A 2002 photo of a Jarawa youth with a mirror left behind by a visitor in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

The famous Prime Directive from the Star Trek series warns Starfleet personnel against interrupting the natural development of other civilisations. It firmly states that their cultures, histories, and technologies should not be interfered with, and they should be allowed to progress on their own.

Nirmal Chandra Mattoo, the protagonist of Sujit Saraf’s Island, would find himself in uneasy agreement with this principle. The novel is a journey into an Andamanese heart of darkness that blends horror with dark humour. Given the government’s development plans for the region, Island feels especially timely.

The novel opens with a middle-aged Mattoo, once a rising star in the Anthropological Survey of India, now reduced to selling fake tribal artefacts in Port Blair. As the story progresses, we learn of the reasons for his downfall: a decades-ago expedition to make contact with the isolated Sentinelese tribe, which is initially hailed as a success but is later shown to have gone horribly wrong.

Anthropological dilemma 

Mattoo languishes in his souvenir store, nursing ambitions of finishing a grammar of the Jarawa language. Occasionally, he is haunted by his idol Verrier Elwin’s lament that by observing tribals out of their natural habitat, “I may have helped by my very presence to destroy what I so much admired”.

When offered a chance to be a part of a surreptitious expedition to escort an American missionary to the remote North Sentinel Island, Mattoo is initially reluctant. However, he is arm-twisted into joining the risky enterprise by a shady middleman who supplies goods to his store. Before long, caught up in the missionary’s devout if misguided commitment, Mattoo starts to make his own optimistic though unrealistic plans. The trip proves more hazardous than anticipated, bringing out the contrast between cold anthropological studies and the real lives of the tribes under observation.

Since the protagonist is an anthropologist himself, Saraf can deftly insert information about the Andamans, its history, and earliest inhabitants to fill in the necessary background. As with his past work, the novel draws inspiration from actual events, in this case the tragic 2018 encounter between American missionary John Chau and the Sentinelese.

Contemporary relevance

Saraf’s writing is crisp yet unhurried, and he packs a great deal into a relatively slim work. His narrative unfolds in a wry, world-weary voice that is perfectly suited to Mattoo’s demeanour. The contemporary backdrop is also sardonically rendered. A sloganeering politician loses no opportunity to proclaim the Prime Minister’s love for the Andamans, while another plaintively asks, “Why is Andaman not Hawaii?” In this spirit, monuments are nationalistically renamed and other initiatives enthusiastically announced.

Island moves towards a gripping denouement, one that can only end with laughter in the dark. In this way, Saraf creates not only a compelling narrative, but also a commentary on the cost of disrupting cultures we claim to protect.

The reviewer is a Mumbai-based writer.

Island

Sujit Saraf

Speaking Tiger

₹499