The ‘wild' people as tourist stops

"Over 120 years after Sherlock Holmes' novel, the racist stereotype of the savage Andamanese persists."

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : The ‘wild' people as tourist stops: The revelations in the U.K. newspaper The Observer that police have been complicit in the “human safaris” in the Andamans was truly disturbing. The sort of descriptions presented in 'Sign of Four' - Sherlock Holmes novel reinforce ignorant, racist stereotypes of indigenous peoples which are then exploited by governments and companies to steal their land, or mislead members of the public into trying to spot these “wild” and “bestial” people while on holiday — ergo the “human safaris."

Over 120 years since The Sign of Four's publication, the same ignorant, insulting stereotypes about the Andaman Islanders are being trotted out and they still find themselves treated like animals at a zoo — or on safari.

'Because Andaman's forests are Jarawa infested …'

"A little known fact that lies at the root of the issue has been all but forgotten — the existence of the Andaman Trunk Road, that the 1965 report offered as a good way of extracting resources from the forests of the Jarawa had been ordered shut by a Supreme Court order of 2002.

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : 'Because Andaman's forests are Jarawa infested …': It's been a decade now and in what can only be called audacious defiance, the administration has wilfully violated orders of the Supreme Court both in letter and in spirit."

"The Andaman Trunk Road is like a public thoroughfare through a private courtyard. In the whole of human history, we find that the dominant group for their own advantage has always won over the minorities, not always paying attention to the issue of ethics. Closure of the ATR would perhaps be the first gesture of goodwill on part of the dominant towards an acutely marginalized group almost on the verge of extinction."

"A nation that had just fought its way out of the ignominy of being a colony was well on the way to becoming a coloniser itself. And those that came in the way could only be pests or parasites infesting the forests that had valuable resources locked away from productive use."