Slow Violence in the Andamans: Pankaj Sekhsaria's The Last Wave

This essay focuses on Pankaj Sekhsaria’s work on the Andaman Islands, with particular reference to the native tribe of the Jarawas. Besides official reports and newspaper articles, Sekhsaria has authored an island novel that denounces the dire ecological predicament of the archipelago – The Last Wave (2004). The literary technique chosen to tell the story of the islands creates parallels between the story of the protagonists, the ecological decay of the environment – both vegetal and animal – and the plight of the last self-contained tribe, the Jarawas. While spotlighting the Andamans, Sekhsaria connects the islands with the world environmental crisis and the economic forces behind it. Furthermore, moving between the time scales of geology and humans, the novel documents the slow violence perpetrated against the aboriginals and the environment.