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The
Faith
Island
Women
walk along silently, their heads covered in gossamer veils, clutching
their copy of the Bible to the newly built Church of North India (CNI)
worship centre at Perka village in Car Nicobar. Two-and-a-half years
after the tsunami, the only concrete structures standing in the
village are the four new churches and four schools. The 45,000-strong
Nicobarese population was one of the worst hit by the tsunami that
struck every structure standing on this 45-sq km island that has 15
villages.
Most NGOs have wound shop and the government is working on a
characteristic slow pace on rehabilitation. The landscape still bears
the scars of the tsunami but the society is not scarred by the
disaster that pushed it back by 50 years. Its deep faith and strong
community have helped its people get back on their feet. The jetty is
functional but just about enough to allow ships to land from Port
Blair to carry not just people but rations—food grains, green
vegetables to stacks of paan leaves. A two-minute drive past the
ramshackle, tin sheet port offices into the village shows why
everything needs to be shipped—the road winds through rows of
stolidly-standing coconut trees. The monotony of coconut is only
broken by similar-looking arecanut trees. There is little else that
grows on the island. An occasional hen or pig darts through the silent
roads.
The altered landscape
THE
twisted signs of the past are present all along the villages that dot
the Car Nicobar white sand coastline. A pile of rubble neatly covered
in lantana. A car mangled beyond recognition. Large water tank
precariously perched on tree trunks. A skeleton of the government
senior secondary school along the arterial road. Eerily, some parts of
the ruins light up as the sun goes down—the contractor who built
these churches and schools has set up camp there as this was the only
building with some walls standing. And then suddenly a surreal
landscape—hundred-year-old trees rotting in stagnant pools of water
that came in with the giant waves and lingered on. The island
landscape has got additional features now. Banners put up by NGOs who
arrived in droves after the tsunami, found the going tough and left
midway. Only a few have stayed back. A couple of organisations had the
mindspace to understand the needs of these special people to be able
to make a difference. Most stuck to immediate relief and then shifted
base to Port Blair. The
NGOs and the government have left traces of their presence: rows of
sewing machines lying undistributed, some boats that the locals do not
know how to use and harvesters when there is no flat land available to
harvesting. The people still live in temporary tin-shelters as the
government remains undecided over the design of the permanent
shelters. With a combination of straw mats, bamboo and tin, some
families have tried hard to make them resemble their signature round
houses on stilts.
Three Cs Shelter
BUT
life has almost turned normal for the Nicobaris. Kids have begun to go
to school, women meet every week in the church and trade and commerce
is slowly reviving. Church, commerce and community are inextricably
linked in this tiny island. And that is the reason they have needed
minimum intervention to get back on their feet. March
15 is a special day, when the community is celebrating Solomon’s
Day. Solomon was the first missionary who landed 106 years ago on
March 15. He was a meteorological observer, port officer, schoolmaster
and a catechist and acted unofficially as a magistrate and amateur
doctor. When he first came to Car Nicobar and tried to spread
Christianity among the “pagan worshippers”, he did not get too
far. Among the 12 boys that he managed to educate, was John
Richardson. He went on to become the father of modern Nicobar. He
fought the Japanese valiantly when they set up base in Nicobar. By the
time he died, the entire island was converted to Christianity.
Richardson
organised the tribals into a cooperative that became a force to reckon
with. A cooperative called EHL was born. It was the only cooperative
in the country with five ships from its own profits. It would convert
coconut into copra and send it to Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai. Before
the tsunami, it had bought the first high-end machine that would help
process the copra better and hence fetch a better price. The machine,
of course, never survived the tsunami. Now the Society is trying to
get back on its feet. They are negotiating with NAFED to buy their
copra at a minimum support price. The
success of the cooperative lies in the way the society is organised—there
is a decentralised system of governance, a legacy from the tribal way
of life. Each of the 15 villages is divided into tuhets
or families. An average village would have 15-20 tuhets and each tuhet
headed by the family head. They chose their ‘captain’ (elected
head) of the village. All captains, select a tribal council who in
turn elects the chief captain. They wield tremendous power and every
decision is whetted by the general body. This decentralised system is
something that the panchayats in the mainland are still aspiring for.
They have their own system of justice—there are no jails in Car
Nicobar and no magistrate. Justice is delivered fairly and justly by
the tribal council. In case, a man is accused of beating his wife, he
is called by the tribal council and reprimanded. In case, he fails to
reform, he is made to do menial work in the chief's house. This is
enough to put him to shame. Their strong economic is also linked to a
strong community support system (see box for how community helps with
psycho-social therapy). After marriage, if the son-in-law finds that
the wife’s tuhet does not have too many men, he shifts to his
wife’s family. The widows are looked after by the tuhet. They have a
unique system of adoption. Most couples adopt at least one child,
sometimes to rear the child and send him/her back to parents once the
child finds a job. In fact, it is offensive to ask if a child seen in
their house is theirs.
Most NGOs got this one wrong: They
were hell-bent on starting a programme to adopt orphans and widows
when this was an intervention not required by the Nicobaris.
The
Union
of Mothers
COBRA perfume, maida, sugar and chips are stocked neatly on shelves in
a small tin shed in the village in Mus. It is more than a provisions
store. It’s a Mothers’ Union shop. From the time, the first church
was set up, Mother’s
Union
ran a number of activities—from training young wives to be good
housewives, to doing church linen and even looking after the widows.
On a full moon night, they would sit weaving crochet tablemats and
weave traditional wicker baskets. Post-tsunami, they have donned a new
role. After the tsunami, most mainlanders left, winding up their small
shops. Today, there are just a handful of provisions stores left
selling stuff at arbitrary prices.
The
community has been able to take matters into their own hands by
selling provisions at the printed price. Neena Philip, daughter of
Richardson
, helped prepare a list of what was to be bought. She went to Kolkata
for the first purchases. They gave them Rs. 65,000 each that is now
used as rolling money. Each of the 11 shops has an account in their
name, which they use to buy more provisions from the CNI central
godown. CNI buys these things at bulk in Port Blair binging down the
price. The profit helps in paying salaries for three members that run
the shop.
Back to school
THE tsunami didn’t just destroy buildings it destroyed schools and
the students’ will to study. The senior secondary school in Big
Lapathy has a building now. With children trooping out after their
annual exams, it seems like a normal day in the school term. The
government had signed a MOU with CNI to construct school buildings.
Getting a contractor who is ready to work under terrible constraints
was tough even for the government. Every single brick, grain of sand
and the labour is shipped in from the mainland. Two months after the
tsunami, all secondary school students were packed off to Port Blair
and put in various schools there. Studying was the last things on
their minds. It was not a surprise that nearly 20 of them got
compartmental in their board exams. After a few months, they shifted
to temporary shelters in Car Nicobar. Most of the students would not
come to school and would try and study from home. Students
of four schools were crammed into one. Today, it seems like a bad
dream as they sit taking their exams in the new building. There are
some things that are yet to come back: their love for football. The
Nicobaris are ace footballers. There have been four players who have
played in the National team and half-a-dozen who have played the
Santosh Trophy. Now the only stadium is decrepit and the Nicobaris
have not started playing or practicing again. But last week, when the
Sports Authority of India played against Nicobar in Port Blair, they
lost. The rusty, tsunami-ravaged team came up trumps against the
‘mainlanders’.
It’s not too surprising. They seem to do be managing fine—with or
without the mainlanders.
REVEREND
SYLVANIUS
His
personal loss during the tsunami was deep but today he provides
psycho-social counselling to the community to help them get over
post-disaster trauma.
The
story of Reverend Sylvanius is one of the several stories of heroism
that have been told and re-told in Car Nicobar. Despite losing three
children to the killer wave, Sylvanius has played
psychologist-therapist to a number of people who still show signs of
trauma. When the tsunami struck, Sylvanius was in charge of the parish
in Kinmus, a small fishing village tucked in a corner of Car Nicobar,
along the edge of the sea. When the earth shook violently for the
first time, Sylvanius picked up his six month old baby and along with
his other two children and wife, ran into the forest. But the waves
that appeared to be three-storey high caught up with him and his
family. As he climbed a coconut tree, the waves snatched his baby from
him. After clinging to the tree for a good four hours, he found his
wife. But they had lost their three children. With a broken hand,
Sylvanius lead 80 people, including a blind couple, to safety, cutting
fallen trees and branches till they arrived on higher ground. About
half of the area’s population survived the disaster. And they all
remember Sylvanius’s story. What he does now is even more heroic.
Despite his frail health, he continues to inspire people to carry on
with their lives. Sylvanius had sessions with Samson Gandhi, a
psycho-social therapist based in Secunderabad. He learnt to use
stories from the Bible to help him talk to people.
After
identifying the most vulnerable, he visits them regularly in their
homes. He talks, cajoles and inspires them out of their stress and
trauma. He is now posted in
Terresa
Island
, which is even more dauntingly remote than Car Nicobar. He has been
fighting with the administration to get work on school and houses
going in Terresa. Along with him, are several women from the Nicobari
community—primary school teachers mostly—who have been trained to
provide this kind of hand-holding to the must vulnerable in the
society. Considering the scale of their loss, people here have
recovered fast. By now, there is hardly anybody who requires special
intervention. According to experts like Gandhi who have taken two
sessions of psycho-social therapy here, it is the strong community
bond that exists here that has helped people cope with their trauma.
(Source
– Indian Express,
1st April, 2007
)
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