The Onge tribe history of Andaman

The story of the Onge of Little Andaman Island is very similar. From nearly 700 in the 1901 census, their number has fallen to about 100 today. While a large part of their 730 sq. krn. island home• is still called the 'Qnge Tribal Reserve' the protection is only on paper. The biggest violator, tragically, has been the Indian state that ruthlessly (and illegally) logged the forest home of the Onge for nearly three decades till the Supreme Court put a stop to it in 2002. From late 1960s onwards, thousands of people from mainland India were sent to Little Andaman Island under a Government of India programme to colonise' it. From being complete masters of their traditional forests of Little Andaman, the Onges have become outsiders in just four decades. Only the Onge lived on this island in 1965. Today, for every Onge on Little Andaman, there are at least 200 people from outside and the equation is changing even as we read this. In one of the most bizarre incidents in the islands, eight members of the community died .and 16 more were hospitalized after consuming a mysterious liquid that was washed ashore in a jerry can near their Dugong Creek settlement in December 2008.