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Really glad to come across such a person who have been so focused and made it like this. Hope she is able to continue as we need more people like her. What baffles me here is discussion on authenticity of few pics by few people than just simply seeing the work done which deserves kudos! Let’s appreciate the power of a human connect.
an indeed beautifully written article about the daring, sensible woman and her exceptional work which i dont see being repeated ever again..truly remarkable..hats off..sad to note however, that such a worker is being neglected grossly..
That’s great M.chattopadhyay. I salute you to excavate the anthropological knowledge from danger island??.
Thanks for enrich my anthropological knowledge about other world? of the people.
Salute to The Print for bringing out this story . Pearls nesting in shells have no value unless exposed .The Print has brought out the story of a diamond.Kudos.
When I was in SJ&E 2012, I met Dr. Madhumala Chattopaadhyaay, Senior Research Officer at SJ&E. She has a very plesant personality, a kind hearted woman with simplicity. She is very humble n brave woman. I salute to Dr. Madhumala Chattopaadhyaay for her achievements n great work
Interesting to know about her and her acheivements! It calls for greater awareness about her work so that more about her experiences and knowledge can come in the public domain. Very intriguing tribes!
I doubt about degree of correctness of content. In one pic they showed her standing on shore n offering coconut to Sentinalese. Whereas if u hv seen videos n TV interviews of those anthropologists who visited that day, they were always in their boat, they were not invited on the shore which is clearly told in TV interview and there was no woman on boat. There was always a safe distance and hand to hand passing of coconut never happened (except one sack full of coconuts). Also, in article it’s told she recognized few words spoken by them like more n more coconut, where it’s clear that anthropologists are not sure about a single word if their language n they were using laha for coconut just on a trial basis hoping they understand jarawa word. Perhaps the pic is for jarawa tribe interaction, but the article is clearly misleading.
Sir, as an author of this article, I completely stand by what is written, the photographs are authentic and there has been no falsification of what transpired as narrated by Dr. Madhumala. There is no reason to falsify facts, for there is nothing to gain from it. I assure you Sir, this is a true account and that Dr. Madhumala is indeed a very brave lady and extremely humble who is the last person to wear her success on her sleeve and falsify any incident. The account related to in the article happened in 1991, and was one of the many attempts made by ASI to establish contact in those days before GoI prohibited any such expeditions. According to Dr. Madhumala, there is some similarity in the dialect of the tribes and Dr. Madhumala’s familiarity with the Onge dialect helped her to decipher some of the words she heard from the Sentinelese.
While there is no reason to doubt this story, the hallmark of good journalism is also corroboration and verification. Did you accept Dr. Chattopadhyay’s story of events at its face value or did you also verify it by cross checking her story with her then colleagues at ASI or any other external source?
Cant imagine how some people cant resist dissecting everything with their intellect and to mine out short comings with a narcisist intent.
Common readers like us can only sympathise with pseudo intellects like you Mr. Chaudhuri…
i am still working in the Jarawa area u der Tribsl Welfare departmnt in andaman…seen files and snaps too..all are part of periodical contact expedition being conducted by the Andaman administrstion among a particular group of Jarawas at certain territorial pockets such as Lakralungta, Foul Bay etc.in 70s and the team was phyisically led by one Shri Bhaktawar Singh, who was the man to befriend the Jarawas..while on the expeditious route the team used to visit the shallow water of North Sentinel Island to drop gifts like dehusked coconuts and iron materials. The team never succeeded to contact the sentinelese even in hand shake distance…the snaps posted here are of Jarawas and not the Sentinelese…After the US based tourist John Allen Chau was killed by the Sentinelese there has been an inflow of such news only to gain publicity by certain writers…Smti Madhumala was just part of the contact expedition team and the Jarawa group was already befriended and were contacted in the expeditions prior to Madhumala’s visit…nothing new
You are absolutely right ; I have not seen a single picture of this lady with the sentinalese people. More over , had she been really in contact with the sentinalese in 1991 , she would passed all the microbes and viruses like flu.
