Delhi’s colonial gaze at the Andamans

The nation is immeasurably indebted to the 21 soldiers who were awarded the Param Vir Chakra Yet the Modi governmentrsquos decision to give their names to unnamed islands in Andaman and Nicobar Islands suggests the people there do not have their own history and heroes to celebrate their own tragedies to commemorate Delhirsquos denial of their memory smacks of colonial arroganceConsider this In October 2018 The Daily Telegrams a local newspaper based out of Port Blair published a notice inviting the public to suggest names for many of the unnamed islands islets and rocks in Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Homfreyganj memorial trust sent a list of martyrs to the Union Territory administration for considerationMemory speak upOn January 30 1944 the Japanese who took over Port Blair on March 23 1942 gunned down 44 Indians many of them members of the Indian Independence League at Homfreyganjmdashand bayoneted their bodies Among those killed was Prem Shankar Pandey his greatgrandson Jeivaish said the administration did not even deign to reply to the memorial trust and expressed disappointment at the overlooking of local martyrs in the recent naming spreeIt is not that people like Jeivaish disregard the sacrifices of the 21 soldiers But they would rather India became aware of the stories of the unsung heroes who resisted foreign occupations The lsquostoriesrsquo include the Battle of Aberdeen that Andamanrsquos indigenous tribes fought against the British fascinatingly narrated by academician Ajay Saini in The Hindu newspaperA year after the 1857 revolt the British came to Ross Island renamed Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Island in 2018 with the Indian mutineers who had been taken prisoner Around 130 of them escaped sailing on rafts to an island across They trekked through thick forests until they were surrounded by indigenes and killed Only Dudhnath Tewari survived The members of the AkaBeada tribemdashone of the 10 comprising the Great Andamanese groupmdashtook mercy on him treated his wounds and married him to one of their own For 11 months Dudhnath roamed with themAlarmed at the British expansion the indigenes mounted three raids against them in 1859 The last one was on May 17 when the indigenes sent an armed contingent to attack the Aberdeen convict camp south of Port Blair Dudhnath was among them So was another convict Sadloo whom another indigenous group had adopted Both slipped out at night and warned the British of the impending attack With the offensive deprived of the surprise element a large number of indigenes perished their bow and arrow no match to gunfire Dudhnathrsquos wife Lipa had a miscarriage Her name was changed to Modo Lipa or the deserted brideThe bells began to toll for the indigenous tribesMost of the 10 Andamanese groups are now extinctmdashsuch as AkaBea AkaKol OkoJuwoi AkaKede etc Apart from these 10 the Jangil disappeared in 1905 The Jarawa the Sentineli and Onge just about survive It would have been appropriate to have named some of the 21 islands after the tribes effaced from the nationrsquos memoryThe Modi government could also have considered the names of some of those 1857 mutineers who were banished to the Andamans For instance Musai Singh convicted for his role in killing British officers spent 47 years in the Andamans His descendants still live there Or FazleHaq Khairabadi who issued a fatwa that Muslims should wage a jihad against the British Greatgreatgrandfather of poetlyricist Javed Akhtar Khairabadi died in 1861 the day his son arrived on the AndamansThe list is long of those who withered away in prison but did not unlike V D Savarkar Hindutvarsquos high priest apologise to the British In later decades there was Mahavir Singh Rathore Bhagat Singhrsquos associate who went on a hunger strike with othersmdashand died in 1933 because of forced feedingIn Andamanrsquos collective memory the years of Japanese occupation were synonymous with brutality Take Diwan Singh a doctor whom the British had transferred from Rangoon to Port Blair in 1927 Suspecting him of being a British spy the Japanese tortured him to death 16 days before perpetrating the Homfreyganj massacreThe dominant historical discourse celebrates Bose hoisting the Tricolour in Port Blair But his association with the Japanese was a compelling reason the Andaman and Nicobar people were not enthused at the renaming of Ross Island after Bose Delhi unabashedly chose to overwrite the popular memory with its version of historyColonial powers named places after those whom they considered heroes disregarding the sentiments of their subjects What the indigenes knew as ThiLarSiro was renamed after General Henry Havelock and what was TebiShiro to them was given the name of James Neill Both were British officers who played a crucial role in crushing the 1857 revoltIn 2018 at the stroke of Delhirsquos pen with the disdain typical of colonial masters Neil Island became Shaheed Dweep and Havelock Island Swaraj Dweep There are now 21 new names for the people to contend with In this remembrance local heroes have no place And to think the Union government accused the BBC of having a colonial mindset for making a documentary on Prime Minister Narendra ModiThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper