Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Overview
The Andaman Islands form an archipelago in the Bay of Bengal between India, to the west, and Myanmar, to the north and east. Most are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory of India, while a small number in the north of the archipelago, including the Coco Islands, belong to Myanmar.

The Andaman Islands are home to the Sentinelese people, who have had no contact with any other people.

Names
The islands took their current name from Portuguese sailors in the 16th century, "coco" being the Portuguese word for "coconut". The Andaman Islands were taken over by the English East India Company in the 18th century. In the 19th century, the British government in India established a penal colony in the Andamans, and the Coco Islands were a source of food for it (mainly coconuts). The British government had leased out the islands to Jadwet family of Burma. The jadwet family was one of the respected business families of Rangoon with their presence in Moulmein and Mergui.

The earliest extant references to the name "Nicobar" is in the Sri Lankan Pali Buddhist chronicles, the Dipavamsa (c. 3rd or 4th century CE) and the Mahavamsa (c. 4th or 5th century), which state that the children of the followers of the legendary founder of the Sri Lankan Kingdom, Vijaya, landed on Naggadipa (the island of the children, from the Pali nagga meaning 'naked'). The modern name is likely derived from the Chola dynasty name for the islands, Nakkavaram or 'Puup Pii' (literally, "naked man" in Tamil) which is inscribed on the Thanjavur (Tanjore) inscription of 1050 CE. Marco Polo (12th-13th century) also referred to this island as 'Necuverann'.

The name of the Andaman Islands is ancient.[citation needed]. A theory that became prevalent in the late 19th century is that it derives from Andoman, a form of Hanuman, the Sanskrit name of the Indian God. Another Italian traveller, Niccolò de' Conti (c. 1440), mentioned the islands and said that the name means "Island of Gold".

Pre-British History
The Nicobar Islands are believed to have been inhabited for thousands of years. Six indigenous Nicobarese languages are spoken on the islands, which are part of the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family, which includes Mon, Khmer and Vietnamese languages of Southeast Asia, and the Munda languages of India. An indigenous tribe living at the southern tip of Great Nicobar, called the Shompen, may be of Mesolithic Southeast Asian origin.

The history of organised European colonisation on the islands began with the Danish East India Company in 1754/56. During this time they were administrated from Tranquebar (in continental Danish India) administrated under the name of Frederiksøerne; missionaries from the Moravian Church Brethren's settlement in Tranquebar attempted a settlement on Nancowry and died in great numbers from disease; the islands were repeatedly abandoned due to outbreaks of malaria: 1784–1807/09, 1830–1834 and finally from 1848 gradually for good. Between 1778 and 1783, William Bolts attempted to establish an Austrian colony on the islands on the mistaken assumption that Denmark–Norway had abandoned its claims to the islands.

Italy made an attempt at buying the Nicobar Islands from Denmark between 1864 and 1868. The Italian Minister of Agriculture and Commerce Luigi Torelli started a negotiation that looked promising, but failed due to the unexpected end of his Office and the first La Marmora Cabinet. The negotiations were interrupted and never brought up again.

Denmark's presence in the islands ended formally on 16 October 1868 when it sold the rights to the Nicobar Islands to Britain, which in 1869 made them part of British India.

British India
There is evidence that some sections of the British Indian administration were working deliberately to annihilate the tribes.[10] After the mid-19th century, British established penal colonies on the islands and an increasing numbers of mainland Indian and Karen settlers arrived, encroaching on former territories of the Andamanese. This accelerated the decline of the tribes.

Many Andamanese succumbed to British expeditions to avenge the killing of shipwrecked sailors. In the 1867 Andaman Islands Expedition, dozens of Onge were killed by British naval personnel following the death of shipwrecked sailors, which resulted in four Victoria Crosses for the British soldiers.

World War II
In the 1940s, the Jarawa were bombed by Japanese forces for their hostility. During World War II, the islands were occupied by Japan between 1942 and 1945.India occupied the Island after that as its Territory.

The British plan
During the independence of both India (1947) and Burma (1948), the departing British announced their intention to resettle all Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Burmese on these islands to form their own nation, although this never materialised. It became part of India in 1950 and was declared as a union territory of the nation in 1956.

Due to the isolation of the Coco Islands, they were not properly governed, and the British transferred their control to the government of Lower Burma in Rangoon. In 1882 they officially became part of British Burma. When Burma separated from India in 1937 and became a self-governing Crown Colony, they remained a Burmese territory. In 1942, along with the rest of the Andaman and Nicobar chain, they were occupied by Japan. When Burma regained its independence from Britain in 1948, the Coco Islands passed to the new Union of Burma.

There are four islets surrounding Weh Island: Klah, Rubiah, Seulako, and Rondo. They went from Dutch to Indonesian control when Indonesia formed in the late 1940s. Most of the population were Acehnese and the rest were either other Indonesian peoples or Dutch.

