64 Scientific American, April 2020cash from the government enabled them to buy things that gave
them the look and lifestyles of outsiders: televisions, motorbikes,
mobile phones. The yardstick of wealth became the possession
of modern commodities. Settlers and traders fleeced the gullible
Nicobarese, rapidly emptying their bank accounts.
With money, free rations and enforced idleness for years on
end, many of the Nicobarese gradually lost their motivation to
work. Their diets shifted toward spicy Indian dishes and fast
foods. Their prolonged inactivity and dependence led to depres-
sion, and many found solace in alcohol much stronger than fer-
mented coconut sap. Though prohibited by the 1956 protection
act, sales of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) such as whiskey
and rum, supplied by settlers and traders, shot up.
The government launched some livelihood-regeneration pro-
grams to engage the idle Nicobarese, but most were ill conceived.
For instance, when officials introduced community plantations,
they did not understand that land ownership in the Nicobars
was vested with the lineages, which distributed usage rights
among their constituent nuclear families. Whoever planted a
tree owned it, but the land remained with the tuhet or kamuanse.
Severe conflicts arose if anyone attempted to plant a tree on land
that had not been granted by the lineage.
When the 7,001 permanent shelters were finally completed,
they triggered yet another set of crises. Before the tsunami a typ-
ical Nicobarese village lay near the coast within a bay, often shel-
tered behind mangroves. Outrigger canoes provided easy access
to other villages or to nearby islands. The huts were raised on
stilts for protection from poisonous reptiles and from flooding
during monsoon storms; pigs and chickens lived in the shade
below. Designed for the tropics, the houses were extremely com-
fortable. The entrance usually faced the sea, the roof was
thatched, and walls and floors were made from split bamboo that
allowed breezes to move freely in and out.
But the administration constructed the permanent houses,
called tsunami shelters, at higher altitudes that were far from the
coast. Building contractors brought in shiploads of imported
materials—prefabricated structures, steel columns, clapboards,
concrete blocks, iron pillars and galvanized iron sheets—as well
as hundreds of laborers from elsewhere. Many of them encroached
on Nicobarese land and ended up staying permanently.
When their roofs leaked or their walls fell, the Nicobarese
could no longer repair their own homes. They had to beg the
authorities for help. Worse, while designing and allocating these
homes, the government split the extended families into several
nuclear households, undermining the very basis of Nicobarese
society. In the past, the lineages had supported all within themKAREAU, or statue, containing the bones of a powerful spirit healer,
survived the tsunami. It surveys the people, displaced from their
villages and islands and crammed into tents.© 2020 Scientific American © 2020 Scientific American