This is what has happened to native americans in West Indies by unknowing europeans
Your comments refer to incidents in the 70s while the article talks about Madhumala’s interaction with the indigenous groups in 1991. You seem to have missed the point!
जहां चाह है वहां राह है,। डा, मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय के स्वप्न और उसे साकार करने की कथा बहुत,प्रसशनीय और प्रेरणादायक है । आज की पीढ़ी को इसे अवश्य पढ़ना चाहिए। लेख के लेखक सुदीप्त सेन गुप्ता और प्रिट के सम्पादक को साधुवाद।
असली काम करने वाले ,प्रचार,प्रसार से दूर रहते हैं ,और सरकारी मशीनरी भी अपनी रफ़्तार से इन महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाने वालो को नेपथ्य में डाल कर अपनी इतिश्री समझ लेती है। न वो अमरीकी घुसपैठीया नागरिक अंडमान निकोबार द्वीप समूह में मारा जाता , न, ही डा मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय की मेहनत की कहानी सामने आती।
इसी सन्दर्भ में एक और कहानी भी ,,एक पंडित जी,,नाम भूल गया के नाम से एक चैनल पर आती थी ,जिसमें उनके भी किसी दावे का विवरण था। अब हमें याद नहीं।खैर!
प्रबुद्ध पाठकों ,से आग्रह रहेगा की डा , मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय की कहानी को जितना प्रसारित किया जाये, उतना ही हमारी पीढ़ी की बेटीयों को इस तरह के काम हाथ में लेने के लिए प्रेरणा मिलेगी।
लेखक और सम्पादक से भी आग्रह रहेगा की डा, मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय से सम्बंध स्थापित कर उनकी सहमति मिलने के उपरांत जितना भी प्रचार,प्रसार लेख व चित्रों द्वारा किया जा सकता है अवश्य करें,एक तो उनके कार्य के प्रति सम्मान होगा, दूसरे श्री पीढ़ी के लिए प्रेरणास्रोत।
आप सब की प्रतिक्रिया और सहयोग के लिए अग्रिम बधाई।
धन्यवाद।
Truly inspiring story of a woman who has shown passion and dedication to follow her dreams, has been sensitive to understand and appreciate hitherto unknown culture of secluded tribes and is equally devoted to her elderly parents and younger siblings. Hats off to Dr. Madhumala. It’s a matter of pride for India.
Government of a India should recognise her efforts and give her chance and financial support to continue her research and enlighten world with her first hand knowledge on this subject.
It was definitely a good reading about Dr.Madhumala’s work in brief.having read some of the earlier writers of the nature like Verrier Elwin and others I am confident that she would have done more lasting work in the field of her choice.But the government’s as they are always put shacke ls of sorts.It is also possible that professional jealousy also played some part in preventing her from field resaerch.
Very informative, interesting and inspiring story.
Dr madhumala deserves a standing ovation.
May God bless my country with such humble workers and at the same time may preserve purity of secluded tribes.
Incredible story of an incredible woman Full thumbs up for her groundbreaking work with the tribals of andaman especially the dreaded and endangered sentinelese.
She is a true friend of the tribes. Thanks for bringing out her immense contribution in this field. I wish to hear her opinion in the recent incidentally with the Sentinelese.
Such cross-cultural interactions say much about both sides. Perhaps we are not as intelligent as we think we are, given our “modern” culture’s bias against women. It’s not surprising that the authorities organizing these efforts failed to assemble an investigative group comprised of an equal number of both men and women (or mostly women), which might have been interpreted by the Sentinelese as non-threatening outreach by another community (whereas an all-male group could be interpreted as a potentially hostile war party). The question I’d like to ask these organizing authorities is, if the presence of a woman reduced hostilities and increased the quality of information-gathering, why did they restrict Madhumala’s movements rather than give her more latitude? Why did they not add more women to the mission?
Dr. Chattopadyhay is an inspiration. I’ll be searching for her writings….