Indian state
Together with the Andaman Islands, they became a union territory of India in 1950.

Life today
India has been developing defence facilities on the islands since the 1980s. The islands now have a key position in India's strategic role in the Bay of Bengal and the Malacca Strait.

In 1959, General Ne Win’s interim military administration established a penal colony on Great Coco Island. After Ne Win’s coup d’etat in 1962, and the installation of a military government, the prison gained the reputation of being a Burmese "Devil’s Island". In 1969, it was enlarged to house an increased number of political prisoners. After a strike, all prisoners on the island were transferred to Rangoon’s Insein Prison in 1971. After the closing of the penal colony, the facilities on Great Coco Island were transferred to the Burmese Navy. Burmese writer Mya Than Tint was among the people incarcerated at the Great Coco Island penal colony.

The Coco Islands were allegedly leased to the People's Republic of China from 1994. The governments of Burma and the People's Republic of China deny this, and many members of the Burmese military categorically deny any agreement at all.

There are four islets surrounding Weh Island: Klah, Rubiah, Seulako, and Rondo. Among those, Rubiah is well known for diving tourism, because of its coral reefs. When traveling to Saudi Arabia was only possible by sea, Rubiah was used as a place of quarantine for Indonesian Muslims during the Hajj pilgrimage season.

In 1974, a film crew and anthropologist Triloknath Pandit attempted friendly contact by leaving a tethered pig, some pots and pans, some fruit and toys on the beach at North Sentinel Island. One of the islanders shot the film director in the thigh with an arrow. The following year, European visitors were repulsed with arrows.

On 2 August 1981, the Hong Kong freighter ship Primrose grounded on the North Sentinel Island reef. A few days later, crewmen on the immobile vessel observed that small black men were carrying spears and arrows and building boats on the beach. The captain of the Primrose radioed for an urgent airdrop of firearms so the crew could defend themselves but did not receive them. Heavy seas kept the islanders away from the ship. After a week, the crew were rescued by an Indian navy helicopter.

On 4 January 1991, Indian scholar Triloknath Pandit made the first known friendly contact with the Sentinelese.

Until 1996, the Jarawa met most visitors with flying arrows. From time to time they attacked and killed poachers on the lands reserved to them by the Indian government. They also killed some workers building the Andaman Trunk Road (ATR), which traverses Jarawa lands. One of the earliest peaceful contacts with the Jarawa occurred in 1996. Settlers found a teenage Jarawa boy named Emmei near Kadamtala town. The boy was immobilized with a broken foot. They took Emmei to a hospital where he received good care. Over several weeks, Emmei learned a few words of Hindi before returning to his jungle home. The following year, Jarawa individuals and small groups began appearing along roadsides and occasionally venturing into settlements to steal food. The ATR may have interfered with traditional Jarawa food sources.

The 26 December 2004 tsunami devastated all the islands.

Tribes
The Andamanese people are the various aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, a Union Territory of India located in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal.

The Andamanese resemble other Negrito groups in Southeast Asia. They are pygmies, and are the only modern people outside of certain parts of Sub-Saharan Africa with steatopygia. They lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and appear to have lived in substantial isolation for thousands of years. The Andamanese arrived at the Andaman Islands around the latest Glacial Maximum, ca. 26,000 years ago.

By the end of the eighteenth century, when they first came into sustained contact with outsiders, there were an estimated 7,000 Andamanese divided into five major groups, with distinct cultures, separate domains, and mutually unintelligible languages. In the next century they were largely wiped out by diseases, violence, and loss of territory. Today, there remain only approximately 400–450 Andamanese. One group has long been extinct, and only two of the remaining groups still maintain a steadfast independence, refusing most attempts at contact by outsiders.

The Andamanese are now a designated Scheduled Tribe.

The five major groups of Andamanese found by the European colonists were:
 * 1) Great Andamanese, pure form extinct (54 admixed individuals)
 * 2) Jarawa now estimated 250 to 400 verified to exist in pure form
 * 3) Jangil or Rutland Jarawa, extinct
 * 4) Onge, now fewer than 100 verified to exist in pure form
 * 5) Sentinelese, now estimated to be 100 to 200.

The Andamanese's protective isolation changed with the first British colonial presence and subsequent settlements, which proved disastrous for them. Lacking immunity against common diseases of the Eurasian mainland, the large Jarawa habitats on the southeastern regions of South Andaman Island likely were depopulated by disease within four years (1789-1793) of the initial British colonial settlement in 1789. Epidemics of pneumonia, measles and influenza spread rapidly and exacted heavy tolls, as did alcoholism. By 1875, the Andamanese were already "perilously close to extinction," yet attempts to contact, subdue and co-opt them continued unrelentingly. In 1888, the British government set in place a policy of "organized gift giving" that continued in varying forms until well into the 20th century.