Deep discussion in Diglipur

This, I thought, as the bus ran under the blue shadows of five in the morning on the Andaman Trunk Road, is the deep jungle. Here, explorers might have once wrote, Be the Forest Primeval. It was early because we had to leave early, at half past silly o’clock—I’m sorry, four. It takes over 10 hours to ride the bus from Port Blair, in the southern part of the Andamans, to Digilpur, the northernmost town accessible to visitors. The road takes you through jungle, over rivers, into the reserve of the Jarawa tribe and back to the jungle, the mangroves, the rivers, the channels, the mud and green dream of unscathed Arcadia.

It was a hard road, although not as hard as it has been in the past. There have been improvements; some, small, a pothole filled, a crack smoothed. But still: a bumpy ride, and crowded as well. And patience had to contend with more than the usual pick up, drop off stops of Indian bus travel; there were also interminable waits for slow ferries across the root-brown bodies of water that run through Middle and North Andaman islands. The boats were small, barely able to carry the weight of bus passengers, let alone buses. The water was shaded by dead vegetation into a bubbling tannin soup; underneath, saltwater crocodiles ranged out on silent patrols.

At the entrance to the Jarawa Tribal Reserve, we slipped into convoys of passenger cars, buses and supply trucks. The Jarawa have been contacted by the Indian government in the past, but remain (probably sensibly) hostile to outside influence. Given the choice of death or forced conversion to 'civilization', they prefer isolation, but the Andaman trunk road runs through the heart of their land. So we are told not to contact them in any way possible, not to feed them or interact, beyond, of course, piloting several tons of steel over their backyard.

In the past and still sometimes today, I am told, passengers on buses through the Jarawa reserve have laughed at the islands’ indigenous people, pointed at them and made monkey noises and snapped pictures with their mobile phone cameras. I am dreading the chance this will happen today. But maybe we just won’t see the Jarawa period; they have apparently grown very elusive. Sensible, again.

I fall asleep; it is still early in the morning. My head falls into my chest until it doesn’t; for some reason I snap up, and look out the window, and there: in palm skirts and nothing else, four to six Jarawa women and children standing by an SUV pulled over on the side of the road. I have no idea what the SUV is doing there, if it is just stopped or broken down. The Jarawa look at our bus as it passes. I imagine their faces are expressionless, but who can say; we whiz by. On a day long trip these five seconds, plus a snatched glimpse of an older man lugging long piles of dried leaves and branches, are the only time I see Jarawa. And I know I will remember this moment, of seeing a living Stone Age tribe, for the rest of my life. My hypocrisy is blatant; I disagree with the Trunk Road, think the Andamans don’t require development, think the Jarawa should be left in peace even as they occasionally trade with and kill the Bengalis and Telugus who have settled near their territory. But the indelible image and experience I will take from these islands is a glimpse of black Jarawa skin emerging from the jungle. 

The road went on. I got off in Rangat, in the middle of Middle Andaman, specifically so I could purchase a ferry ticket to the tourist center of Havelock Island . The ferry office was unaccountably closed. I sighed, realized I needed to catch the next oncoming bus for Digilipur, and asked around about the time of boats leaving for Havelock. The answers were all different; no one in the dirty, mud-spattered (there’s even a nearby mud volcano) town seemed to know when the daily ferries, their main connection to the outside world, arrived. A plurality told me one in the afternoon, and I decided this was as good as information got.

A young man with slanted Asian eyes approached me as I waited for the bus. He introduced himself as ‘Alex,’ tried to get me to hire his minivan to the next town for about 100 times the cost of the bus fare, and looked very Burmese. 

“Karen. I am Karen,” he said, naming one of the hill tribes that lives on the Burmese border. The Karen were converted to Christianity by the British, were thought to be a Lost Tribe of Israel due to their belief in a first man and woman who were tempted by a snake, have always resented the Burmese and once held my own grandfather prisoner for two years. In the 1990s, the Karen fought the Burmese government while led by self-proclaimed magical twin brothers. Many were settled here in the Andamans during the latter days of the British Empire.

I looked at Alex and showed him my Burmese tattoo. His eyes widened.

“Ah! Let’s go to a bar! Your bus isn’t coming for one hour!”

