Andamans & Sunderbans:The Tidal Country

South Andamans

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LEARNING CURVE

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INDIA: Outrage at call to remove Andaman tribe’s children

An Indian MP's call for the children of a recently-contacted Andaman Island tribe to be removed from their parents and sent to residential schools has sparked worldwide outrage.

Indigenous people around the world have reacted furiously to the move, which echoes the much-criticised policy of the 'Stolen Generation' in Australia, and similar policies in North America.

Michael Cachagee, Executive Director of the National Residential School Survivors’ Society (NRSSS) in Canada, said, ‘The NRSSS cannot comprehend or fathom that any nation in today’s world would consider interning any of their citizens, especially children, in a ‘residential school’, given the horrific history associated with these types of schools in Canada and other parts of the world.’

From Brazil, Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa Yanomami said, ‘This plan is very bad. The forest is the Jarawa’s home. They are in their own land. They have their own traditions and their own culture. If the government takes their children away and puts them in a school, they will lose their culture. If they are made to leave and live in a town, in a school, it would be a crime.’

MP (Member of Parliament) Bishnu Pada Ray wants to ‘wean’ Jarawa children away from the tribe in order to ‘drastically mainstream’ them.

He will propose to India’s Island Development Authority in July that ‘quick and drastic steps be taken to bring the Jarawa up to the basic mainstream characteristics’. He describes the Jarawa as being ‘in a primitive stage of development’ and ‘stuck in time somewhere between the stone and iron age’.

Similar schemes in the US, Canada and Australia are now acknowledged to have been disastrous, and to have left hundreds of thousands of indigenous people traumatized.

Mr Ray is also demanding that restrictions on developments in the Jarawa reserve be lifted, so that a highway running through the reserve can be upgraded, and a railway built. India’s Supreme Court ordered in 2002 that the existing Andaman Trunk Road must be closed to protect the Jarawa, but it remains open.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘These scandalous proposals are contemptuous both of indigenous peoples’ rights and the UN’s standards for their protection. Attempts to force the Jarawa to abandon their way of life will simply destroy them.’

source: CHILD RIGHTS INFORMATION NETWORK

Read in full the Andamans MP’s proposals regarding the Jarawa

BELIEVE IT OR NOT !!!!!!

New Delhi, Aug 9 – Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh Monday objected to calling the native tribals of Andaman and Nicobar ‘primitive tribes’ even as their decreasing numbers continue to be a major concern.

‘We must stop using the term primitive, use the term original inhabitants,’ Ramesh said while replying to supplementaries in the Rajya Sabha.

Great Andamanese, Onges, Jarawas, Sentinelese and Shompens are the identified tribes from the islands.

‘They are away from the mainstream. They are original Negroids who migrated from Africa, how the local administration saves them is a challenge,’ Ramesh said.

andamansikkim: No.. they are evolving tribes !!! under Controlled conditions. GO and SEE !!!