Thomas N. Headland
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An Open Letter to the Government of India

Concerning the human rights situation of
The Jarawa Tribal Minority in the Andaman Islands

by Thomas N. Headland (September 27, 1999)

The following letter was written and airmailed to two government officials in India on July 13, 1999. As of this date (September 27, 1999), neither of them has replied. These two officials were Shri. I.P. Gupta, Lieutenant Governor, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, (Raj Niwas, Port Blair 744 101, Andaman Islands, India), and Ms. Maneka Gandhi, Ministry of Welfare (Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi 110 001, India). Since recent reports indicate that the human rights problems of the Jarawa Negrito people have reached an even more serious crisis today than was the situation two months ago, including the breakout of a measles epidemic just a few days ago, I am posting my letter here on the Internet.

Other organizations concerned with indigenous human rights are voicing their concerns for the Jarawa, as well. This includes the President-elect of the American Anthropological Association (http://www.ameranthassn.org/jarltr1.htm) and Professor Terence Turner, a member of the Committee for Human Rights of the AAA (http://www.ameranthassn.org/jararpt.htm), and Survival International in London (http://www.survival.org.uk/andaman1.htm). My July 13 letter follows.

The University of Texas at Arlington
Program in Linguistics
Arlington, Texas 76019, USA
and
SIL International (The Summer Institute of Linguistics)
http://www.sil.org/ Dallas, Texas 75236, USA

July 13, 1999

To Whom It May Concern, from Dr. Thomas N. Headland:

I am writing about problems concerning the recently contacted Jarawa people in the Andaman Islands, India. Since I have been studying and assisting Southeast Asian Negritos for most of my adult life, I have been asked to give my testimony on this situation. (I have myself never visited the Andaman Islands.)

The Jarawa people are one of four Negrito tribal groups who are still living a traditional nomadic foraging way of life on the west coasts of the islands of South and Middle Andaman. Reports say that the Jarawa have declined greatly in this century, from 500 in 1901 to 250 today. There is therefore an immediate call for concern for these indigenous people. If the Indian government does not take steps to protect them now, they will surely be another tragic example of a Negrito population going extinct. [See endnote.]

I have recently learned that a legal court in India is considering a proposal put forth by certain parties to round up the Jarawa people, remove them from their traditional homeland, and relocate them onto another island. The reported goal is to civilize these people and to teach them a sedentary agricultural way of life.

While the people proposing this plan may mean well, and may wish to help the Jarawa people, I strongly urge the court to reject this plan. It can only result in nonsuccess. I have written a complete volume explaining why attempts to settle Negrito hunter-gatherers and turn them into farmers have chronically failed (Headland 1986). And I have written an essay documenting over a dozen programs in other countries in Asia conducted to settle nomadic Negritos and how and why each program that attempted to impose aid on such peoples failed (Headland 1985).

It would be a violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights if the Indian government were to allow the forced removal of these indigenous Andaman people from their land and way of life. (See the UN Declaration, Article 17.) Such a move to remove these Jarawa people would be an especially flagrant transgression of the 1994 Draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations 1997). See Part I, Article 3; Part II, Articles 6, 7, 10, and 11; and Part VI, Articles 25, 26, 27, 28, and 30 of that UN Declaration. (Those Articles are appended at the end of this letter.) Please note also that the 11,000 members of the American Anthropological Association just voted only this month to approve their AAA Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights. (see http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/humanrts.htm) Any relocation of the Jarawa people now would also violate that AAA declaration.

Almost a hundred years ago the British colonial government attempted to "civilize" and impose change on the Andaman Negritos. The tragic results of those attempts are well known today, and are reflected in the population decline of those Andaman people. As I stated in an encyclopedia article:

There are a number of Negrito tribal groups found in Southeast Asia, most of which are classified as hunter-gatherers. It has been recognized that they are rapidly disappearing populations.... The four Negrito groups in the Andaman Islands have suffered severe depopulation in the last hundred years. The largest group there, the Onge, have dwindled from a thousand [in 1901] to 96 today.... The decline of Asia's Negritos is due to high mortality rates. These high death rates result from encroachment by outsiders, deforestation, depletion of traditional game and plant resources, rising alcoholism, new forces introducing general poverty and new diseases, and cases of outright land-grabbing, murders, and kidnappings." [Griffin and Headland 1994, p. 71; also stated in Headland and Headland 1997, p. 79]

We can learn a lesson from the British in India; and from the American government, too, who in countless instances attempted to move traditional Native American indigenous tribes onto other lands and teach them agriculture, also with disastrous results. The government of India, then, is to be applauded for establishing a reservation in 1957 in the homeland of the Jarawa, for protection of their territory. Today, however, that territory established 40 years ago for the indigenous people of the Andamans is in danger of being taken away from them. I thus urge the Indian government to retain the moral courage it showed the world in 1957 to do what is right for the poorest of the poor in the Andamans.

