Saturday Feature 14 The Economic Times, New Delhi, Saturday, 31 January 2015 The Reconfiguration of the Nicobar Islands First came the tsunami. And then, as the Nicobarese were struggling to cope, came a second onslaught—‘one-sizefits-all’ relief and rehabilitation. M Rajshekhar reports on the fallout Before the tsunami, the Nicobars were a laidback place. Both Car Nicobar and Central Nicobar had very communitarian societies. Researchers visiting the island found rising There was trade even curiosity about the world in precolonial times. outside amongst the young. Influences from outside deepened with the British and then under Indian rule. This was slowly changing ANIRBAN BORA T The high death toll, delays in housing—which forced people to stay in temporary structures for almost five years— everything took a toll. Official estimates pegged the number of dead at 5,000 Rasheed Yusoof en years after the tsunami, life in India’s coral-fringed Nicobar Islands is settling into a new pattern. For the most part, it is an ugly one. In the tiny island of Car Nicobar—it has a perimeter of just 45 kms—even 12 year olds are getting drunk. “There was always some drinking,” comments Samir Acharya, a local environmentalist. “But what we are seeing now is binge drinking.” Hard liquor is the most preferred drink now, not toddy. There are other changes. The traditional community structure, where extended families lived together in homes large enough for all of them, is being replaced by nuclear families. The islands are now far more dependent on the world outside for their supplies. With that, the local economy has changed from a simple one bartering or selling coconuts to a far more complex and cash-intensive one. Most of these changes can be traced, not to the tsunami of December 2004 but to the relief work carried out by NGOs and the government. Before the tsunami, the islands had a very distinctive culture. Central Nicobar was matrilineal. Both Central and Car Nicobar—the largest islands in the archipelago—had a very communitarian ethos. Says Acharya, “Resources—like coconut trees—were allocated by the village leader as per a household’s need.” Their justice system was not adversarial but remedial. If someone killed, say, the son in a family, he would have to work for them to compensate for the loss. Says Rasheed Yusoof, a community leader in Central Nicobar, “People did not need a lot of money. The islands’ resources—pig, fish, coconut—gave enough to eat. There was no need for money. If people needed money for anything, they would sell coconuts. At the same time, there were not too many things to buy. People were very contented with their resources.” Some of this was changing even before the tsunami. By 2004, says Acharya, disputes were being taken to the courts. Local youth were wondering more about life outside the islands. However, the pace of change was rela- Simron Singh: “The scramble for relief and exotic goods, the lack of work, filled with anxiety to construct their temporary shelters, and stress in the cramped environment of the relief camps triggered new dynamics among the inmates. Inter-generational conflicts, questions of leadership (several old leaders had died), the redistribution of land and resources, and a restructuring of the former joint family system started to take place.” The change began..... tively gradual. The tsunami, and its aftermath, vastly accelerated the pace of this change. The quake preceding the tsunami was so strong the Nicobars slipped as much as two metres lower (North Andaman rose higher above the sea, South Andaman and the Nicobars sank). Waves flowed right over some islands and rejoined the sea at the other end. A community leader of Kamorta island went out fishing the previous night and, on returning, went to the place where his village ought to have been but found nothing. Seven villages on that island were washed out to sea. This destruction was repeated on island after island. Official estimates say 5,000 people died. Local estimates peg fatalities far higher. A large humanitarian effort was mounted by NGOs and the administration. The shocked survivors were brought to Port Blair. Recalls Acharya, who spent those days working with the then-Chief Secretary VV Bhat on relief, “The first thing the administration did is evacuate women, children, the old and then the young men—in that order—and settle them in different camps as they came in. This broke up communities at a time when they most needed each other.” Even as that mistake was corrected, others were made. Both the government and NGOs came in with supplydriven than need-driven remedies with little relevance to the local conditions. In an economy with limited role for cash, the government doled out cash compensation. In communities which used wooden boats, NGOs and the government gave out fiberglass boats which couldn’t be maintained locally. Categorising locals into nuclear families, the government made out cheques to smaller family units. Instead of rebuilding traditional houses, it foisted boilerplate templates upon the locals. Says Yusoof, “After the tsunami, we said give us tools and we will make our own houses with our traditional knowledge. But we did not get the tools. Instead we were told to take one of three kinds of houses.” Bhat told ET that the local administration was in favour of allowing the Samir Acharya: “The people from Delhi could not see how 70 people can live together with one kitchen. Families were given nuclear houses. We protested about this but we were told “It has already been decided. This cannot be