Weekends with Dr Jagadish: John Allen Chau was a Genocidal bigot and not a religious martyr

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This week has all been about one Mr John Allen Chau a 27 year old American citizen who broke numerous Indian laws to go to an island in the middle of nowhere in Bay of Bengal. Sentinel Island is “VERBOTEN” i.e. forbidden to enter by Indian law and a declared “NO GO” area. Even Indian state and its machinery do not enter the island although it is strategically located and will make a great place for Naval watch. This is only to safeguard a 60000 year old civilization which is surviving and thriving in that island.

This civilization which is now presumed an offshoot of similar native but now extinct civilizations of Africa are presumed to have migrated about 60000 years ago, estimated to be only of 50 – 100 people, who resist outside influence and has attacked outsiders from the beginning; as per information available and our knowledge about them. Indian state in its magnanimity protects them and still does not enforce Indian law on them although by law they are Indian citizens.

Reporting of resistance by these tribals to the Christian missionary John Chau and his friends who trespassed into Sentinel Island has been outrageously one-sided in favour of the evangelist and derogatory to the native Sentinel tribals of India. Be it Indian media or foreign like CNN, WaPo or NYT they have all played to highlight the fault line screaming “Sentinelese tribe is bad, uncivilized and they should be civilized; forcefully if required”. Annie Gowen’s article of sympathy for John Chau should be condemned along with scores of other articles which do not talk about the cultural & religious invasion of which John Chau was the master mind and chief perpetrator. Scores of sympathetic tweets about him by numerous journalists like those from NDTV, TV18, TimesNow etc.., shows how ignorant these journalists are about practical on the ground problems real people face in real world.

Beyond the cultural and religious invasion of a virgin civilization John Chau and his evangelist friends were doing something more dangerous and was not at all noticed or reported by any media house India or abroad. As a practicing medical doctor and a public health intellectual, I thought it right to highlight this issue in my weekend column.

When the Andamanese were intruded by the British and Indian mainland natives they found the tribals to be very different and distinct from people of mainland India. Language, culture and even genetically they were different. Many died when they were exposed to people of mainland India due to diseases which they were hitherto never exposed in centuries of the existence of their civilization. Just like the aborigines in Australia or Natives of America, these people were never exposed to people from outside and the diseases the colonizing Indians or brits carried and just like natives of America and Australia they died in thousands and are now relegated to smaller areas in Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The Sentinelese is one such old civilization tribe existing today purely because Indian government protects them from outsiders & mainland Indians by law.

These Sentinelese people have been fiercely independent and have resisted every act of colonisation by the british earlier sometimes at the cost of their own lives. Be it Jarawa tribe in Andaman Nicobar or the Sentinelese they have valiantly protected their independence and self-rule and they have done better than mainland Indians until now. The British could not enforce their law on them nor does the Indian government can do it now!!

Sentinelese is among the few uncontacted tribes left in the world today and probably the only one untouched by civilization in Asia. Nature too has helped them in that they are a remote island and arguably do not have too many resources for marauding governments to interfere. They live on their own, they do not want to be disturbed nor do they disturb outsiders if left for themselves. Something as basic as health-care is unknown to them; they do not have hospitals or emergency services or helicopter ambulance service with EMTs available to airlift them if one of them is ill. Most importantly none of them are vaccinated. Something as simple as a virus which causes common cold in us can cause influenza and wipe out the entire tribe. Something as simple as typhoid whose treatment is taken for granted by us can cause “Genocide” of this 60000 year old civilization.

Today any ordinary individual carries millions of these germs inside him as commensals and as his host immunity is exposed to those germs it keeps them under check. So that he/she does not suffer from the disease. That is not the case in these Sentinelese tribals, you do not need big weapons to kill them all; you just need a person from outside to enter their territory for he is a biological weapon (disease) carrier.  This is exactly what Mr John Allen Chau did in his misplaced evangelical zeal where he put his religious obligation and medieval church decree above the life of these Sentinelese tribals. In effect he was attempting “GENOCIDE” by introducing not just Christ but all the viruses and disease causing germs he carried inside him. Those surviving friends who helped him must be put under trail and convicted for attempted genocide and the criminal act of trying to erase a civilization simply because they thought they were entitled by their religion and the medieval decree of the church.

Like how citizens of America will not forgive Stephen Paddock of Las Vegas shooting ignominy; we Indians should not forgive John Allen Chau for attempting to erase a 60000 year old native civilization!

PS: John Chau was a highly trained medical professional and a specialist in providing Emergency Medical services EMT for short. It is highly likely he knew that he carries disease causing viruses and germs inside him which can cause Genocide and complete annihilation of the Sentinelese tribals. That he put medieval religious decree of church ahead of his scientific training and medical knowledge exposes his inherent bigotry and anti-Semitic assumptions against pagans and native civilizations of the world.