Long Version:

 

 Jarawa of the Andaman Islands

 

 

1'03 Visitors from the Stone Age. Some hunter-gatherers of the Jarawa tribe have left their jungle habitat and are off on their way to an Indian settlers village.

 

1'13 Policemen in plain clothes have approached. They try to prevent the Jarawa from entering the farmer's houses.

 

1'25 The Jarawa are looking for iron items. They build arrowheads out of it, to hunt the wild pig. And they want sweet Banana, which does not grow in the jungle.

 

1'38 (Translation:) "I tell them, but they don't understand... You should leave with your arrows!"

 

1'45  (Translation): "Wait. We will give you anything you want."

 

1'49 The Jarawa seem not willing to leave empty handed.  And they do have their own idea of  "private propriety".

 

2'00 Only one year ago the Jarawa were still hostile to the settlers of Collinpur. Bow and arrow were deadly weapons. Between 1993 and 99 bush police reported 73 heavy incidents, in which 27 Indians died. 

 

2'22 Nobody knows why the Stone Age people have ended their hostility. But when they are coming to the farmers, they still spread fear:

 

2'34 (Translation:) "The Jarawa used to kill people, they were hostile and came often to attack us. They have killed people. And they take away whatever they can get in their hands. "

 

2'47(Translation:) "They take away our food and clothes."

 

2'53(Translation:) "No, we are not happy with them. They have attacked us."

 

2'59 But the settlers can be seen as aggressors too. They endanger the traditional living space of the Jarawa: Further and further the farmers fields are expanding into the jungle.

 

3'10 1974 - Indian officials on their monthly "contact mission". Gifts like red clothes were usually dropped at a beach in the Jarawa territory.

 

3'22 But on that day for the first time some Jarawa accepted the gifts personally. They made garlands out of the cloth. And took everything to their hut.

 

3'35 By playing a tape the Indian contact party encouraged the Jarawa to dance.

 

3'45 This document, released by the local Administration, gives an idea of the official policy of "befriending the Jarawa": Gifts should bring them to dependence. Knowledge on the Jarawa culture was hardly ever collected. Until today their language is unknown.

 

 

4'04 Pictures of the 90's. The official missions had become pleasure trips for adventurous VIPs. And the directorate for tribal welfare even started airdropping gifts. Worldwide Ethnologists are protesting.

 

4'25 Engine noise in the islands. On a trip to a jungle beach in the

archipelago. The Andamans, situated closer to Burma then to India, are exotic -for Indians too.

 

4'38 But even when swimming or snorkelling, Indian women are wearing the covering sari.

 

4'44 With so much prudery in their own society, the bareness of the Jarawa is a sensation to many Indians.  Photographs of the naked islanders are an income source for souvenir shops. But the shopkeeper has to store these pictures under the counter as the law prohibits taking and selling them.  It's an open secret: Corrupt officials are involved:

 

5'09 Quote Shopkeeper

 

5'15 Near the settlement of Collinpur. In spite of the gifts at the coast, the Jarawa refused contact with outsiders until recently. Now they are obviously willing to serve themselves.  One takes a bunch of Banana, others get a knife or a sickle. The group is heading to the village centre.  Two worlds come into collision.

 

 

5'44 Samir Acharya is the head of the environmental organisation Sane

(Society for Andaman and Nicobar ecology). He is criticizing the

government's policy towards the Jarawa:

 

5'53 Quote by Samir Acharya, Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (Sane): "...will be a disaster."

 

6'33 ...Another disaster is taking place in the woods: the cutting down of the tropical forest in the former hunting grounds of the original inhabitants. Timber is regarded as the only wealth of the Andamans. It is collected by using working elephants.

 

6'50 In the Andamans the population of forest elephants has grown so much that the authorities have started shipping some of them back to the Indian subcontinent.

 

7'01 At the turnpike to the Jarawa reserve in the northwest of the islands. Along the road a sign: "Beware of the Jarawa". But forest officials do not hesitate to intrude the jungle these days. They are even cutting trees in the reserve. The first camp officer Kumar Banerjee speaks out about this illegal practice.

 

7'24 Quote by Maloy Kumar Banerjee, Camp Officer Andaman an Nicobar Forest Department: " This trench was cut by Mr. Butt (Banerjees predecessor as a camp officer) to mark the outer boundary of working plan to collect the timber...."

 

7'41 Instead of protecting the reserve as by law, Indian authorities are exploiting it.

