India's Cynical Game on the Nicobars

By Klaus Brinkbäumer

The Indian government says nobody died on the Nicobar Islands in the late December tsunami. Yet just one of the 572 islands lost 12 of 16 villages and, islanders say, up to 15,000 lives. So why is India refusing to admit the truth? And, more importantly, why is it refusing to admit aid workers?

One hears all kinds of strange sentences in times of natural disasters such as the tsunami that battered the Indian Ocean region on Dec. 26. The sentence "Nobody died" is rarely one of them. Yet exactly that is what N.G. Ruccess from the Indian Ministry of Law and Justice said in reference to the devastated Indian Ocean archipelago, the Nicobar Islands.

That's not all. The handsome, brown-eyed New Delhi native who prefers to be called "Rocky" also has an explanation for why nobody died. The people of Car Nicobar, he explains over tea in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of the Nicobars, are "like animals. (They) listen to their instincts and when they sensed that the water was coming, they fled. That's why nobody died."

Ruccess doesn't see anything wrong with his explanation. Why should he? After all, he is only parroting the official line.

Speaking in Calcutta, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh insisted that India is not driven by "false pride," and that his country's rejection of international aid for India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, both heavily affected by the tsunami, is neither chauvinistic nor isolationist. Singh said that India has both the "national will and the means" to meet the challenge on its own.

Obstructing the truth of the disaster

And yet obstructions to finding the truth are everywhere. In the upstairs office of an administrative building in Port Blair, the capital of Andaman group of formerly - prior to December 26, 2004 - 572 islands, official lists were posted. According to the documents, 600 kilograms of rice have been distributed to the victims to date. Here, the lists deign to admit that some lost their lives: 1,310 dead, 4,657 missing.

According to the people living in refugee camps, these figures are "a joke," -- much too low. Furthermore, the administration is making itself unavailable to anyone curious about its statistics. For example, if a reporter has just had an interview with a military official and then wishes to speak to someone in the government, Information Director Kuldeep Singh Gangwar says: "One interview is enough for you." Mr. Gangwar is also fond of shouting at interpreters working for foreign journalists. He tells them he'll make things difficult for them in Port Blair.

What's happening here? In people's minds across the globe, the word "tsunami" now conjures up images of a catastrophe that affected the entire world, but also of efforts by the international community to help the countries affected. But the Andamans and the Nicobars were black holes during the days following the catastrophe. No pictures and no information leaked out. And today, almost four weeks later, the people on these islands are cut off from the world's aid and support, simply because that's the way the Indian government wants it to be. "No one is at fault, and no one could have done anything about the disaster," says Ali Liyakat, harbormaster on Little Andaman until December 26, "so why is New Delhi behaving this way?"

Why indeed? Part of the answer may lie in history. Ever since gaining its independence from Great Britain in 1947, India has pursued an almost manic policy of not allowing itself to be influenced by or beholden to any country in the world. Also at issue here is that India is trying to cover up the fact that it's struggling with the challenges it faces in the wake of the killer waves.

But beyond pride, there is also realpolitik. The islands are, for India, an ideal military base and indeed Car Nicobar hosted India's easternmost camp from which it could keep an eye on Southeast Asia and, more importantly, the Straits of Malacca. And for politicians back in New Delhi, the cold, hard truth of the matter is that the indigenous people of the Andamans and Nicobars don't vote. The islands, about 900 miles away from Madras on India's southeastern coast, constitute a union territory, which has no parliament, no media, and no lobbying powers. They are militarily important to India, but politically irrelevant. The islands are useful to India, but their inhabitants are not.

What really happened when the wave came

Anyone who wants to find out what happened on these islands in late December and what's happening today must travel south on boats like the MV "Pilokunji," a 100-foot rusty tub jammed with 300 homeless people braving the ten-hour night voyage to Little Andaman. The passengers roll out their blankets on the floor, even on the padlocked crate filled with life vests. Their stories are all similar. They talk about how the earthquake caused houses to collapse, houses with concrete foundations and wooden roofs, and how the children were the first to be hit by falling debris; how the water came, four waves, one every 20 minutes; how the homelands of the Onge and the Nicobars were destroyed in Osten Hut Bay, the largest village, and all the way down in South Bay; how the island was flooded and all its fresh water springs were contaminated with salt water, so that they had no water, no food and no medications; and how they waited for weeks for aid that never came.

