Are We Upset Because They Are Naked?

The only vulgar element in the controversy is us pretending to be righteous about restoring an isolated order after upsetting it

TEHELKA, 13 January, 2011

The so-called human safari in the Jarawa reserve, as exposed by a British publication, seems to have outraged many of us. Watching fellow Indians dance on road for a handful of throwaways is certainly embarrassing. But before righteous indignation feeds on sheer hypocrisy, there is possibly room for a few questions.

Are we embarrassed because the Jarawas were entertaining tourists for a pittance? All over the country, hundreds of forest resorts organise customary tribal song and dance, mostly in hotel lawns or by the poolside. In most cases, what performers get is a free meal and a few rupees as tips (unless a foreign tourist or two suddenly feel generous). This is even part of the government’s tourism policy to benefit “local stakeholders” in tribal areas.

I recall numerous evenings when hotel guests enjoyed their drinks and discussions in the backdrop of such performances that inspired no more than casual curiosity. On occasion, a few guests would have turned their chairs to actually face and enjoy a performance, or exchange patronisingly lewd comments about the dancers going through their routines. I have never heard the media objecting to “insulting so many poor tribals and their traditional art” and that too for a meal and very little money.

So are we embarrassed because the Jarawas were, as TV channels keep harping, dancing nude? Hang on. Were they made to strip for entertainment? Any anthropologist familiar to Negritos can tell that the Jarawas do not normally wear clothes or attach any erotic value to their breasts (just like the act of kissing is alien to their idea of foreplay). It is only natural that they would dance in their traditional attire which is limited to string skirts and headbands.

Or does a sense of exotic voyeurism in tourists make the dance itself vulgar? Many a time, I have seen people leering at traditionally over-clad tribal dancers in Himachal (Malana), Rajasthan (Kalbelia), Gujarat (Banjara), Arunachal (Bodo) or Karnataka (Toda). Besides, many Indian tribes—several sub-groups of Gond tribals for example—other than the Jarawas dress minimally and do tourist routines without embarrassing too many of us. And leering and voyeurism, needless to say, is limited neither to attire, nor culture nor geography.

But if this outrage is about ‘exploitation’ or ‘commodification’ of tribals in general, what about the lot of those non-tribal or less marginalised thousands even in cities who are not fortunate enough to perform for crowds that actually queue up to buy tickets for their shows and are often treated by restaurant clients as nothing more than human décor or, worse, readily available? Or do we believe that while others, less isolated tribals included, are making a conscious choice for livelihood, the Jarawas are being taken for a ride? That they are innocent wild creatures who do not understand what is going on? If that is the cause for our outrage, we could not be more wrong or patronising.


The Jarawas are simply exercising a new choice brought to them by their proximity to outsiders forced on them by the Indian state. They eagerly line up on both sides of the highway that cut through their forests during the three-month tourist season. But they also know the limits of the deal. Like all Negritos, they are spontaneous dancers. So it is not a big deal for the Jarawas to break into a little jig for something in return. It would be interesting to note the Jarawas’ reaction had the tourists asked them to do something other than what is their second nature.

Then again, is it, as researchers point out, the isolated tribe’s lack of immunity to contemporary diseases that make us worry? The Jarawas have been subject to frequent friendship missions since the days of the raj. It is true that their hostility towards outsiders saved them from the rapid extermination suffered by the Great Andamanese due to syphilis contracted on an epidemic scale from early batches of notorious convicts and their equally wayward custodians.

Today, rape is not so common and anyway, better medicines for venereal infections have been long developed. However, the frequency of ‘contact missions’ to befriend the Jarawas only increased after Independence. So did the frequency of Jarawa raids of the orchards owned by settlers who encroached upon their forests. Between 1998 and 2004, when the Jarawa youth suddenly decided to reach out to the world outside, interaction with non-tribal settlers became routine. They learnt to barter or sell honey, etc for alcohol and tobacco. During this time, all government hospitals bordering the tribal reserve opened special Jarawa wards.

Evidently, the Jarawas have been in regular touch with the local settlers at least for one-and-a-half decades. Moreover, contraction of diseases does not require handing out edible stuff by tourists (anyway, most sarkari ‘contact missions’ did that). Once the Andaman Trunk Road was in place and traffic became regular through the Jarawa reserve, nothing stopped the tribals to scavenge on leftovers discarded from passing vehicles.

Of course, interaction with outsiders has not been beneficial to the Jarawas. More than growing a taste for biscuits, they have taken to chewing tobacco and drinking. After romanticising for years over ‘mainstreaming’ them, the administration was at a loss when the Jarawa youth decided to mingle with local settlers. Thankfully, the ancient tribe has retreated inside their forest once again since 2004. But the new addicts still depend on the outside world for their fix. But as long as the highway keeps bringing the increasingly-less-alien world deep inside their shrinking sanctuary, they are free to choose how to engage with outsiders however outrageous it might seem to us.

It speaks a lot for our civilised benevolence that the Jarawas are slowly but steadily going the ways of their ancient almost-extinct neighbours—the Great Andamanese and the Onge. The Sentinelis are the only exception thanks to the impregnable coral reefs that make landing in their little island (where they are confined) treacherous for most months and the tribe’s unwavering hostile refusal to sustained overtures of ‘contact’. They survived the 2005 tsunami on their own even though their little island was tilted by the onslaught.

Unfortunately, the mainstream has lost the opportunity to learn from the traditional wisdom of the ancient, their knowledge of the archipelago’s medicinal treasures, or nature’s apparently mysterious ways that helped the tribes survive in one of the world’s most hostile places for over 30,000 years. Instead, the sole inhabitants of the archipelago about 200 years back have been reduced to less than 0.1 per cent of the present population by rapid extermination and influx of outsiders. Even a decade after a Supreme Court order to shut down the Anadaman Trunk Road to safeguard whatever remains of the Jarawas, the highway is still operational as a lifeline to the mainstream ferrying disease, addiction, and hypocrisy.

Frankly, the only outrageous, even vulgar, element in the present controversy is our callous enthusiasm in upsetting a perfect isolated order by criminal intrusion and then pretending to be righteous about restoring it.