There are many ways to cause the cultural genocide of a traditional tribal people. But the worst thing is when a government agency or private group forces such people to move away from their own homeland. I pray, then, that the Indian government determine to make sure not to repeat the tragic mistakes of the British in the Andamans a century ago. The British mistake was a tragedy of history that resulted in the genocide of the Great Andamanese Negritos and the Onge Negritos. The Jarawa will inevitably change in the coming years, as they come into more contact with outsiders. But this will probably be slow. They must be allowed the freedom to make their changes voluntarily, and at their own pace. Change must not be imposed on them. And the borders of their reserve must be retained or restored to their 1957 limits, and protected from encroachment. The Jarawa must be allowed to make free and informed decisions about their future themselves (United Nations 1997, Part II Article 10; Part VI Article 27 and Article 30). They must not have another way of life imposed upon them.

Let me close by saying that I am personally opposed to any agency forcibly moving indigenous peoples from their traditional homelands. It is unethical and, indeed, immoral. It never results in improvement or advantage to the people moved. It forces people, especially mobile hunter-gatherers such as Asian Negritos, into economic and social poverty, and cultural genocide.

Respectfully submitted,

Thomas N. Headland, Ph.D.
SIL International Anthropology Consultant, and
Adjunct Professor, University of Texas at Arlington
WebPage: http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/
Telephone 972/708-7400 (USA)

SIL International (The Summer Institute of Linguistics, http://www.sil.org/) is an NGO in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Endnote

The best descriptions of how and why this cultural genocide happens to Asian Negrito groups may be found in the following bibliographic references: Eder 1987, Griffin and Headland 1994, and Headland and Headland 1997 and 1999. The most recent documentation on the human rights problems of the Jarawa people today may be found in three publications by Sita Venkateswar (1993, 1997 and 1999). [Back to text.]

References Cited

Appendix to Thomas Headland’s letter of July 13, 1999

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Draft United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Sub-Commission resolution 1994/45

[This draft declaration was adopted by the UN’s Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities at their 36th meeting on 26 August 1994. The full Declaration is online at: URL: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu4/subres/9445.htm#draft.

This Declaration is copyright © 1997 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland.]

[I have copied from the Declaration and pasted below only those Articles that may pertain to the present (1999) critical case concerning the Jarawa Negrito people in the Andaman Islands, and specifically the reports that the Indian government is considering a court case to remove the Jarawa people from their traditional homelands. This paragraph in brackets was typed by Thomas N. Headland on July 13, 1999. The statements below are exact direct quotes from the UN Declaration.]

Draft United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Affirming that indigenous peoples are equal in dignity and rights to all other peoples, while recognizing the right of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such, Reaffirming also that indigenous peoples, in the exercise of their rights, should be free from discrimination of any kind, Recognizing the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights and characteristics of indigenous peoples, especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources.

... affirm the fundamental importance of the right of self-determination of all peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development, Solemnly proclaims the following United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:

PART I, Article 1: Indigenous peoples have the right to the full and effective enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law.

PART I, Article 3: Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination.

PART II, Article 6: Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and to full guarantees against genocide or any other act of violence, including the removal of indigenous children from their families and communities under any pretext.

PART II, Article 7: Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide... (b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources; (c) Any form of population transfer. (d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures.

PART II, Article 10: Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation.

PART II, Article 11: States shall ... not ... (c) Force indigenous individuals to abandon their lands, territories or means of subsistence, or relocate them in special centres....

PART VI, Article 25: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual and material relationship with the lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used.

PART VI, Article 26: Indigenous peoples have the right to own, develop, control and use the lands and territories, including the total environment of the lands, air, waters, coastal seas, sea-ice, flora and fauna and other resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used.

PART VI, Article 27: Indigenous peoples have the right to the restitution of the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, occupied, used or damaged without their free and informed consent.

PART VI, Article 28: Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation, restoration and protection of the total environment and the productive capacity of their lands, territories and resources.

PART VI, Article 30: Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands, territories and other resources, including the right to require that States obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands, territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.