CURRENT MISSION

i want to start tourism in Great Nicobar Islands

ABOUT ME

This is John Robert Babu, a simple citizen from Indira Point The Southern Most Tip of India ( Indira Point ) Great Nicobar Island in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. But the only unfortunate aspect in this is that though we are from the southernmost tip of India, no one really is aware of the fact. We are the invisible population in many ways. And hence to create an identity for our selves is a major struggle of mine. Great Nicobar Island is a place so south and hard to reach; you know it is easier to reach America in terms of connectivity and accessibility than come here.

Well to further go about introducing myself, I would call myself a social worker. A ‘social worker’, a word not so easily used because I have been molded through my life with a social awareness. This awareness about of society has been inculcated in me from observing my mother who has been an active member in the Panchayat for nearly 15 years. Further all of us settlers in Great Nicobar Island have ex-service men background in our families, and this plays a major influence on our definition of ourselves and in our identity. When you look at Great Nicobar Island it is presently a mini- India where people from all caste, class, region and linguistic diversity live happily and peacefully. It is the classic example of National Integration. All these experiences together have given me a vision and this has kept me going where there is equal space for political work for change.

The Tsunami which caused major changes in the lives of millions, affected people across the globe and here as well. It redefined our lives and our destined paths drastically, this affect has been personal as well as from the community point of view. Suddenly in a shot, no more like in wave sweeps, everything that we had ever built and dreamt of was washed off. I among the many were left stranded not knowing really when and what went wrong in my life to give me such a reality shock. Well we had lost everything possible to be lost, material and for many of us even families. At that point of time, of utter confusion and lack of communication facilities, me and a few friends of mine who were also young had the knowledge of computers. Hence we as individuals helped to set up the Disaster Communication Cell and were responsible for running it for 6 months after Tsunami. This was the first physical transition of the computer trainer to a social worker. Further there were many small and major efforts undertaken by us as individuals and group of friends where there was no banner under which we were working. The list would go on from helping to clear the carcass of animals to making the administration forcefully evacuate people from our area to the headquarters Campbell Bay to working in the relief camps and later in the temporary shelters to holding health camps [through the BRO and Coast Guard doctors] at various points of time as and when needed. At this point of time, we were learning from the work and this really ascertained the fact that I want to work in this field and work at making my home the best possible place to be in.

Simultaneously at this point of time there were a lot of NGOs and other development based organizations which came ahead and started working here. And it was at then that I realized that such work is possible, and started learning various strategies and work from them. I worked in ADRA, which provided to me the vision of rebuilding the necessaries while others were still looking at relief. After a year after Tsunami, with the influence of a certain other organization who was working closely with us, we decided to start our own organization for working with our people. But here instead of starting our own we moved at reviving an old one which was an NGO started here in 1995. After that there has been no looking back for any of us, neither for me or our group. The task we find momentous, especially as there is no influx of information to the island.

But this whole agitation is just not born out of the fact that it was only a Tsunami which had to bring us out from the realms of invisibility. But this has always been there, I have stated here some of the turning points of the many that have influenced me over the course of my life. In college days when I was studying in Erode [a place in Tamil Nadu], I had people asking me what was the currency we use there and what is the language. If you need a visa to travel, and these questions though on the first instance seem funny, it hurts us as people from India have forgotten we are Indians. The nation also does not seem to want to remind them and establish this fact. This can be seen in the aspect that even now after all the publicity the islands have got after Tsunami, there are people like for instance when we travel in trains or the ones we met in the ISF meet and the other conferences, who ask the same questions. The Ads, campaigns and various media machineries keep excluding us. This is obvious even in the famous slogan “Kashmir se Kanyakumari tak, Hum sab ek hai”. This is inspite of the fact that Indira Point in the southernmost point, many a times this is also forgotten and Kanyakumari is stated to be so. Taking this issue forward we have started various campaigns to get it changed and now the whole movement that started among us here, has been taken forward by the Honorable Lieutenant General of Andaman and Niocbar Islands.

In some ways it is funny, the Tsunami was even good to us in some ways, as it is only then media and the world realized we exist. It was such big tragedy that made the people of the world come to look into our needs. But inspite of that even now the news channels other than the national news does not talk about us even in weather. They show Sri Lanka but many a times forget to show us. Even in the footage and the people who are working here, never really knew what it was like before. When we even look at maps, Sri Lanka is not forgotten in them, but we are. We have tried desperately to find out why isn’t there a law there on that like it is there for the Indian Flag.

The irony of it all is hits us badly, our ex- PM Indira Gandhi in the attempt to keep the islands within our folds. Requested 330 of us- ex-servicemen and their families to come here and settle. And now neither us nor this island is ever remembered. Mainland India and Island India has become completely de-linked and completely different.

For me my world is my island, after all that’s the extent to which I live. And hence when the world starts seeing and knowing me, and finally gives me an entry will I get the chance to see that world. After all, my world is presently confined to these few villages and the people from the all the states of India who define this. This is the world I would like to work in and work with at this juncture of life.

This was previously “the perfect world” [if there is one] in the sense that there were no bomb blast, crime, no discrimination on the bases of caste, religion, region, race, language etc. There were no problems here like that in the Mainland. It was the disaster that turned the world inside out for us. This was my world and it was so perfect that it would have been the best to be replicated in every place. The Greatest example of Mini-India is Great Nicobar Island, no where else would you find such proper national integration where there is ready acceptance of inter-caste religion marriage, where every person here knows atleast 3 languages and the list goes on. The world might be big, but for me the drive is to first work in my place- my world and then out, while at the same time getting to know and link other realities.

Interests

politics