https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i4.030
Self Chosen Isolation of the Sentinelese: A Literary Perspective
DR KAPIL DEV
Assistant Professor of English
Government College for Women, Bhodia Khera, Fatehabad, Haryana
Abstract: This paper examines the resistance of the Sentinelese tribe to external contact, modernization, and civilization. The En-ge tribe, as portrayed in Padma Venkatraman’s novel Island’s End, has been used as the fictional counterpart of the Sentinelese. While analyzing the history of civilizing and contact missions, the political agenda, the post-colonial perspective, and culture as a tool of tribal survival, this paper attempts to establish the fact that the tribal communities have sustained and nurtured themselves for centuries without the assistance of the state. The real struggle for survival began when, during the Colonial as well as the Post-Colonial era, the state wished to bring the tribal communities into the fold of the mainstream. The tribal societies disintegrate when, according to the Samkhya philosophy, the equilibrium of the metaphysical dualism of the Purusha and Prakriti is disturbed. As a result of this, Sentinelese and other tribes of the Islands, which are included in the list of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), have been struggling to preserve their cultural integrity and territorial sovereignty. The paper is an attempt at breaking the colonial myth of discrediting the tribals as savage and uncivilized. Their rejection of modernity represents a rational choice rooted in cultural wisdom, anthropological identity, and community preservation.
Keywords: Tribes, Culture, Preservation, Andaman Islands, Sentinelese, Isolation, Mainstream
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