Learn more about tribal communities on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

The ancient tribal communities that lived here in the Andaman Islands […] have lived and flourished here for at least 40,000 years., but the end could well be round the corner. […]

It definitely began with the British and their policies, which have been kept up with clinical efficiency by modern, independent India [which] was already on course to becoming a colonizer itself. […]

In the late 1960s, an official plan of the Government of India to ‘colonize’ (and this was the term used) the Andaman and Nicobar Islands was firmly in place. The forests were ‘wastelands’ that needed to be tamed, settled and developed.

Source: Pankaj Sekhsaria in Islands in Flux: The Andaman and Nicobar Story (Harper Litmus, 2017), p. 4

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a chain of 572 islands of which a little more than 30 are inhabited. They constitute 0.2 per cent of India’s land mass but provide for 30 per cent of the country’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). […] The government aims to acquire 60 small and large passenger and cargo ships [and] buy luxury cruise ships for wealthier visitors, to replace the ageing, basic vessels that are available

Source: Rajat Arora, Economic Times, 26 September 2015
URL: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/modi-governments-rs-10000-crore-plan-to-transform-andaman-and-nicobar-islands/articleshow/49111067.cms
Date visited: 4 December 2020

See also

• Adverse inclusion
• Denotified Tribes, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes – Report and Recommendations (Technical Advisory Group)
• Fact checking
• Imprisonment & rehabilitation
• Search tips | Names of tribal communities, regions and states of India
• State wise population of Scheduled Tribes (ST) and their percentage to the total population in the respective states and to the total STs population
• “What are the Rights of Scheduled Tribes?– Government of India (National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, NCST)
• “What is the Forest Rights Act about?” – Campaign for Survival and Dignity
• “Who are Scheduled Tribes?” – Government of India (National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, NCST)

Related posts

• Adverse inclusion
• Andaman and Nicobar
• Andaman eco tourism
• Anthropological Survey of India
• Anthropology
• Colonial policies Andaman | Independent India Andaman
• Customs
• Ecology and environment
• Figures, census and other statistics
• Forest Rights Act (FRA)
• Government of India
• India’s Constitutional obligation to respect their cultural traditions
• Kalpavriksh
• Languages and linguistic heritage
• Marriage customs
• Ministry of Tribal Affairs – Times of India
• Misconceptions
• Nature and wildlife
• Particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTG)
• Proud not Primitive
• Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Social conventions
• Survival International
• Tribal communities: Ang | Great Andamanese | Jarawa | Onge | Sentinelese | Shompen
• Video | “Nations don’t make us human – languages make us human”: Ganesh Devy

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