This is an urgent call for anyone and everyone who cares enough to emit a piercing scream, of rage or despair, as you choose, to protest the decimation of the Jarawa.
 
Some of you may be aware of the rapidly deteriorating situation of the Jarawa of the Andaman Islands. We are told that they number around 300. A new epidemic of measles has struck them, with children who were born after the last epidemic in 1999 being affected.  This could not have come about if the Directorate of Medical Services in the islands had done what it had assured the public it was doing: regularly vaccinating the Jarawa against lethal infections to which they have no immunity. During court-ordered forums in 2004 the Medical Services directorate argued vehemently for the right to intervene in this manner, and won it.  Their "measured intervention" has resulted in this current epidemic.

In truth, this latest crisis is only one of a series of alarming events that have been exposed over the past months.  Other news includes the recent killings of Jarawa children by crocodiles. And a group of Jarawa children, apparently all orphaned by recent and unreported epidemics in the forest, have formed their own band that lives near settled areas. Unable to forage or hunt effectively, their only means of livelihood is through barter of valuable forest products with the settlers. They have no food security; moreover, constant interaction with outsiders makes them vulnerable to new infections. This development shows that the desperate situation that we have been warning the administration about for several years is at hand. 

Ever since the Jarawa laid down their arms in 1998, their forest has become overrun with poachers, some of whom provide food or alcohol to the Jarawa in lieu of permission to poach. Instead of protecting the reserve and its resources against such poachers, or the Jarawa against such harmful contact, the administration punishes the Jarawa when they retaliate. For instance,shortly after the December 2004 tsunami, unknown miscreants stole a Jarawa band's entire, invaluable, store of honey, in response to which the group attacked an illegal settler village. The authorities forcibly removed the Jarawa from the location.

Significantly, those bands of Jarawa who have been affected by the measles epidemic live close to or alongside the Andaman Trunk Road, which, even as  we speak, is being widened-in flagrant violation of the 2002 Supreme Court Order to close the road.  For those of us who have been following events in the islands closely, it seems no mere  coincidence that the happenings there so closely parallel the vision outlined by longstanding politician Manoranjan Bhakta. He has called for the Andaman Trunk Road to be widened instead of closed, and has also repeatedly stated his wish to see the Jarawa settled and placed on dole.
 

If the Jarawa no longer live in the forest, its invaluable resources can be used by other actors such as timber contractors, builders in need of sand, tourism operators in need of coral reefs, and so on and on. The Jarawa live
in the last pristine stretch of Great Evergreen Rainforest on the Andaman Islands, and they do so precisely because they have defended it with their lives. With the Jarawa gone, the forests and reefs will be immediately up for grabs. (With the forests gone, the Andaman Islands will also become unliveable for lack of water, and tens of thousands of people will need to be repatriated to the mainland. But the administration seems not to worry about such things.) 
 
So far, the Jarawa presence has stalled development plans for the islands in the forests of Middle and South Andaman. The Jarawa are succumbing very fast, however, to the many-sided onslaught. We can only conclude that the multiple failures of the Andaman administration-to close the Andaman Trunk Road, to protect the Jarawa forest from invasion, and to protect the health of the Jarawa-are acts of deliberate and calculated negligence with a view to decimating the remaining Jarawa population.
 
After having thrived for upward of 60,000 years on these islands, the Jarawa are now on their way out. To kill them off it was not necessary to line them up and shoot them. One only had to establish contact, and then just wait for
disease and deprivation to take their toll. This course of action the Andaman administration has consistently followed. In our view, it amounts to genocide.
 
All these years we have tried to address the problem through the regular channels. We have been exhilarated by court orders, and astounded when they weren't implemented. We have gate-crashed seminars and written petitions to  make ourselves heard. All along we have received seemingly earnest assurances that the needful would be done. We don't believe them any more. This is, for us, a last scream. We want to register our anguish that this genocide is happening before our very eyes, and in full view of the world.
 
Please join us. Send protest letters to the addresses below. Pass this note on to friends. If you are a journalist, write about the Jarawa. If you belong to an activist group, please get it involved. Let the Jarawa at least be mourned.
 
Dr. Madhusree Mukerjee   and   Dr. Sita Venkateswar