Society for Andaman & Nicobar Ecology (SANE) secretary Samir Acharya says, "Not only is their health, but also their social and cultural fabric stand threatened. They have shed their natural instincts of survival…"

Indeed, over the years the Islands have attracted migrants from the various parts of India. From a few hundreds, their population has risen to 400 thousand today. Everyone now accepts that it is they who have vectored the diseases and other negative influences to the tribals. Everyone also accepts that this is the fallout of a consistent government policy that did not have the tribals in the centre.

Of course, the aboriginals had nobody to speak for them until recently when some NGOs took up their cause, probably a little late. The Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram explains, "Tribals are a docile group … they are not a pressure group."

The Jarawas

Currently, the biggest danger is to the Jarawa tribesmen. Having now succumbed to the government's "friendly contact programmes", anthropologists fear the Jarawas may be going the way of the Great Andamanese and the Onges. (The two tribes are as good as extinct now.)

The situation has changed dramatically for the Jarawas in the past six years.
Since 1999, the tribals have faced four epidemics. Deputy Director (Tribal Health) Dr R Thulasi Dasan insists there have been no casualties due to timely medical attention. In fact, the A&N Islands Lieutenant Governor N N Jha says "the contact with the mainstream has had certain positive aspects also, for instance, medical aid."

The local anthropologists and NGOs are offended: "The epidemics happened because of the contact - unlike us, the Jarawas have no 'acquired immunity' to new infections." Andaman's Tribal Welfare Director S A Awaradi agrees. "It is in the interest of these tribes to keep them away from larger contact.

Other negative influences of the contact programmes are also included in a recent study conducted by a group of experts on court orders. The report talks about how the youngsters have begun wearing garments and have developed a taste for readymade and cooked food.

"The habit of chewing tobacco and paan (betel leaf) among the Jarawas is a rather recent phenomenon," the study reports.

The tribals have also picked up trading skills. The study notes: "… some Jarawa boys are appearing on the trunk road with resin … asking the vehicle drivers to give them paan for resin that costs hundreds of rupees. Some Jarawa boys are in the business of making bow, arrow and other implements for bartering or indirect selling to the tourists through cab drivers.… Some are also paying money to buy garments."

Interestingly, many Jarawas have now moved out of deep jungles to take up settlements off the Andaman Trunk Road (which cuts through their settlement and connects North and South Andaman Island).

A noticeable influence is also that many of the Jarawa tribesmen are today able to talk in Hindi. This correspondent was able to conduct an entire interview with Enmei, the Jarawa boy who led his community's integration with the settlers. Another Jarawa boy Buhu sang Hindi film songs before this correspondent at Port Blair's GB Pant hospital in early October 2003.

Contrasted with the days when Bakhtawar Singh, the officer who led the first friendly contact with the Jarawas, had to interact with them "like deaf and dumb people through signs," the aboriginals have come a long way.

But the anthropologists and the NGOs are worried. "It is not development. They are losing their identity and their ways of living, which has enabled them to survive for these many years. They have begun their march on a road to extinction."