Isolated & hostile for long, Andamans’ Jarawa tribals now enrolled as voters

Long known for their isolation and hostility, the primitive Jarawa tribals of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Wednesday gained a new identity — as registered voters in India.

Though it won’t be until the 2029 Lok Sabha elections that these Jarawas, one of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ five particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs), will cast their vote, the cause for celebrations is the inclusion of a largely hostile, secluded people in the national democratic mainstream.

First friendly contact in 1974

• The Jarawas inhabit the western coast of the Middle Andaman and South Andaman Islands and are largely hostile
• The Andaman and Nicobar administration has been sending contact expeditions periodically to the Jarawas to befriend them
• The first friendly contact was made in 1974 and since then the Jarawas have come to accept gifts like coconuts and bananas from expedition members

Speaking exclusively to The Tribune about the milestone today, Vinayak Chamadia, deputy chief electoral officer of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said their teams had registered 19 Jarawas as voters in the first phase of the ongoing voter registration campaign for the tribe. The total Jarawa population on the islands is 240 and more are expected to become voters as days go by.

Asked how they managed to achieve what once appeared impossible, Chamadia said, “This was a culmination of long years of gradual connection building with the tribals, respecting their space and traditions, and reaching out to them in their own language. It has taken years to build these bonds of trust and we have finally reached a point where the Jarawas have happily become voters.”

Prior to the Jarawas, the islands’ election officers have managed to enrol as voters members of the Onges, Shompens and Great Nicobarese tribes, the other PVTGs there. These other tribes are known to be friendlier than the Jarawas. In fact, the Onges voted in the 2019 LS poll and the Shompens in 2024.

Chamadia said the backbone of the outreach campaign with the Jarawas and other tribes was the Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti (AAJVS), a wing of the local tribal department, which has had a long history of association and contact with the island tribes and understanding of their language.

Voter registration campaigns among the Jarawas involved use of their language to build awareness about the importance of the electoral process, about voter empowerment and rights. “We made sure nothing was imposed,” Chamadia said.

“All 19 Jarawa voters signed Form 6 where the citizen agrees to become a registered voter,” the deputy CEO said.

He said dedicated wards for the Jarawas in local hospitals were part of the confidence-building measures.

“The AAJVS has also created a repository of traditional folktales related to the islands’ tribal groups and works with these populations to ensure their heritage and language is not lost,” Chamadia said. Other senior administration officials of the islands speak of the long tradition of contact expeditions to the Jarawas to help break ice with them.

Although the first friendly contact with the Jarawas was made way back in 1974 by a joint team of the islands’ administration and the Anthropological Survey of India, it was only in 1991 that meaningful social contact was achieved. At the heart of that contact expedition was anthropologist Madhumala Chattopadhyay, who became the first woman from the outside world to visit the Jarawas after she had been part of a similar contact expedition to North Sentinel Islands, which even today house the most isolated tribe in the world — the Sentinelese. The Sentinelese remain the most uncontactable people in the world to date, turning away visitors and attacking them. But in 1991, they had accepted coconuts from Madhumala and TN Pandit, the first set of people to make a friendly contact with the Sentinelese ever.