Dr Ratan Chandra Kar, a resident of DL Block, was conferred the Padma Shri last year for his service to the Jarawas, the indigenous people of the Andaman Islands. After his felicitation by Susamay, the literary wing of DL Block residents’ association, he spoke to The Telegraph Salt Lake about his experiences with the enigmatic tribe.
How did you start working for the Jarawas?
I hail from West Midnapore and after passing out of Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, worked in northeast India, including with the Konyak tribe in Nagaland. I went to the Andamans in 1988 and when the Jarawas, who always stayed secluded, started coming out, I was asked by the government to work for them.
How did the Jarawas start coming out?
Jarawas have been subject to British atrocities down the ages and so were hostile towards outsiders. A single incident changed their attitude.
In 1996, some Jarawa boys had gone to steal a jackfruit from the garden of a resident. These are people from East Pakistan who the government had settled there.
The man gave chase and the boys fled. But one of them fell and broke his leg. The boy was in pain but would not accept even water from anyone. Later another resident, who was extremely dark-skinned, offered food, which he took.
When the 15-year-old-boy Enmai, was taken for first aid, police had to lathi charge the place as everyone had gathered to see the Jarawa. He was then shifted to the hospital I worked in.
Initially, Enmai would tremble at the sight of us, tearing up plasters and refusing our food. Then we showed him a raw fish, that made him happy. We boiled it and offered him.
We treated Enmai very well and five months later released him in the forests. Once he who narrated his positive experience back home, the Jarawa leaders decided that outsiders weren’t bad. They started coming out gradually.
How did you gain their trust?
On my first day at work, I had Jarawas pointing arrows at me as our boat approached their island. We had taken coconuts and bananas and offered these to the children on the beach, which somewhat broke the ice.
Gradually I learnt their language and culture. Once I remember I was being escorted into the forest by two big Jarawa men in front and behind me. All were armed, to fight off snakes. Suddenly I hit my foot against a rock and bent over in pain. Immediately they rushed to help me. That day I realized a friendship had been forged.
What sort of health issues do the Jarawas suffer from?
The Jarawas have great knowledge of herbs and use them as their medicines. Once they had invited me to witness the delivery of a baby. Their methods were so proficient that my staff and I had nothing to add. During delivery, their women are made to sit which is, in fact, better for the mother and child. Modern doctors make the woman lie down for their own benefit.
Their population was 255 when I took over and it is now 612. Their infant mortality rate was very high as they were prone to pneumonia. Once a mother had brought her sick baby to me and the baby was cured after an injection. The news spread like wildfire and thereafter began queues of mothers and children at our centres.
But as the Jarawas started mingling with outsiders, there began epidemics of diseases like measles, mumps and hepatitis E that their bodies had never developed immunity against. I call these the gift of civilisation. These outbreaks nearly wiped out their population but we worked to save them.
What is the Jarawa society like? What are their practices?
They have a strong sense of family. They are monogamous but remarry if their spouse dies, as they know they must keep reproducing to keep their race alive.
Their food is fruits and animals like pigs, which is a favourite. They do not use oil, salt or spices. They never covered up but we started giving them clothes, at least to the women who walked up to the medical centres. Otherwise, people, even policemen, would gawk at them and I would have to tell them off.
The Jarawas believe in some higher force and that heaven is cold. They celebrate births and mourn deaths. Once a 15-year-old boy Ohame fell from a tree while lowering a beehive. He was badly hurt and I had to send him to Chennai for treatment. But he didn’t survive.
When I broke the news to his mother she started hitting her head on a rock till it was bloodied. Four other women tried to control her but couldn’t. My staff thought they would kill us in anger but they understood that we had tried. The boy’s body was kept in the open in a distant island and after three months his father went back and retrieved some bones.
It is their practice to wear these bones as necklaces or bracelets in loving memory of the departed. Outsiders would see these jewellery from ships using binoculars and assume the Jarawas were cannibals. I once asked a Jarawa leader if they were cannibals and he laughed his head off!
What do the tribals do for entertainment?
They sing in chorus about the sea, they have games where they walk long distances on their hands…. Once the administration decided to introduce them to football. When I dropped the ball on the beach and it bounded and rolled, the Jarawas darted in fear.
Gradually we showed them how to play, erected goalposts and played a friendly match. But I made it clear to my staff that they must win. Later they started playing volleyball around our medical centre too.
During the 2002 Fifa World Cup, there was a Senegal vs Sweden game on and I ensured the Jarawas in the medical ward came to watch it. Experts say that the Jarawas had moved out of Africa thousands of years ago and they too recognized their resemblance with the Senegalese.
How they danced every time Senegal “headed” a ball or scored a goal! Senegal won the game.
What about their language?
They have no script but they have a set grammar. They are very intelligent and quickly picked up their first foreign language - Bengali. I remember how surprised I was to walk into a hut once and find a 12-year-old greet me: “Doctor, tumi bhalo acho?”
My staff commented that he should have used “apni”, but I told them there was a huge difference in sincerity between my staff’s “apni” and a Jarawa’s “tumi”.
Soon they would sing and dance to Bondhu teen din and Hum kale hai toh kya hya. I would tell them no one is dark among them; their hearts are spotless.
How have their lives changed after mingling with outsiders?
I had once asked them this and they said they found outsiders to be a dishonest bunch. We lie a lot.
Outsiders exploit them. Tourists treat them like beggars. They barter a biscuit for their arrows, which they need for their survival. A Jarawa child, who is the de facto owner of massive forests, now runs behind cars for a Rs 10 packet of biscuits. Nothing, in my eyes, can be sadder than this.
Once four kids had come to our centre, three of them with pneumonia. I admitted them and gave them red T-shirts and pants to wear (Jarawas love the colour red). Immediately the fourth child started throwing a tantrum as he wasn’t given clothes. When they were all naked, none of them had wanted it.
Now they are stealing things like TV sets and when the set fails to work without electricity, they dump it in the sea.
What was it like receiving the Padma Shri for your efforts?
It is a matter of pride to receive an award from the President of India. Neighbours have been excited too. My wife Anjali (who was born and brought up in the Andaman) and I have been visiting this DL Block house since 1999 so everyone knows us here.
They said this award has made the block proud. When I visited the SBI bank branch at Bikash Bhavan, word spread and they felicitated me on the spot.
Do you miss the Jarawas now?
I retired and left the Andamans in 2022 and yes, I miss my Jarawas friends. I’m told they ask about me too, and they point to the sky and tell one other that I’ve gone by aeroplane.
We call them uncivilised but there is so much to learn from them. They know how to read nature and so not one Jarawa life was lost to the 2004 tsunami. But we have to be interested.
I was the guest of honour at NRS hospital’s 150th foundation day celebration recently and spoke my mind. I said it should be compulsory for doctors to serve for five years in villages after passing out.
What is your message for Dr Ratan Chandra Kar? Write to saltlake@abp.in