 

7'46 Quote by Samir Acharya, Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (Sane)

 

8'00 India has violated basic human rights, by constructing the Andaman trunk road that runs through the middle of Jarawa territory, says Sane. They are pledging for a closure of the road. But traffic goes on.

 

8'14 The notice says it's a risk entering Jarawa territory. Armed bush policemen are escorting every bus passing through the reserve.

 

8'25 The times when the Jarawa tribe has fought the road in kind of a

guerrilla war are still well remembered.

 

8'33 To cross between islands the vehicles have to be loaded on ferryboats.  The jetty of Middle Strait is within the Jarawa reserve. Since two years the Jarawa are visiting this place regularly, looking at the travellers, asking them for gifts. Filming this encounter of Jarawas and Indians is strictly forbidden. It is a fact that since contact is established, the Jarawa are suffering from civilization diseases for which their immune system was not prepared.

 

 

9'01 The jungle hospital in Kadamtala has its own Jarawa treatment unit now.  Two years ago there was a measles epidemic spreading, now the Jarawa are suffering from conjunctivitis, pneumonia and influenza. It is a medical emergency. (9'15)

 

9'15 Quote by Ratan Chandara Kar, Medical Officer in Charge, Kadamtala Hospital.

 

9'26 Back on the Andaman trunk road.  The traffic, which the Jarawa have fought against for years, has now become kind of an attraction to them.

 

9'36 These huts are newly built. 3 to 400 Jarawa are estimated to live as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the jungle. Some of them now do stay temporary on the roadside. And the Jarawa are stopping the cars - because they want a ride.

 

9'57 The driver is taken aback and anxious at the same time.

 

10'08  "Ruko" Driver means: Stop!

 

10'12 Children have climbed on the truck. Now they enjoy the adventure of a truck ride on the bumpy road.

 

10'20 Some miles farer: the next huts on the roadside. Two youngsters are demanding sweets and "pan", the Indian chewing tobacco.

 

10^34 Such scenes are happening almost daily now. One person, who has

experienced it, is the lawyer Shymali Ganguli. She and her team have made a pledge asking the authorities for an immediate settlement of the nomadic Jarawa. Her motivation is pity: (10'50)

 

10'50 Quote Ms. Shyamali Ganguly, Lawyer

 

11'27 Quote Samir Acharya¸ Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (Sane)

 

11'56 Effects of the forced settlement of a tribe can be studied on the island of Little Andaman. A century ago some 600 Onge, a tribe related to the Jarawa, have lived here, without contact to outsiders. 

 

12'09 The police post on the island. The board shows the actual number of the Onge: Just a 100 tribesmen have survived. (12'17)

 

12'17 Quote S.N.Singh, Chief Officer Hut Bay Police Station, Little Andaman

 

12'22 ... only Indian officials are allowed to visit that place: South Bay.  This is one of two villages in which the nomadic Onge were forced to settle in the seventies (1976).  But the government-built houses are uninhabited.  The Onge prefer a self-constructed communal hut.

 

12'39 Every family has traditionally its own space for sleeping and cooking.  But Indian lifestyle is taking over. Indian japati are the main course in the Onge kitchen. The Onge have become dependant on the monthly rations of foodstuff being distributed to them by the Indian officials. For free.

 

12'59 The Onge men kept on hunting turtles.  But nowadays they started bartering the flesh in exchange for liquor.  As the indian goods are filling up the baskets, there is no need for hunting anymore.

 

12'13 Nylon has become a substitute for plant fibres before anybody

learned about the Onge's knowledge on nature.

 

13'19 Child mortality rate among Onge has been extraordinary high, up to 40 percent. The Onge have been uprooted, their future is endangered.

 

13'30 Indian fishermen and settlers are taking over the island. For every Onge there are more then 300 Indians on Little Andaman. (13'38)

 

13'38 Quote Acharya, Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology (Sane)

 

13'56 In the village of Collinpur. A policeman pushes one of the Jarawa off the road. Settlers have gathered curiously.  The Jarawa, ferocious jungle warriors just now, are behaving like innocent children yet.

 

14'15 The gifts are distributed: Banana, iron, chewing tobacco, which is put under the headband. A police truck is about to drive the Jarawa back to the jungle.

 

14'27 Settlers and policmen have lost their fear of the Jarawa and are now acting rude towards them. The Jarawa nevertheless keep on smiling (14'40).  But for now, the fate of the Jarawa lies in the hands of Indian officials.