Chau a villain, not a saviour

It was a deliberate act carried out by somebody who must have been well aware of the disease risks he posed. He would, by definition, be guilty of genocide if he was carrying any diseases he passed on

Accusing somebody of genocide should not be done casually. It is defined in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as "the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members; deliberately inflicting on the group, conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births; forcibly transferring children of the group.”

Unfortunately, human beings have a tendency to commit genocide, ever so often. The word was first used to describe massacres in what is now Namibia in the early 20th century. The colonial governor in charge of what was then German South West Africa was a certain Herr Heinrich Göring. His son, Hermann, distinguished himself in the First World War as a flying ace, before committing suicide in 1946, the night before he was due to be hanged for crimes against humanity.

Colonial history is replete with instances of genocide. It hasn't stopped, even in the 21st century. There are ongoing crimes against humanity, which can be characterised as genocide in Myanmar and Syria. The ISIS carried out genocide against the Yazidi minority. The 1990s saw genocide committed on the Tutsi in Rwanda and Muslims in Bosnia. The Australian government has been accused of doing this to Aborigines; it forcibly took away their children.

Genocide in the early years of American colonisation often involved germ warfare. Indigenous populations in those two continents had no natural immunity to diseases that the European colonisers brought with them. Millions died in epidemic outbreaks of measles, chickenpox, smallpox, and yellow fever. It's estimated that, by 1600 (that is, a little over a century after Columbus made landfall), up to 80 per cent of the native American population was wiped out by such diseases.

Some of this was accidental (and hence not genocide, by definition). But often, the diseases were deliberately spread, by gifting infected clothes and blankets to local "heathens". Even now, it is estimated there are isolated tribes living in the Amazon rainforest who have no natural immunity to diseases most of the world shrugs off in childhood.

The Sentinelese tribe on North Sentinel Island is likely to be similarly lacking in natural immunity to many diseases that mainlanders would not consider threatening. The stone age tribe has been isolated on its little island for millennia.

They have had no contact whatsoever with any other populations, let alone mixing gene pools. Guesstimates by Census authorities suggest that there are less than 100 members of the tribe left. Given that the island is heavily forested and surveys on foot are impossible, this could have a large error factor. But it would be safe to say that there's a very small population; probably one so small that the tribe will ebb into extinction eventually even if it is left to itself.

The tribe would clearly prefer to be left to itself. It responds with violence to any attempts at contact. The Indian government has maintained a cordon sanitaire for the last 50-odd years. The last person, perhaps the only person ever, to have meaningful contact with the tribe and not be killed, was the anthropologist Madhumala Chattopadhyay, back in the 1970s. Even the intrepid Guggenheim scholar, Madhusree Mukerjee, failed to actually connect with the Sentinelese after being forced to abandon the attempt, as she described in her book, The Land of Naked People.  

The missionary, John Allen Chau, broke that cordon, in a demented attempt to convert the tribe to Jesus. This was a deliberate act carried out by somebody who must have been well aware of the disease risks he posed. He would, by definition, be guilty of genocide if he was carrying any diseases he passed on. Indeed, if his body is not recovered, he might still be guilty of genocide from beyond the grave, if his cadaver infects anybody. Instead of being remembered as a saviour, Chau could well enter history books in the company of some of the world's greatest villains.


Twitter: @devangshudatta