जहां चाह है वहां राह है।
यह कहती हैं कहानी।
सरकारी व्यवस्था और पल्ला झाड़ने वाली मशीनरी पर भी चोट करती है यह कहानी,जिसे कभी भी शायद प्रकाशित किया गया हो।
She is great ..and Dare to go there
Thanks for being a Link between them and us
A fascinating article about a brave and intelligent woman. I hope that at some point in time she may decide/feel that her family circumstances allow her to return to anthropological research in the field. Experience and talents such as her should be used.
Primitive is not a bad word. It could be a civilisation, cohesive social group which has no known written or codified law, rule book of governance, justice and administration.
This article is nice & really well-written. Still, despite an elaborate account on how this courageous , inquisitive and research-oriented anthropologist was able to successfully interact with one of the world’s most ‘un-contacted’ and hostile tribes in the archipelago over a period of years, this narrative somehow misses to enlighten the readership how she was able to carry on conversation with the womenfolk during her frequent trips to study their workaday life as a social unit and the exact findings she arrived at on their collective thinking on life in general as lived by them. It’s also not clear if she had attempted to convince them into dispelling notions of their inherent hostility to outsiders visiting their shores every now and then for establishing camaraderie and promote their wellbeing in the context of universal fellowship.
If only these islanders had imbued and remembered her advisory to act friendly the recent killing of an American missionary wouldn’t have been planned and executed the way it panned out.
With this just being an article, they can’t cover all of her findings or experience. They did, however, mention the books and reports she wrote with that information so that we could delve deeper. I am also very interested in learning more about her experience!
Let it be known to her that she has earned many admirers of her work and love of humanity. Salutes, maa’m.
She’s a strong woman, looking forward to seeing the video about her.
What government fails to see is there are childrens who dont take education in that tribe and ruin their life,
Really glad to come across such a person who have been so focused and made it like this. Hope she is able to continue as we need more people like her. What baffles me here is discussion on authenticity of few pics by few people than just simply seeing the work done which deserves kudos! Let’s appreciate the power of a human connect.
an indeed beautifully written article about the daring, sensible woman and her exceptional work which i dont see being repeated ever again..truly remarkable..hats off..sad to note however, that such a worker is being neglected grossly..
That’s great M.chattopadhyay. I salute you to excavate the anthropological knowledge from danger island??.
Thanks for enrich my anthropological knowledge about other world? of the people.
Salute to The Print for bringing out this story . Pearls nesting in shells have no value unless exposed .The Print has brought out the story of a diamond.Kudos.
We need to recognize Madhumalas work in a big way so that kids are inspired to have a curiosity and chase their dreams with determined minds.
When I was in SJ&E 2012, I met Dr. Madhumala Chattopaadhyaay, Senior Research Officer at SJ&E. She has a very plesant personality, a kind hearted woman with simplicity. She is very humble n brave woman. I salute to Dr. Madhumala Chattopaadhyaay for her achievements n great work
Interesting to know about her and her acheivements! It calls for greater awareness about her work so that more about her experiences and knowledge can come in the public domain. Very intriguing tribes!
I doubt about degree of correctness of content. In one pic they showed her standing on shore n offering coconut to Sentinalese. Whereas if u hv seen videos n TV interviews of those anthropologists who visited that day, they were always in their boat, they were not invited on the shore which is clearly told in TV interview and there was no woman on boat. There was always a safe distance and hand to hand passing of coconut never happened (except one sack full of coconuts). Also, in article it’s told she recognized few words spoken by them like more n more coconut, where it’s clear that anthropologists are not sure about a single word if their language n they were using laha for coconut just on a trial basis hoping they understand jarawa word. Perhaps the pic is for jarawa tribe interaction, but the article is clearly misleading.
Sir, as an author of this article, I completely stand by what is written, the photographs are authentic and there has been no falsification of what transpired as narrated by Dr. Madhumala. There is no reason to falsify facts, for there is nothing to gain from it. I assure you Sir, this is a true account and that Dr. Madhumala is indeed a very brave lady and extremely humble who is the last person to wear her success on her sleeve and falsify any incident. The account related to in the article happened in 1991, and was one of the many attempts made by ASI to establish contact in those days before GoI prohibited any such expeditions. According to Dr. Madhumala, there is some similarity in the dialect of the tribes and Dr. Madhumala’s familiarity with the Onge dialect helped her to decipher some of the words she heard from the Sentinelese.
