British newspaper The Observer has revealed evidence of police involvement in ‘human safaris’ in India’s Andaman Islands.
The scandal, first exposed by Survival International in 2010, involves tourists using an illegal road to enter the reserve of the Jarawa Tribe. Tour companies and cab-drivers ‘attract’ the Jarawa with biscuits and sweets.
The Observer has obtained a video showing a group of Jarawa women being ordered to dance for tourists by a policeman, who had reportedly accepted a £200 bribe to take them into the reserve.
One tourist has previously described a similar trip: “‘The journey through tribal reserve was like a safari ride as we were going amidst dense tropical rainforest and looking for wild animals, Jarawa tribals to be specific.”
In recent weeks, the Islands’ administration has again ruled out closing the road, known as the Andaman Trunk Road, and revealed for the first time that it plans to open an alternative route by sea to bypass most of the Jarawa reserve.
Survival International has called for tourists to boycott the road, which the Supreme Court ordered closed in 2002. Working with a local organization, SEARCH, Survival International has distributed leaflets to tourists arriving at the Islands’ airport warning of the dangers of using the road.
Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry said on January 9, “This story reeks of colonialism and the disgusting and degrading ‘human zoos’ of the past. 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.”
About Survival International
Survival International is a human rights’ organization formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of indigenous people and uncontacted tribes, seeking to help them to determine their own future. Their campaigns generally focus on tribal peoples’ fight to keep their ancestral lands, culture and their own way of living. Survival works for the people who they call “some of the most vulnerable on earth”. A part of their mission is to educate people from misconceptions that help justify violations of human rights against indigenous people, and the risks that they face from the advancement of corporations, governments and also good intentions based on an idea of “development” that is forced upon them. Survival believes that in fact their alternative way of living is not lacking, they represent a model of sustainability in the environment that they are a part of and they possess a rich culture from which we could learn. For more information, visit www.survivalinternational.org.
Source: Survival International.
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