shompen Policy.
Scroll spoke to him about the video report he prepared – and his views on the Great Nicobar Project. Excerpts from the interview:
What was your team asked to do by the administration?
The administration was creating different small groups of people to go and give an assessment of the project. We were not told all the details of what the project was going to be. It was a very vague kind of thing that we want to develop Great Nicobar because it is a huge mass of land and somehow it has to be made into productive use. What that productive use was, was vaguely mentioned.
What was the journey to meet the Shompen like?
I was going in as an anthropologist, and was expected to talk about the people in that environment, especially the Shompen. I decided that instead of me saying something, I should make the people’s voices come to the desk of Niti Aayog and the administration in Port Blair. Instead of writing a report, [I thought] why don’t I go there with a team of people and make a short film.
It was about a four-hour trek and then another four and a half hours for the return. We followed along the stream – that is a clearer way to walk, otherwise you would have to clear the forest, trample along the terrain. In some parts, you can cross with canoes if you are lucky enough to have those available. None of the Shompen live in a village where you can find them together. You would be lucky if you do.
What were the broad points that you documented in the video report?
It is very easy to say that this project will impact the indigenous communities. But how will it impact them? That has remained unexplained. I wanted to find the reasoning from the Shompen themselves.
The Shompens have the argument that it will destroy the area’s soil regeneration system. Each part of the forest is associated with streams of the Galathea and Alexandra rivers crisscrossing the island. When the river overflows in the rainy season, the alluvial soil is deposited downstream, which makes it possible for Shompens to regenerate their tapioca gardens and horticultural plots.
These plots are inherited through the matrilineal line amongst the Shompen. The girl’s family gives those lands – it’s like the sons go to work on their wife’s lands. So, gardens and marriage are very important. The marriage is always held upstream, the girls come from the upstream and boys from the downstream. If the stream is blocked because of logging operations or building of the port, that could disrupt their kinship, marriage, and dependence on water and land. That’s why they said in the video, “You can stay in the coastal area, but don't come uphill in the forest.”
Land is not just a title of zameen. There is a social and cultural meaning of land. Sarkari babus will not understand this, and that’s why we got the people to talk on camera.
The administration also showed us where they were planning to have the airport and gave us a vague idea of how they wanted to do ecotourism there, a place where people can come and enjoy natural features, habitats and forests and do some trekking, some type of a nature park and wanted us to try to find a suitable location. So we talked to people and asked them what kind of development they would like there.
There is a Sikh community that is present in the Great Nicobar and when we interviewed them they said we were made to settle here, we have made this land cultivable, but where is the facility for our products to be marketed here? Even if someone falls sick there they depend on the helicopter to go to Port Blair. These were the more pertinent issues, they were not concerned about kitne tourist aa rahe hai (the potential tourist footfall).
What were your expectations from the administration after you submitted the video report?
I was expecting that they would call for a much more in-depth explanation and study of the impacts. But, we never heard anything from the administration after that. Nothing – no thank you, no goodbye. The video was never released. No one wants to yield to [the recommendations] and it is of no consequence to the administration.
Why do you think they never released the report?
Because it would be like opening a can of worms.
What are the future aspirations of the Shompen?
See, there are other tribal groups on the Andaman and Nicobar islands. And if you consider them on a spectrum, some of them want to have outside contact like the Great Andamanese. Some of them did not want it till recent times like Jarawas. Some like the Sentinelese – they have given a tough time to any outsiders.
Government reports used to call Shompens “shy”. Hostile Jarawas, aggressive Sentinelese, docile Onges – these are the terms reports used. Why would the Shompen be shy? These are all the categories created because of the way [the administration] interacted with them and the way it suits the scheme of our development. Shompen are aware of the outside world and are articulate that they do not want the outsiders here. And that’s why they became “shy”.
Development for these tribes perhaps means good medical and other facilities that secures their life and improves its quality, and also ensures their dignity of existence, which has slowly been taken away from the groups on this spectrum.
