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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Jarawas add 125 to tribe by Tapas Chakraborty

Jarawas add 125 to tribe by Tapas Chakraborty

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published Published on Oct 17, 2010   modified Modified on Oct 17, 2010

Ten years, 125 more heads.

Hardly anything to write home about in these times of billion-plus populations, but anthropologists aren’t complaining. Not when the last headcount showed 240 and the people in question are a threatened tribe — the Jarawas.

The latest report by the Andaman Adim Janjati Vikash Samity (AAJVS), a government-affiliated autonomous agency headed by the Union territory’s lieutenant governor, shows the Jarawas now number 365 — 125 more since the 2001 census — kindling cautious hope for the threatened tribe.

The indigenous people were estimated to be just 89 in the 1991 census. In 1981, they were said to have numbered 275.

The huge fall in numbers between 1981 and 1991, said S.R. Rao, an anthropologist with the tribal welfare department of the Andaman and Nicobar administration, could be explained to an outbreak of epidemics in the late eighties. But the latest census, Rao added, shows the Jarawas, who first came in touch with the outside world in 1979, had recovered enough to increase their population.

Anthropologists said if the latest figure of 365 was true, the Jarawas might increase their population even more like the threatened Birhor tribes of Madhya Pradesh had done.

The Birhors numbered just 935 in 1991 but are a few thousand strong now.

An official with the AAJVS, tasked with conserving the unique heritage of the aboriginal tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said the latest report was based on a survey carried out in August. “The study was based on physical verification of the indigenous people. The total male population of the Jarawas is estimated to be 192 now while the total female population is 173,” the official said.

Sources said another positive sign was the demographic profile of the Jarawas — the young outnumber the elderly.

The number of people between 11 and 20 is 99, while those between 21 and 30 number 59. Only 11 are above 51.

Some experts, however, said the increase of 125 might not be accurate as, till the late nineties, anthropologists were either unable to locate all the habitats of the Jarawas who are spread across the south and middle Andamans, or census workers were too scared to survey remote areas.

“It was only in 2002 that a team of anthropologists, of which I was a part, had made door-to-door visits to get an accurate picture. That time the figure was 310. I can vouch for its accuracy,” said S.S. Barik, a senior anthropologist with the Anthropological Survey of India in Port Blair.

Professor V.S. Sahay, head of the department of anthropology, Allahabad University, said all the previous figures were declared “estimated to be”.

“I was among the first group of anthropologists who befriended the Jarawas in 1979. Aboard a ship we made first contact at a south Andaman island and distributed some food to some Jarawas. They quickly lifted them and ran back to their habitat without speaking a word,” he recalled.

But, Sahay said, “much of the confusion” about the demographic profile of the Jarawas has now been cleared. “The Jarawas,” he added, “are now in direct contact with us.”


The Telegraph, 17 October, 2010, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101017/jsp/nation/story_13066500.jsp


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