While there is no reason to doubt this story, the hallmark of good journalism is also corroboration and verification. Did you accept Dr. Chattopadhyay’s story of events at its face value or did you also verify it by cross checking her story with her then colleagues at ASI or any other external source?
Cant imagine how some people cant resist dissecting everything with their intellect and to mine out short comings with a narcisist intent.
Common readers like us can only sympathise with pseudo intellects like you Mr. Chaudhuri…
i am still working in the Jarawa area u der Tribsl Welfare departmnt in andaman…seen files and snaps too..all are part of periodical contact expedition being conducted by the Andaman administrstion among a particular group of Jarawas at certain territorial pockets such as Lakralungta, Foul Bay etc.in 70s and the team was phyisically led by one Shri Bhaktawar Singh, who was the man to befriend the Jarawas..while on the expeditious route the team used to visit the shallow water of North Sentinel Island to drop gifts like dehusked coconuts and iron materials. The team never succeeded to contact the sentinelese even in hand shake distance…the snaps posted here are of Jarawas and not the Sentinelese…After the US based tourist John Allen Chau was killed by the Sentinelese there has been an inflow of such news only to gain publicity by certain writers…Smti Madhumala was just part of the contact expedition team and the Jarawa group was already befriended and were contacted in the expeditions prior to Madhumala’s visit…nothing new
You are absolutely right ; I have not seen a single picture of this lady with the sentinalese people. More over , had she been really in contact with the sentinalese in 1991 , she would passed all the microbes and viruses like flu.
This is what has happened to native americans in West Indies by unknowing europeans
Your comments refer to incidents in the 70s while the article talks about Madhumala’s interaction with the indigenous groups in 1991. You seem to have missed the point!
जहां चाह है वहां राह है,। डा, मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय के स्वप्न और उसे साकार करने की कथा बहुत,प्रसशनीय और प्रेरणादायक है । आज की पीढ़ी को इसे अवश्य पढ़ना चाहिए। लेख के लेखक सुदीप्त सेन गुप्ता और प्रिट के सम्पादक को साधुवाद।
असली काम करने वाले ,प्रचार,प्रसार से दूर रहते हैं ,और सरकारी मशीनरी भी अपनी रफ़्तार से इन महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाने वालो को नेपथ्य में डाल कर अपनी इतिश्री समझ लेती है। न वो अमरीकी घुसपैठीया नागरिक अंडमान निकोबार द्वीप समूह में मारा जाता , न, ही डा मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय की मेहनत की कहानी सामने आती।
इसी सन्दर्भ में एक और कहानी भी ,,एक पंडित जी,,नाम भूल गया के नाम से एक चैनल पर आती थी ,जिसमें उनके भी किसी दावे का विवरण था। अब हमें याद नहीं।खैर!
प्रबुद्ध पाठकों ,से आग्रह रहेगा की डा , मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय की कहानी को जितना प्रसारित किया जाये, उतना ही हमारी पीढ़ी की बेटीयों को इस तरह के काम हाथ में लेने के लिए प्रेरणा मिलेगी।
लेखक और सम्पादक से भी आग्रह रहेगा की डा, मधुमाला चट्टोपाध्याय से सम्बंध स्थापित कर उनकी सहमति मिलने के उपरांत जितना भी प्रचार,प्रसार लेख व चित्रों द्वारा किया जा सकता है अवश्य करें,एक तो उनके कार्य के प्रति सम्मान होगा, दूसरे श्री पीढ़ी के लिए प्रेरणास्रोत।
आप सब की प्रतिक्रिया और सहयोग के लिए अग्रिम बधाई।
धन्यवाद।
Truly inspiring story of a woman who has shown passion and dedication to follow her dreams, has been sensitive to understand and appreciate hitherto unknown culture of secluded tribes and is equally devoted to her elderly parents and younger siblings. Hats off to Dr. Madhumala. It’s a matter of pride for India.
