Impact of Development Strategies in Response to Globalisation on the Onge Tribal Society, Little Andaman Island, India

Abstract

Globalisation generates a social identity crisis amongst the community residing in remote pockets complacent with nature and who does not have any interest in intermingling with the outskirt world. The tendency of the planners in order to sustain their immediate benefitting policies abstain them from thinking at the grass root level. One amongst the development strategies was the rehabilitation programme that was under taken in this island by settling refugees from mainland India and surplus Nicobarese from Car Nicobar Island. The present author after a precise survey on the present island, compiling the primary with the secondary data and relating with the past literature, has come through several disappointing observations. Such a study was carried out within the undemanding Onge community, residing in the Little Andaman Island of the Andaman Archipelago, in order to extract the impact of globalisation within their periphery. Development strategies in the tag of globalisation are unknowingly portraying a label of monotony by ignoring the latent values within the Onge’s diversified livelihood. Thus, the main objective was firstly to outline the imposed developmental policies in the several sectors of the Onge’s livelihood in the name of globalisation. Secondly, it was to find out the impact of those developmental strategies on the Onge community as a whole. The Onge tribal community as adhered to the nature for ages together has attained a deep essence of understanding the natural dynamics of their surroundings to make hunting and gathering their means of sustenance. Inculcation of foreign policies as sought after by the planners as an apostle of development has been weakening their community philosophies from its root. The author would like to intimate her humane suggestion to the planning systems to think before leaping into the issues of this sensitive tribal community.