After decades of absorbing Indian, Burmese, Malay and other ethnic influences, the 30-odd inhabited islands that form a way-point in the midst of the wide Indian Ocean presents a fascinating cultural mix that even now, remains far off the beaten track of 21st Century tourism. Pandaw’s expedition will reveal not just the stunning natural beauty of the archipelago but also its considerable cultural and historical interest.
As Pandaw’s planned tour will reveal, modernity started to catch up with the Andaman Islands in the 19th Century. British administrators in India had the islands surveyed, and then, following the “Mutiny” or Rebellion of 1857, chose this isolated spot as the ideal penal colony for subversive elements, a kind of Indian Alcatraz or Botany Bay, a status it retained for many decades afterwards. The legacy is plain to see in the Cellular Jail in the capital Port Blair, one of the Andamans’ most-visited sites, which represents a dark counterpoint to the manifold architectural glories of the British Raj.
The hardship of the penal regime, also memories of the Japanese wartime Occupation, have given the Andaman Islands a special place in the mythology of Indian nationalism. The now jungle-bound architectural ruins of a Raj-era British tropical playground exert a special fascination, and exist cheek by jowl with proud monuments to the martyrs of Indian independence.
