India’s Supreme Court orders a “no-go” zone: protecting the Jarawa people’s dignity and health – Andaman & Nicobar

“We need to know the policy of the government. Whether they want the Jarawas to be kept in isolation or to be assimilated in the mainstream,” asked a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and H L Gokhale before banning till February 26 movement of all tourist vehicles through the forest road passing through the tribe’s habitat.

This order of the court will stop 60 vehicles carrying tourists every day under police escort on the 46-km Andaman Trunk Road that links North Andaman to its southern part, mostly passing through reserve forests and the habitation of Jarawas exposing them to tour operators’ antics. […]

Though additional solicitor general Paras Kuhad said there was strict monitoring of tourist activities and no one is allowed to disembark during the journey through the forests, a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and H L Gokhale said it has come to know of instances where people have stopped in between and photographed the Jarawas.

“In India most of the laws are observed in breach,” it said before banning tourist movement through the 46-km road link. However, on Kuhad’s request, the bench allowed plying”no-go” zone of government vehicles carrying essential commodities for Jarawas and other tribes residing in the reserve forest.

In January, 2012, two British dailies had released appalling videos showing semi-naked Jarawa men and women dancing before tourists as part of alleged ‘human safari’. […]

The “no-go” zone order resulted from the pitiable sight of semi-clad Jarawa men, women and children being made to dance in front of tourists in return for food. Jarawas are highly vulnerable to diseases and virus carried by the urban population and live in forests in the western coasts of South and Middle Andaman Islands. The Andaman administration had also proposed to build a sea link to ferry tourists from Port Blair to Baratang Islands, which has limestone cave and mud volcanoes, to avoid tourist contact with the Jarawas.