The Southern Nicobar Islands as Imaginative Geographies

Abstract

The southern Nicobar, an isolated archipelago in the eastern Indian Ocean, is the southern most territory of India. The Shompen and the Nicobarese were the sole inhabitants in the archipelago until the Government of India settled 330 ex-servicemen families in Great Nicobar. The ex-servicemen families, who came from an entirely different socio-cultural milieu of mainland India, perceived the cultural practices of the indigenes as odd and developed strong prejudices against them. This article juxtaposes two diametrically opposed discourses on the indigenous cultural practices—the settlers’ and the indigenes’—and explores how the indigenes make sense of their cultural practices that the settlers find problematic. It also explores if such cultural practices hold any special significance for the isolated tribal communities that live in a fragile island ecosystem. The article elaborates its analyses against the backdrop of the issues that the indigenes have been facing due to the changes brought in their societies through external interventions.