TOI

Dr Madhumala Chattopadhyay

Take us through that day when you reached and handed over coconuts to the Sentinelese.

nariyali jaba jaba

The community has been hostile to outsiders. Weren’t you scared of the consequences of meeting the Sentinelese?

But why the rifles?

What makes the Sentinelese so aggressive towards outsiders?

Why do you think it is important to leave them alone?

Shouldn’t they enjoy the fruits of human progress, or for that matter, as Chau allegedly wanted, have a religion?

(The government of India abandoned such contact expeditions by 1994)

Twenty-seven years ago, when American missionary John Allen Chau who trespassed into the North Sentinel Island was even not born, a 13-member team established the first and only friendly contact with the Sentinelese. Unlike other contact parties that were treated with hostility, this team had a young woman anthropologist, Dr Madhumala Chattopadhyay, which made the difference.A joint director at the ministry of social justice and empowerment now, she leads a low-profile life by choice, unwilling to accept that she had created anthropological history. She is not on WhatsApp and does not get herself photographed, so much so that she had to visit a neighbourhood studio to send her photograph to. Excerpts from an interview.Around 8am on January 4, 1991, we rowed our boat towards the island without much expectation. We saw smoke coming out from an area and went in that direction. Soon the Sentinelese came in sight. Most of them were men and four were armed with bows and arrows. We dropped coconuts in the water and surprisingly the Sentinelese came to collect them. Four hours later we ran out of coconuts and rowed back to our ship, MV Tarmugli, anchored nearby.When we returned, they welcomed us with shouts of “” (more coconuts). A youth waded across the water and came till our boat, others followed him. From the beach, however, another youth aimed an arrow at us. A woman, probably his mother or aunt, pushed him and the arrow fell into the water. We realized that the woman wanted to save us and emboldened, our party jumped into the water. We no more dropped the coconuts but handed them over to the Sentinelese. It was a contact among equals, we did not see them as tribals in need of getting civilized.When I opted for research in the Andamans, my mother had to sign an undertaking that if anything happened to me, including death, the Anthropological Survey of India would not be held responsible. One can’t explore if scared. And the Sentinelese are human beings, they understand who will harm them. When our contact party sailed again on February 21, they were more welcoming and turned up without weapons. They recognized us. The men climbed our boats to collect the coconuts. One man even attempted to take the rifles (meant to fire in the air in case of an emergency) the police were carrying.For them it was just a source of raw iron, just like the wreckage of a ship — like Primrose, a Panama registered freighter carrying poultry feed from Bangladesh to Australia, which ran aground on a coral reef on August 2, 1981. They swim up to it and scavenge scrap iron to make arrow heads, knives and other weapons.Not much is known but they are very protective of their territory and women. In Andaman literature, there are references of them being kidnapped by sailors and turned into slaves. The Sentinelese are very strong — locally they are called Pathan Jarawas because of their build — and do not need outsiders to teach them livelihood tactics.Look at what the British did to the Great Andamanese. First they killed a thousand of them in the Battle of Andaman and then they kidnapped them from the habitats and tried to civilize them at ‘homes’.But the Andamanese contacted diseases like syphilis and measles . There are chilling accounts of such misadventures and so-called civilizational missions. Immunity of the tribes is very low and any contact with the outside world will endanger the Sentinelese.When you talk about fruits of human progress, what makes you think the Sentinelese or other tribes are backward? They may not have the luxuries and technology we have, but they are not uncivilized. They understand nature better than us.Don’t forget, they knew a tsunami was coming and moved to higher grounds. They follow animism , worship and love nature, something ‘civilized’ people don’t. The day you try to preach them any religion, the Sentinelese would cease to exist. The British experiment teaches us how not to treat the original inhabitants of the Andamans. It’s time we revisit that history again.