Government of a India should recognise her efforts and give her chance and financial support to continue her research and enlighten world with her first hand knowledge on this subject.
It was definitely a good reading about Dr.Madhumala’s work in brief.having read some of the earlier writers of the nature like Verrier Elwin and others I am confident that she would have done more lasting work in the field of her choice.But the government’s as they are always put shacke ls of sorts.It is also possible that professional jealousy also played some part in preventing her from field resaerch.
It is not too late. She should be given all help to write her experiences with the tribes their social life. Government should encourage her.
Remarkable. I salute Dr. Madhumala Chattopadhayay.
She is really great and brave woman.
Very informative, interesting and inspiring story.
Dr madhumala deserves a standing ovation.
May God bless my country with such humble workers and at the same time may preserve purity of secluded tribes.
Madhubala, even though long years has passed in the meantime, may be allowed to again attempt contacts with the A and N tribes
Incredible story of an incredible woman Full thumbs up for her groundbreaking work with the tribals of andaman especially the dreaded and endangered sentinelese.
She is a true friend of the tribes. Thanks for bringing out her immense contribution in this field. I wish to hear her opinion in the recent incidentally with the Sentinelese.
Awesome article!!!Great work
Good article and Research by the person.
My only worry is today’s social media.
People will now dare to contact those people again.
Such cross-cultural interactions say much about both sides. Perhaps we are not as intelligent as we think we are, given our “modern” culture’s bias against women. It’s not surprising that the authorities organizing these efforts failed to assemble an investigative group comprised of an equal number of both men and women (or mostly women), which might have been interpreted by the Sentinelese as non-threatening outreach by another community (whereas an all-male group could be interpreted as a potentially hostile war party). The question I’d like to ask these organizing authorities is, if the presence of a woman reduced hostilities and increased the quality of information-gathering, why did they restrict Madhumala’s movements rather than give her more latitude? Why did they not add more women to the mission?
Dr. Chattopadyhay is an inspiration. I’ll be searching for her writings….
जहां चाह है वहां राह है।
यह कहती हैं कहानी।
सरकारी व्यवस्था और पल्ला झाड़ने वाली मशीनरी पर भी चोट करती है यह कहानी,जिसे कभी भी शायद प्रकाशित किया गया हो।
She is great ..and Dare to go there
Thanks for being a Link between them and us
A fascinating article about a brave and intelligent woman. I hope that at some point in time she may decide/feel that her family circumstances allow her to return to anthropological research in the field. Experience and talents such as her should be used.
I believe using the term primitive to refer people is a punishable offence.
Primitive is not a bad word. It could be a civilisation, cohesive social group which has no known written or codified law, rule book of governance, justice and administration.
This article is nice & really well-written. Still, despite an elaborate account on how this courageous , inquisitive and research-oriented anthropologist was able to successfully interact with one of the world’s most ‘un-contacted’ and hostile tribes in the archipelago over a period of years, this narrative somehow misses to enlighten the readership how she was able to carry on conversation with the womenfolk during her frequent trips to study their workaday life as a social unit and the exact findings she arrived at on their collective thinking on life in general as lived by them. It’s also not clear if she had attempted to convince them into dispelling notions of their inherent hostility to outsiders visiting their shores every now and then for establishing camaraderie and promote their wellbeing in the context of universal fellowship.
If only these islanders had imbued and remembered her advisory to act friendly the recent killing of an American missionary wouldn’t have been planned and executed the way it panned out.
With this just being an article, they can’t cover all of her findings or experience. They did, however, mention the books and reports she wrote with that information so that we could delve deeper. I am also very interested in learning more about her experience!
Let it be known to her that she has earned many admirers of her work and love of humanity. Salutes, maa’m.
Really inspiring! Madhumala is a real anthropologist, very kind human being!
Very inspiring and interesting story. Hats off to Dr. Madhumala. My Good wishes to her.