I followed, thinking I’m About to Drink With the Tribe that Almost Killed my Grandfather. For two years my Po Po (Burmese: grandpa) was held in a Karen jungle compound. He was rescued by a commando team that included a mixed-race Anglo-Burmese, and escaped tossing grenades from the back of a speeding jeep. A scar still runs up his arm today, his souvenir from the Karen.

Mine was to be shots of terrible Indian whisky cut with water. I usually don’t drink from the tap in India, but I figured whatever germs were in the local water had to be dead from the ether-flavored spirits. Alex quickly became drunk. Falling down, babbling drunk. He tried to convince me to come with him in his van to Digilpur, swore to pay for both of us. I looked at two Indian men sitting at an adjacent table who were listening to us and made the universal “glug-glug” bottle motion with my hands. They nodded, then shook their heads when Alex reiterated his offer for a ride. Every time I refused a ride Alex would agree, then loudly ask, “So, will you ride with me? I’ll pay!”

Eventually, he became so drunk he shut himself off to the outside world.  I tried to slip out to the bus stand, but Alex followed me, babbling the entire way and speaking in garbled Hindi at passers by. When one angrily mumbled something, Alex let out a torrent of Hindi in which I recognized the word, “bastard.” The Indian heard it too; he scowled, turned around and bitch slapped Alex in the street.

I stared. Alex took the hit, and started mumbling about giving me a ride again. I said no firmly, but he was gone to the world; he just walked forward, his words a drunken cloud. I let him pass, and boarded the next bus to Digilpur.

That night I dined in a bamboo guesthouse with two majors of the Indian army. One was Kashmiri, the other from Uttar Pradesh; both were intelligent, friendly and inquisitive. We stayed up till three in the morning, drinking and discussing Hindu philosophy.

“I have a new son,” said the Kashmiri, with a beard as red as a slow sunset. “And I am naming him Arjuna.” Arjuna is the noble prince and hero of the great epic of the Mahabharata.

“Arjuna is OK, but he’s too good for me. He has no flaws. I admire Karna,” I said, naming the noble leader of the evil Kauravas, rivals of Arjuna’s clan, the Pandavas. The army men smiled and nodded approvingly. Karna is one of the great antiheros of Indian literature, a man who is good but human, bound by loyalty and circumstance to fight for the bad guys even though he is one of the most upright characters in the saga. 

“It disappoints me that Arjuna and Rama [hero of the Ramayana] are so spotless,” I continued.

“Rama does make one great mistake,” said the Kashmiri. “He forces Sita, his own wife, to enter a fire to prove her purity. I could never do this.”

In the Ramayana Rama asks his devoted wife, who was held prisoner by the handsome demon Ravana for a year, to prove her fidelity by walking through flames. Sita passes the test, but in the uttara kanda, a final chapter later added to the original Ramayana, Rama’s subjects become suspicious of Sita a second time when she becomes pregnant. Rama is torn between believing his love, who has been far away on distant shores, and the whispers of people close to him. Mistrust wins. Rama banishes Sita and his kingdom falls into ruin.

Years later, twins appear in Rama’s now crumbling palace and recite the deeds of the prince in the form of an epic song. Rama realized the twins are his own sons, and summons their mother, promising to reinstate her as queen – if she undergoes the fire trial once more. Sita instead asks the Earth to swallow her if she has ever been anything but faithful to her husband, and as a chasm opens beneath her, she earns a well-deserved last laugh. Rama, who tried to trust but could never overcome his worst suspicions, dies alone.

“You must listen to your duty, but also your heart,” said the major from Uttar Pradesh. “When duty has no compassion…” and he trailed off.

I like this idea, but it is not always borne out in classical Indian literature, which I quote so much because this country is still attached to its old tales. A 1990s television serial of the Ramayana remains one of the most watched programs in television history; sessions of parliament were canceled so politicians could watch.

In classical Indian ethics, duty trumps personal morality. In the Bhagavad Gita , Arjuna stands before the field of battle in which he must fight the Karuva clan, which is largely made up of his own relatives and friends. The warrior asks the god Krishna why he must kill people he loves in senseless civil war. Krishna replies that this is the will of dharma, karma and fate; Arjuna is but one facet of the universe, which is unfolding in a great and silent plan. His own limited understanding does not avail him, cannot help him. His duty, his dharma, is to kill the Karuvas.

