How harmless are 51 left over tribals based in 'Strait Island' of Andaman & Nicobar?

New Delhi: Early his week, BBC news come up with an interesting story 'Man of the Hole': saying last remaining of his tribe dies in the Amazon forests of Brazil. The news says that the last remaining member of an uncontacted indigenous group in Brazil has died.

The story is a wake-up call, that retells us to save 51 leftover Indian tribals based in ‘Strait Island’ of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India who too are getting extinct with each passing decade.

Tsunami floods followed by the Pandemic and epidemic and the curiosity of people to see and meet the diminishing tribe has affected the family living in the dense forested Islands of Andaman. Even though the area is declared as out of bounds for tourists and local neighbouring people.

There are six distinct indigenous communities living on the islands – the Great Andamanese, the Onges, the Jarawa, and the Sentinelese in the Andamans, and the Nicobarese and the Shompen in the Nicobar group of islands. All of them need to be protected.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) are Great Andamanese that resides in the Andamans archipelago. The other four are Jarwas, Onges, Shompens, and North Sentinelese. The population of Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ primitive tribes has rapidly declined over the years.

The tribe is based in ‘Strait Island’ of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The members speak the Jeru dialect among themselves and their number stands at 51 as per the last study carried out by Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti in 2012.

More than 5,000 Great Andamanese lived in the Islands before British settlers arrived in the 19th century. Hundreds were killed in the conflict as they defended their territories from British invasion, and hundreds more were wiped out in floods, epidemics, and diseases.

The Indigenous people of India, also known as aboriginal peoples or Adivasi feel threatened of their exitance and dying culture as a modern development of the surroundings is forcing many to abandon their traditional values and culture.

India is home to the largest population of indigenous peoples of any country in the world. 700 tribal groups with a population of 104 million, as per the 2011 census. These are scattered across India, their numbers a staggering diversity of ethnicities, cultures, and socio-economic situations.

According to the 2011 census, Adivasi makes up 6% of India's population, prominent in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, and some north-eastern states, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

But those living in Andaman and Nicobar Island and a few living in interiors of the Chattisgarh-Orissa Forest belt such as the Gonds and Santhals are quite vulnerable and declared as Particular Vulnerable Tribal Group or PVTG. The largest concentrations of indigenous people are found in the seven northeastern states of India, and in central India.

The BBC story is a reminder to the world to take care of the Aboriginal tribes of this globe who do not want to change and want to live in isolation, away from technology, industry, and modern comforts. They are our living history of mankind and needs to be protected from all sphere of interruption.

This unnamed indigenous man in Brazil lived in total isolation for the past 26 years. He was known as “Man of the Hole” because he dug deep holes, some of which he used for hunting, while others appear to be hiding or living spaces.

His dead body was found on 23 August in a hammock outside his straw hut. He is thought to have died of natural causes at an estimated age of 60. He has been living alone in the Brazilian Amazon for 22 years after the last members of his tribe were murdered.

Loneliest man’s death has brought sadness

In 2018, several media houses broadcast rare shaky video footage taken by the Brazilian government’s Funai, an indigenous caretaking agency in a chance happenstance.

The video displays a muscular man cutting a tree with an axe. He who was called the "loneliest man in the world" who never wanted to see anyone and had attacked a few approaching persons with arrows.

The same person just after four years has died perhaps a month ago. People still don’t know which language they spoke and what was their way of communication and how lonely he must have felt in the last 22 years of his life.

Officials who discovered his dead body in a hole near his straw hut saw some feathers on his body. The news has brought quite a sadness around the globe.

Jonah Blank or @JonahBlank Author of “Arrow of the Blue skinned God” and Mullahs on the Mainframe in his tweet said “as an anthropologist, I’m devasted by the #ethnocide of traditional communities around the globe. It’s been going on throughout history, of course. But in an interconnected world, there are very few pre-industrial societies left. Every such loss is a loss for humanity.”

The risks facing Brazil's indigenous people were highlighted recently at the opening ceremony of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. There are about 240 indigenous tribes in Brazil, with many under threat as illegal miners, loggers and farmers encroach onto their territory, warns Survival International, a pressure group fighting for the rights of indigenous people.

The way forward will be to bring in as much awareness of these indigenous people living in India and other countries so that their habitat, culture, and living are not disturbed.

It is the society who has to take care of their right are protected even though the government has some stringent regulations. There are ample number of laws in India to protect and care for them but what is more needed is that we, as a society needs to accept them and not damage their habitat.

A large number of tribes that lived in the forests are denied their rights and the tribes continue to live under the threat of an eviction in the name of forest and animal conservation and sometimes in the name of development.