changed”.” The tsunami changed all that. “There was no need for money. If people needed money for anything, they would sell coconuts. At the same time, there were not too many things to buy. People were very contented with their resources.” Entire clans would stay in one house. The primary livelihood was derived from coconut. After that came a second assault. A wave of NGOs and the local administration came in with supply-driven than need-based solutions. tribals to build their own houses, by giving them tools, timber and bamboo. “However, government of India told us that since it is building houses for the non-tribals, there should be similar treatment to all and so, it would build houses for all.” Says Yusoof, “The government in Delhi floated a tender—about Rs 8001,000 crore—where non-tribal contractors who had not even seen the islands bid. They did not know how dispersed the islands are, the cost of transporting the material, etc.” Eventually, they could make only a few houses. That tender was cancelled. The local adminis- RASHEED YUSOOF COMMUNITY LEADER, CENTRAL NICOBAR “After the tsunami, we said give us tools and we will make our own houses. But we did not get the tools. Instead, we were told to take one of three kinds of houses” tration gave the work to contractors from Port Blair. The houses were ready in 2010, five years after the tsunami. In this period, the Nicobarese had to live in camps made of corrugated sheets— Sheds hot enough to be unbearable. All this created additional trauma for an already scarred population. In a paper titled “Humanitarian Aid and Ecological Consequences: The Nicobar Islands as a Case of Complex Disasters”, writes academic Simron Jit Singh, “The scramble for relief and exotic goods, the lack of work, filled with anxiety to construct their temporary shelters, and stress in the cramped environment of the relief camps triggered new dynamics among the inmates. Inter-generational conflicts, questions of leadership (several old leaders had died), the redistribution of land and resources, and a restructur- ing of the former joint family system started to take place.” The decision to pay compensation to nuclear units, writes Singh, who did his fieldwork (on the economic ties between the Nicobarese and the rest of the world) during the late 1990s, “was the beginning of the disintegration of the extended family system and of future conflicts. A re-evaluation of lifestyles—especially by the young—started. In a November 2014 article in EPW, Tata Institute of Social Sciences academic Ajay Saini writes: “After their temporary rehabilitation in the intermediate shelters... they came in close proximity with the non-Nicobarese community... They found their traditional lifestyle lacking and started imitating the nonNicobarese lifestyle.” In the pre-tsunami period, he writes, those with the largest number of pigs, coconut plantations, gol ghars (round huts) who contributed generously during communal feasts, especially the pig festival, were deemed affluent. Posttsunami, those with most the modern commodities were viewed affluent, and this ushered reckless consumerism within the community. There was another puzzling dynamic. Bhat, who was the chief secretary at the time, was moved out of the islands the month after the tsunami—the very time experienced hands were needed. Other experienced bureaucrats, he told ET, too were transferred out shortly after the tsunami. DS Negi, who took over as the chief secretary after Bhat, told ET decisions about the temporary housing and cash compensation were made after discussions with local leaders. However, it is unclear if the community was in a position to think much at the time. The outcome? On an island as small as Car Nicobar, says Amin Moosa, the head of a tribal co-operative, there will be about 1,000 cars right now. “People are spending on petrol and insurance for these cars, but there is no permanent source of earning.” This is a point that Singh also makes. After four years of incessant aid flow s, he wrote, the Nicobarese have adopted a new way of living based on a much higher consumption than before. “The issue here is that hardly any of this is locally produced but must be obtained from outside as aid, subsidy, or trade.” As dependency on resources from outside rises, the traditional economy cannot support the new lifestyle. Annual income from coconuts, calculates Moosa, cannot be more than Rs 1,000 per person. Against that, agrees Yusoof, “Cash need is more now. I think, Rs 7,000 a month.” Says Acharya, “The villagers have had to go to the new economy. The class 8 passouts took government jobs. They now make Rs 16,000-17000 as Class-4 workers. Others live through compensation money or daily wage labour.” If the people of Kamorta, says Singh, start selling vegetables—“the only means of livelihood that is readily accessible”—they will have to work eight hours a day. This, he says, “is equal to the maximum disposable working time (leaving no time for festivities and rituals), and a six to eight times increase in the working time as compared to the pre-tsunami scenario.” At the same time, forest and grasslands will reduce by 15% and 10%, respectively, over the next 30 years with impacts on drinking water, soil, forest produce and some of the endemic fauna and flora. Put it all together and you see a dramatic restructuring. The most appropriate way ahead, he feels, would be to pre pare the Nicobarese for a new economy. “To work with local institutions to create alternatives that are economically feasible, equitable, culturally appropriate and ecologically