Kids Corner

Current Events

Indian Police and People Prey on Tribal Women

Based on Reports by GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN & PRATAP CHAKRAVARTY

 

 

"Dance," the policeman instructed. The girls in front of him, naked from the waist up, obeyed. A tourist's camera panned round to another young woman, also naked and awkwardly holding a bag of grain in front of her. "Dance for me," the policeman commanded.

The young woman giggled, looked shy and hopped from foot to foot. The camera swung back to the others who clapped, swayed and jumped.

 

This is a brief description of a video recently revealed to the world by The Observer and The Guardian, showing Indians - police and tourists - treating the women of a local aboriginal tribe like a human zoo, throwing food at them and demanding that they dance, naked, in return.

The voices behind the camera, clearly preying on the starving and impoverished native women, are speaking Hindi and boasting accents from mainland India.

Rights campaigners have condemned the video.

British newspaper The Observer originally released the undated video showing Jarawa tribal women.

Under Indian laws designed to protect ancient tribal groups susceptible to outside influence and disease, photographing or coming into contact with the Jarawa and some of the Andaman aborigines is banned.

The tribe, thought to have been among the first people to migrate successfully from Africa to Asia, lives a nomadic existence in the lush, tropical forests of the Andamans in the Indian Ocean.

India's Tribal Affairs Minister V. Kishore Chandra Deo on Wednesday said an investigation had been ordered.

"An inquiry has been ordered and it is being headed by the chief secretary and director-general of police of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands," Deo told the Press Trust of India news agency.

"It's deplorable. You cannot treat human beings like beasts for the sake of money. Whatever kind of tourism is that, I totally disapprove of that and it is being banned also," the minister added.

Survival International, which lobbies on behalf of tribal groups worldwide, said the video showed tourists apparently enjoying "human zoos."

"Quite clearly, some people's attitudes towards tribal peoples haven't moved on a jot. The Jarawa are not circus ponies bound to dance at anyone's bidding," said Stephen Corry, the group's director, in a press release.

The Observer report said its journalist had recently seen tourists throw bananas and biscuits to tribespeople on the roadside, and had been told by local traders how much to bribe the police to spend a day out with the Jarawa.

In June last year, Survival International accused eight Indian travel companies of running "human safari tours" so tourists could see and photograph the Jarawa.

The Andaman and Nicobar tropical island chain is home to four other rare tribes - Onge, the Great Andamanese, the Sentinelese and the Shompens - each numbering fewer than 350 members.

Another tribe called Bo died out in January 2010.

 

[Courtesy: The Guardian, The Observer & Yahoo. Edited for sikhchic.com]

January 12, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conversation about this article

1: Robbie Pereira (Kolkata, India), January 12, 2012, 8:52 AM.

Here's what we do: Build a fence around India, and turn the whole bloody land into the world's largest zoo. Then, what will the Sikhs and Christians, for example, do? Easy! They'll be the zoo-keepers.

2: Baljit Singh (New Delhi, India), January 12, 2012, 9:06 AM.

They are all complicit in this: police, bureaucrats, politicians, etc - either actively or through willful neglect. Everyday brings a new scandal out in the open, each one huge and ugly as hell. Any one of them is bad enough to damn a whole community. And India has them 365 every year! I agree, put all the desis in a cage, and throw away the key. Put the cage between the Wildbeests and the Hyenas in the San Diego Zoo, where this whole country belongs. Before we do that, a plea to my fellow Sikhs: let's get out of this hell-hole in a hurry! Punjab simply doesn't belong with these yahoos. Give them the Badals and the like, let's just break away! Or else we'll all become like them: beasts of prey.

3: Sonny (England), January 12, 2012, 11:00 AM.

India is clearly a problem that needs solving, so walking away from it isn't going to benefit anyone. Punjab has many problems but it's our home, so we shouldn't flee from there. We should go back and put and end to all the problems that the central and state governments are causing. As for the issue in the article, personally I'd have the members of the police who are allowing this to happen locked up in prison. Maybe if they knew how it feels to be naked in public with bananas thrown at you, then it might teach them a lesson.

4: H.S. Vachoa (U.S.A.), January 12, 2012, 1:08 PM.

India as we know today was made by the conquest and imperialism over tribals and so-called untouchables. These people are natives and aborigines (adivasis) of India who as a result of the Hindu caste system are at the rock-bottom of society in Hindu India.

5: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), January 12, 2012, 2:44 PM.

Police officers are legalized psychopaths in India. What can we expect from people who think six-armed goddesses are real enough to sacrifice to them animals, children and now adults for better crops or monetary gain!

6: G.C. Singh (U.S.A.), January 12, 2012, 4:45 PM.

Justice A.N. Mulla of the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh, India, once observed, based on his own experience, that the 'Police are the biggest organized gang of criminals'.

7: N. Singh (Canada), January 12, 2012, 7:23 PM.

Hindu India seems to have forgotten how less than 100 years ago they too were paraded in circuses across Britain as part of the human freak shows of the British Empire. Growing up, I was constantly faced by images in text books and TV of Hindus worshiping monkeys, feeding milk to mice in temples, drinking cow urine (even their MP Desi openly stated that he drank his own urine) and naked, ash covered brahmin yogis hanging bricks from their penises. Perhaps they need to be reminded of their own state and the zoo they call India.

8: Kanwarjeet Singh (Franklin Park, New Jersey, U.S.A.), January 12, 2012, 7:33 PM.

Isn't this what the brahmins have been doing to other people since ages? The only thing I love from all the articles concerning India is the comment: 'A probe has been ordered'. India should be in the Guinness Book of Records as the land of the most (open and never-ending) probes and investigations.

9: H. Singh (United States), January 13, 2012, 1:16 AM.

The Andaman & Nicobar tribes are unique and precious among India's array of cultures and ethnicities, and should be shown respect and compassion.

10: Gurmeet Kaur  (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.), January 13, 2012, 9:30 AM.

This is heartbreaking, but wait till you hear the height of rgeir hypocrisy. Let me take you to the Tsunami times when I managed the United Sikhs' India rescue efforts. Our team which was serving in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (besides other affected South Indian areas) was not allowed to carry out relief efforts in the islands inhabited by the natives - in the name of "conservation of the tribal people". We begged them after our team on the ground spotted floating corpses of the natives in the neighboring islands, and after they saw the natives waving for help at the helicopters that were carrying relief supply for other civilians. We were denied. Our team was threatened to be jailed for interfering with India's army controlled areas. We knew that no relief effort was being provided to the natives but we swallowed the tears of helplessness. I personally had the responsibility of a dozen or so non-Indian citizens that I had sent on the ground whose lives were in danger, including women and teenagers. Now the same government is okay to allow tourism by perverts to these 'conservation areas'. Whatever makes them money is fine, I guess. If United Sikhs had bribed them, then, I bet we would have been allowed to help the natives.

Comment on "Indian Police and People Prey on Tribal Women"









To help us distinguish between comments submitted by individuals and those automatically entered by software robots, please complete the following.

Please note: your email address will not be shown on the site, this is for contact and follow-up purposes only. All information will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Sikhchic reserves the right to edit or remove content at any time.

 

read other articles in Current Events