Little Andaman looks like it was hit by an invasion, and in a way it was. "When nature gives you all it's got, it can fight battles that destroy everything, and then it becomes invincible," says Andrew Martin, the mayor of South Bay. Survivors on Little Andaman say that 2,000 people died on the island. Most survivors face similar situations: they've lost children, relatives and loved ones, their houses and their documents, and they've lost all the things they had accumulated throughout life -- TV sets, bicycles, beds, scooters, kitchenware and clothing -- and they have no savings passbooks or insurance. They are still looking for corpses. A few feet away from the main road, a group of Onge tribe members sit in front of a fire, while the men barbecue their last goat. They say: "We will never travel out to sea again. The sea has said what it had to say."

There are six tribes on the Andamans and Nicobars. The 100 short-statured Onge, the 250 Jarawa, the 70 Sentinelese and the 25 Big Andamanese, all of whom tend to make their homes in the northern section of the islands, are part of the Negrito ethnic group. The 32,000 Nicobars and the approximately 200 Shomps are mongoloid. The islands are also home to the ancestors of prisoners who, until the mid-20th century, were sent from the mainland to the penal colony in the Andamans. There are also Indians of all religious faiths who came here in the 1970s and 1980 under the auspices of a colonization program in which the government would give them a few acres of land and a place they could call home.

In total, there are about 360,000 inhabitants on the 572 islands that make up the territory. And the Indian government would like us to believe that none of these people lost their lives on Dec. 26. Or were there perhaps 1,310 dead? The government's figures seem cynically low.

"India is sticking together"

On December 31, 2004, official order number 281/27/2004-TS was faxed to Port Blair. It contained instructions on how the civil administration and the military were to cooperate. Since then, Lieutenant General B.S. Thakur has been in charge of all Indian aid workers. "It was difficult in the beginning," says Thakur, an officer dressed in camouflage gear and running shoes, "because the topography of the islands had changed. Our maps were useless. We had new reefs and new coastlines. But now we have everything under control, the people have been helped, and the Indian nation is sticking together."

With luck, a conversation with the commander might be followed with a ride on a military helicopter (with an empty cargo hold) to Car Nicobar, the island that was home to the Indian military base, a place where the highest-ranking officers lived in the most desirable houses, directly on the beach. The Indians don't want journalists and aid workers wandering around this island, so they're given escorts. But it's easy to slip away and explore.

Car Nicobar, nicknamed "Car Nic," an island with a circumference of less than 30 miles, was the epicenter of the catastrophe on the Andamans and Nicobars. There were once 16 villages here, all on the beach. Today, 12 villages are destroyed, including five that vanished without a trace. TV images or photographs cannot possibly prepare someone for the magnitude of destruction in places like the tiny village of Malacca. Entire streets were moved, as much as 1000 feet farther away from the shore. Ground floors of buildings are gone, while top floors and roofs lie on the ground. The ground is littered with trucks, TVs, clothing, rocks and trees, interspersed with a white ballet shoe, a puppet. The sea churned up the cemetery, mixing the long-dead with more recent corpses. Only the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation, still stands were it used to be. Officially, 32,000 people lived on Car Nicobar, as well as about 7,000 so-called illegals, people without rights or passports.

30,000 dead?

The people here lived in extended families of between 70 and 100 people, and the families lived together in villages governed by village captains and priests. In some families three adults survived, in others 30. The village captains, who have tried to document the outcome of Dec. 26, say that about half of the population of Car Nic lost their lives. Does this mean that there are 20,000 dead in all the islands? 30,000? What the people here don't know is that organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF want to help them and that aid workers are sitting around in Port Blair, waiting for permission to travel to Car Nic. The residents, meanwhile, have built huts out of palm trees for shelter. But they know that this crude protection won't help much when the monsoon comes -- in April.

There are two versions of the truth here, but only one power that determines which version it will approve. "Where were you? Did you speak with the locals?" screams N.G. Ruccess, the man from the Ministry of Justice. It's the next morning and he's standing next to the tarmac. The soldiers have their hands full rebuilding their base. This time it'll be built a little farther inland. If there is one lesson the army has learned from December 26, it's that soldiers' wives and children will no longer be permitted to accompany them to Car Nic.

Soldiers are ordered to do all kinds of strange things during times of catastrophe, but this order tops the list. It's Wednesday morning and ten men are engaged in "preparations for clearing the transport routes." Translation: They are re-measuring the playing fields on Car Nicobar. The length? "104, Sir," shouts one soldier. The officer jots down the number. The width? "50, Sir," shouts the next soldier.

Palm and mangrove trees litter the paths on Car Nicobar, but the soldiers haven't been ordered to move them. People living in the northern part of the island are without water, have heard nothing about worldwide aid, and are forced to either fend for themselves or die. Two babies were found in the bushes in Malacca a short while ago. At first, someone thought they were stuffed animals. The soldiers do nothing. They've already carried out their orders.

They drive back to their tents. It's time for their midday break.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan