Jarawa ‘cabaret’ reeks of colonial hangover

All hell broke loose a couple of days ago when British media aired footages of Andaman’s Jarawa tribal women dancing half-naked for tourists in exchange of food. It is alleged that the policemen who are deployed to keep the tourists from intruding into their reserved area were the facilitators for this ‘entertainment’.
With brickbats being rained on the Central government and the Andaman administration, the Centre has ordered an inquiry and has sought explanation from local authorities.
The blame game is on but no clarity has emerged till now on how Jarawas, designated by international bodies as human equivalent of ‘endangered’, can be treated so shabbily. The whole episode has proven that despite suffering from colonial bondage for 400-plus years we don’t know how to respect our own people.
Or maybe it’s a new phenomenon called ‘brown man’s burden’. When the ‘white man’ set out to reform the ‘uncivilised’ world with the Bible in one hand and a gun in the other, it sounded the death knell for several ancient civilisations, which did not conform to the West’s idea of modernity.
Today’s torchbearers of freedom, liberty and equality, who invade countries to liberate countries from tyrants and despots, are themselves products of the blood of indigenous populations who were suppressed, oppressed, tortured, enslaved and/or annihilated.
Canada and the US were once the lands of proud Red Indians who lived in sync with nature. They were no match for the ‘white’ invaders who almost exterminated them with guns and diseases. Canada’s Indian population was almost wiped out infecting them with smallpox — to which they had no resistance. Today they are refugees in their own country, living in reservations on government handouts. The story of Australia’s aborigines is not much different.
Civilisations of Incas, Aztecs and were also decimated by the European invaders. The ironic part is that when the West went to invade, plunder, colonise and enslave the rest of the world, the missions had full support of the religious authorities who are supposed to promote values of love, peace and tolerance.
Why look elsewhere when we have our own illustrious examples of trampling on indigenous populations. Almost all the mega power projects, industries and other such installations have displaced millions of tribal folk from their ancestral land. There begins the bloody tale of state-sponsored genocide — all for ‘greater common good’.
These illiterate people, unaccustomed to the wily ways of modernity, are being ruthlessly exploited ever since. They form the cheap labour, who don’t seek their rights. They work in hazardous industries as unskilled hands without safety gear. Their women become domestic helps and the remaining unlucky ones are pushed into flesh trade.
Children don’t go to school, start life as rag-pickers addicted to substance abuse and join the ranks of criminals.
While we crib about the extent of reservation benefits they enjoy, we should realise that what we perceive as unfair is the miniscule few who managed to survive and succeed. Their acquired modernity is no indication of equity or equality.
The special treatment and protection extended to the original inhabitants of this land is not our charity but an insufficient compensation for what we have unjustly taken away from them — a life and happiness we can never replace.
How we treat them is an acid test for us as a nation, a democracy and polity. And we must not fail.