To the average Westerner, including myself, such morality seems callous. Arjuna’s individuality is not a determinant of right action; it is a hindrance to right duty. But to Indians, that place within a greater sense of being is the sign of a caring universe, an existence that doesn’t leave us in existential isolation, but embraces the fate of every drop of existence. We all have a Purpose, a philosophy that is the basis of caste. In the West, a street sweeper is looked down upon, but in classical India the sweeper is conducting the will of God; his place is as important in the grand scheme of things as Arjuna’s.

Of course, in reality caste is abused and a street sweeper will die long before a prince, and in much more destitution. But such is the sweeper’s karma; if he sweeps well, he may be a prince in the next life. This deterministic side of Eastern philosophy is, I’ve found, often completely ignored by the New Age yoga yuppies seeking spirituality on the Indian trail, the ones who believe vegetarianism, deep breathing and leg stretching makes for inner peace. I’m not saying it doesn’t, either; only that Hinduism, like any religion, has elements that make me uncomfortable.

But then again, the army majors disagreed with Rama’s treatment of Sita. India is a dynamic society, “with one foot in the 19^th century and the other in the 21^st,” as the Kashmiri put it. Poverty is still endemic, corruption rampant, the environment degraded, but compared to ten years ago the average farmer can now afford a cell phone and a TV, connecting him to an outside world that was once as fabled as the tale of Rama. Caste is still in place, but the door out of it is opening, even if few people can squeeze through it. The structures that have kept India stable and continuous for over 2000 years are beginning to crack, but to paraphrase Kipling, there is too much of India and she is too old; this country will not change overnight, even if the change is happening at a rapid pace.

The army men are a good example. Modern, well-spoken and clearly well-educated, they are devout Hindus who find a place for the old morality in the modern world. They've even used the strictures of ancient social hierarchy to justify progressive institutional policy. When I asked them why India, almost alone of Britain’s other Asian colonies, has not gone through a military coup despite having hundreds of ethnicities and dozens of insurgencies, they answered, “Caste.” The way of the warrior, the Kshitraya, is to obey the commander, not to assume command. The old Indian Army code was quoted to me: “My unit, my country, and last, my comfort.” This was why the majors respected Indrajit, the faithful son of the murderous Ravana, over Ravana’s brother Vibishan, who defects to the side of the good Rama. To the army men, loyalty to your side was the ultimate measure of character; if Indians were loyal to anything but India, this country, which is in reality a continent, would tear itself apart.

"The Indian army remains the last great secular organization in this country,” one of the majors said, “and we pride ourselves on this legacy.” The majors were Hindus themselves (although they admitted our long drinking session and other all-nighters with men in their units were evidence of frequent lapses), but saw the need for a system that eschews religion for merit. Yet in its way, this rejection of religious interference in army life was a product of religion. It is in the nature of Hinduism to absorb other cultures and create from their synthesis, to accept different ways of worship under it's wide umbrella. "Hindu" at the end of the day, is simply the old Persian word for India. The original word is but a description for the people of the subcontinent and their myriad beliefs. Spirituality is undeniably there, but within that all-encompassing faith there is also the flexibility of social mores to induce a form of tolerance we in the West call secularism.

Yet this society, in its desire to expand, is also guilty of intolerance. “We have such an advanced country now. It’s a shame we can’t share it with, say, the Jarawa,” said one of the majors. Here was progressivism reversed, the desire to share Indian society with a people who rejected that society, at the price of the welfare of the people themselves.

“Nonsense,” said the Kashmiri. His colleague from Uttar Pradesh piped in. “They all want to watch TV and wear clothes, we’ve seen it.”

“The same way many Indians see commercials for Western lifestyles on their TVs. Is that right? Should Indian culture be sacrificed because the West comes off as more flashy and attractive on the surface?” Indians are keen debaters and I rarely feel as if I score points in this country, but that comment elicited a smile and a nod from the two military men.

Eventually, the night wore on. We drank our last bottles of whisky and retired to bed. The majors promised to give me a ride in their jeep to a ferry the next morning. We were all wasted, but they were army men and swore they were used to drinking all night and waking for reveille the next day. I trusted them.

“See you at sheven?” I slurred.

“Sheven!” they shouted. We went to our huts.