sustainable.” It’s not clear what the local administration is doing about all this. Anand Prakash, the current chief secretary, didn’t respond to ET’s questions. [email protected] Crossword With cash compensation, people’s lifestyle changed. The islands, battered from the tsunami, could not support the new lifestyles. With their own resources unable to take care of them, the villagers had to go to the new economy The class 8 passouts took government jobs. Others lived off compensation money. As that ran out, they turned to daily wage labour. The local administration tried to push vegetable farming. Dependency on the mainland grew. In Car Nicobar, a drinking problem . Anand Lauson: “The youth are a problem. They are not working. They are drinking. Earlier, there were 1 or2 problem children but now almost everyone is drinking.” Today, the Nicobars are a different place. Some people are trying to return to the old lifestyle. Others have migrated out to Port Blair Samir Acharya: “The traditionality is gone. The natural cohesiveness of the village is gone. It was not intentional but inevitable the way things were going.” 5430 Culturally, American Jindal is Being the Quintessential Indian The American formerly called Piyush aka Bobby Jindal has shown true Indianness by doing exactly what India has been doing: constantly absorbing, adapting and changing Silk Stalkings Reshmi R Dasgupta Just under 20 years ago when we returned from a posting in the UK, our fouryear-old son not only had rather quaint occidental manners, he also spouted what I considered a beautiful British accent. The Ps and Qs remained but the accent was not to last long, sadly. Within a month or two of school in India, his phoren tone inevitably began to fade. “You’re no longer British,” I said teasingly to him one day. “Mami,” he replied after some consideration, with all the gravitas a chap his size could manage, “British is not speaking, British is being.” Out of the mouths of babes comes truth, goes the old saying and it inspired me to dash off a ‘middle’ for The Times of India. I am reminded of it again now in the light of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and also Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s comments on hyphenated identities. What is being Indian? Or indeed being American, Australian, and yes, British? What binds a multi-racial, multi-cultural nation? Is there a Britishness that transcends the inherent divisions of race and religion, much like there is an Americanness or Australianness? Sadly, in India this debate becomes a non-starter as the word Indianness has been needlessly politicized by one camp appropriating it and another camp vilifying it. Yet, something has undoubtedly kept this huge subcontinent more or less cohesive regardless of lines on maps. History will bear out that India was actually the United States of the ancient world. Unlike insular China and internally absorbed Europe, it attracted people from all over. So, diverse cultures flowed into the melting pot that was ancient India and added their unique flavour to it. The peoples of Europe and China evolved their identities around distinctive languages and cultural practices. Neither experienced large scale and continuous influx (at least until fairly recently) even if they did send some of their own out to explore and bring back things. It is dangerous to imagine that common language, clothes, political system and other superficial elements make for a composite culture and harmonious identity. The Charlie Hebdo killings are a warning about the dangerous consequences of not evolving an ‘Europeanness’. But Europeanness should not and cannot mean a stew of all the current cultures milling around there. After all if the millennia old curry that is India is deconstructed into its individual ele- ments by some mad molecular gastronome, it would seem a yucky mix of strong contrasts. But when tasted in its complex totality – arrived at by thousands of years of slow cooking, mixing, steeping, emulsifying – there is a compelling cohesion that is not the mere sum of its parts. The Indianness of it has been arrived at by continuous absorption, adaption and change. That flexible constant is Indianness. And it is something that neither side of the political divide has quite grasped – or even wanted to, perhaps. And that is where Bobby Jindal’s dehyphenation comes in. Shashi Tharoor has criticised him for being an Indian only in surname; he’s so wrong. By doing all the things that Tharoor has indignantly complained about Jindal in his book IndiaShastra, the American formerly called Piyush has shown true Indianness by doing exactly what India has been doing: constantly absorbing, adapting and changing. He is not an Indian in the narrow manner that we usually tend to identify ourselves these days for some reason. Neither he nor India are defined by or confined to a name, a religion, geography, a particular political view or taste. There is no contradiction in being Bobby and being Indian. That is because the essence of Americanness, in principle, is also the essence of Indianness, as it is shaped by the similar way the two countries have evolved their raison d’etre, albeit in different millennia. To paraphrase my son, Jindal doesn’t have to speak Indian to be Indian. In fact, by being utterly culturally American, Bobby Jindal is in fact being the quintessential Indian. He certainly does not have to hyphenate the two to prove anything; nor does he lose anything by refusing to do so. Indians and today’s anguished Europeans should take note. Dilbert by S Adams