Steve Hutcheson

I was reading an article this morning in the British Guardian Online. It was about an isolated tribe of Jarawa natives who were starting to come out of the jungle in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the first time and how they are beginning to interface with the tourists and recent arrivals. The writer, quite rightly alluded to the difficulties the tribes faces in the future in terms of integration, adapting to diseases, alcoholism, materialism etc as they become more and more integrated into the western notion of development. Necessarily these are traditionally poor people who have survived for centuries by their instinct and what the jungle can provide for them, the thing for the moment is that, they do not know they are poor, nor do they appear to care or are in any particular need of what the west can provide for them. Unfortunately that will progressively change as well meaning, but poorly advised “assistants” help them adapt to the western world. The richness of their present simple life will eventually become the symbols  of their future poverty.

Jarawa women of the Andaman Islands

It got me to thinking however about the general notion that we see indigenous peoples need to reach levels in their lifestyles that are consistent with western norms that may be askew. The Jarawa seem to have an idylic lifestyle. They are not constrained by any moral conventions that constrain the outside world, they live a semi nomadic existence where there appears no need for anything other than what their surroundings can provide for them. Ecologically and environmentally, the Jarawa appear to leave a negligible footprint on their surroundings yet seem happy with that even to the extent of repelling intruders with spears and arrows until quite recently. However, as they start to integrate as they are now doing, their lives will become irreversibly changed and it needs to be decided soon if that is for the better or should they be protected.

Their future is perhaps written for them as development takes hold of their tiny island. Inevitably they will through contact establish needs they previously did not have or could not obtain from the jungle.  Sweets, clothing, housing, liquor, medicine, education, money, communications, transport and a host of other symbols of development and advanced society. Through bitter experience of how other indigenous people have fared in the past, they will not fare well. They will lose their skills at living with nature, they will contract diseases, they will become indolent, always living around the edges of society eventually becoming a serial pest as that society loses its tolerance with their slow adaptation to western expectation. They will live in hastily constructed shanties at the edge of civilization instead of in their organized jungle village.

Going by the conventions set down by agencies such as the United Nations Human Development Reports, the Jarawa people will be included in deserving the minimum standards laid out for their existence yet what that fails to acknowledge is that these standards would generally exceed their current expectations and what is more, it needs to be asked if in fact they are needed or should what we be doing is to maintain the status quo.

Is development only a western perception that would enable them to live in a developing western world with western needs. Poverty world wide is measured against an immeasurable standard if say compared to the Jarawa people. The same, to some extent can be said for peoples all over the world in different locations and different sets of ideals. We tend to presume that what we can offer is what is best and fail to understand that sometimes what they have might well be what is in fact best after all.

For several years I have worked in Afghanistan. When I first arrived I had the opportunity to travel to remote regions of Nangahar province where I met with villagers whom I considered had an almost idyllic if not austere life, similar to that of the Jarawa however with a greater degree of development you might say. They had little to be sure however they had enough to live a lifestyle that was free of material needs. They live in mud houses with a mud floor and rarely a window. They grow and eat their own simple foods. They do not own cars and they do not travel far. They are uneducated but they can live under extreme weather conditions as they have done for centuries. It is rich in its simplicity. There were growing issues of education of which they had little and medical resources of which they had none and much of the issues of maternal and natal health were frequent problems that needed resolutions. Much of it compared to others who had only recently acquired these services.

Yet there is resistance. In the far reaches of Nuristan province to the east of the country, the local people are resisting all comers. That includes the US military and the Taliban as well as the development community. Their villages are only accessible by foot tracks in the mountains that even the donkeys find difficult to traverse. They don’t want change and will fight to prevent its arrival.

In terms of their material wealth however, apart from the land beneath their feet, they have little to show of wealth. Most Afghans live in harsh inhospitable environments where an austere religious lifestyle and work at subsistence levels of farm production that regulates their daily lives yet, for the most part, provides a sense of order and a level of social security within each tiny hamlet.  Many never venturing out even to the next village but remain within the family compound. It is only when change takes place that dislocations to these tiny communities begin to eventuate. They are poor however their poverty is relative to a system that they are being introduced to that advocates development.

A question that needs to be asked, is do they really need it until they decide for them self? Is development aiding in the destruction of societies? Well meaning but often self serving aid agencies who set an agenda that is rarely based on what these communities actually need as opposed to what they might say they want or promote ideas the aid groups can sell to them and proceed to offer a change to their lifestyles. A move towards one that emulates their own along with their own particular set of values, changing social structures, material wealth and complete with vague notions of democracy and the inherent politics of gender, education and health care.

Development at peoples own pace can be good. Development at paces they cannot maintain is not good. For the Jarawa people, development will most likely only bring them poverty and hardship that they otherwise would never have known.