For the Shompen, the government has said they will give them Aadhaar and make them vote. Have they explained to them what voting is, what the state is? No! They have no idea. This is like monkeys being made to dance in a circus.
[Note: In the recent general election, seven members of the Shompen tribe voted for the first time.]
In your work ANTRI, what were the kind of questions that came up for consideration?
We had said that first of all, there should not be one policy for all the tribes. They all have different kinds of economies and are at different stages of acculturation, and therefore one policy should not be applicable to all of them. There should be context sensitivity to policy formulation for each tribal community, case by case.
Secondly, just providing security should not be the only thing we should think of. We should think about how their future can be safeguarded. We should make sure that they have self determination. They should have a right to make a choice for their future.
And we took steps to it. Education was the main focus – how do we create bi-cultural and bi-lingual system for all communities in different parts of the forest? It should not be that we expect them to go to school, but the school should go to them because they are forest communities that live in different parts of the forests at different times.
We created curriculum, programs, and even erected schools in the forest in different locations. For the first time, we created textbooks in Jarawa so that people could teach the Jarawa kids Hindi while themselves also learning Jarawa. So, if tomorrow the Jarawa have to come to Port Blair to make their Aadhaar Card then they should be able to do that, rather than depending on someone else. But then they should be able to go back to their forest and continue doing their own traditions. So that maybe a few years later they can say we are making a cooperative of honey from our own forest.
How did the administration respond to these steps?
There were some supportive people on the top and allowed for things to happen in a constructive way. But slowly the administration also started saying that all this is not needed, give the tribals roti kapda makaan (food, clothes and housing) and that will keep them quiet.
We got the administration to agree to give extra allowance to the welfare workers to teach the classes for Jarawas. We gave them training on how to use the textbooks created for them.
But a lot of work also got restricted during Covid when there were restrictions of entering the tribal territories to protect the communities themselves. Now, the school buildings have all collapsed.
Does ANTRI still exist?
The building and the museum we created are still there, but they are locked up. The Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti is a trust that is supposed to look after all the tribal communities. Therefore, they are bound by rules of the Samiti to hold meetings and give account of what expenditure has been done and where it will be done in the future. Why are these meetings not held? It's taxpayer’s money right. It’s people’s right.
Do you see anything strikingly different about the upcoming Nicobar project?
In many ways it’s like history repeating itself again. The impact of this kind of policy we have already seen with Jarawas. The road that was built through the Jarawa reserve created a nasty problem.
[Note: Built in the 1970s, the Andaman Trunk Road cuts through the Jarawa tribal reserve on Andaman island. The Jarawas initially resisted its construction but eventually took to interacting with the tourists driving through it, leading to an outbreak of disease among them. The administration has now banned tourists from taking photos of the tribal people or offering them food.]
The administration decided that Andaman Trunk Road could cut through Jarawa territory. Then you don't want the Jarawas to be visible there because you want to conduct tourism. And then you put posters saying not to take photos of Jarawas.
It will be the same thing with the Shompen. They will slowly and slowly become more dependent on the government. That is what the whole Andaman and Nicobar is all about, it still is a colony that the government controls.
Do you personally worry about the impact the project will have on the Shompens?
Yes, of course. And the tribe does not exist in isolation. It exists with the forest, the eels in the water that they depend on for hunting, the complex resources along with them. Everything is interconnected amongst them. But that interconnectedness must be understood by even the people who have come with the proposal to do it [build infrastructure]. Which they have not done.
I have seen this when I was a part of the first meeting held by Niti Aayog at Port Blair. There were presentations of acres of land that will be taken up for construction of the project. But what is there on that land, the kind of trees, the territory of three different Shompen groups that exist, they have not bothered to consider that issue. It's like land is blank stationary for them. It's like the classical term “terra nullius” – it's a blank land and we will do whatever we want to with it.
The rest of the world is acknowledging their indigenous peoples and recognising first people, why can’t we do it?
The administration of the Andaman and Nicobar island did not respond to questions emailed by Scroll about the report submitted by Dr Pandya.
