NO-CONTACT AS LAW: REMAINING INDIGENOUS AUTONOMY FOR THE SENTINELESE IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA
NIYATI SIROHI
, Dr. RATNESH KUMAR SRIVASTAVA
Sentinelese; Indigenous autonomy; no-contact principle; Andaman and Nicobar Islands; tribal jurisprudence
The unique status of North Sentinel Island in the context of Indian public law arises from the
fact that in the case of the Island, the most effective protection that can be offered to the
islanders is legal distance as opposed to administrative incorporation. This paper seeks to
address the question of whether India's no-contact approach to the Sentinelese is simply an
executive policy that can be reversed at will, or whether it can be conceptualized and
constructed as a legal doctrine, as a principle of law, incorporating concepts of autonomy,
dignity, and territorial and epidemiological self-defence. The primary method of analysis will
be doctrinal and will involve an analysis of the regulatory framework of the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, and will be complemented by an analysis of the values of the Constitution,
the Supreme Court's tribal land and community survival jurisprudence, more recent island
related litigation, and official parliamentary documents, as well as some comparative literature
on peoples living in voluntary isolation. It will also be argued that Indian law already contains
the normative framework of a no-contact principle. The implication will be that the Sentinelese
question should not be approached only as a problem of benevolent administration. Instead, it
should be approached as a problem of legally structured restraint, where the State's primary
obligation is to retain the prevailing conditions of indigenous refusal and survival.
"NO-CONTACT AS LAW: REMAINING INDIGENOUS AUTONOMY FOR THE SENTINELESE IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA ", JETNR - JOURNAL OF EMERGING TRENDS AND NOVEL RESEARCH (www.JETNR.org), ISSN:2984-9276, Vol.4, Issue 6, page no.b165-b179, June-2026, Available :https://rjpn.org/JETNR/papers/JETNR2606143.pdf
Volume 4
Issue 6,
June-2026
Pages : b165-b179
Paper Reg. ID: JETNR_235162
Published Paper Id: JETNR2606143
Downloads: 00092
Research Area: Medical Science All
Country: dehradun, Uttrakhand , India
ISSN: 2984-9276 | IMPACT FACTOR: 9.87 Calculated By Google Scholar | ESTD YEAR: 2023
An International Scholarly Open Access Journal, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed Journal Impact Factor 9.87 Calculate by Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar | AI-Powered Research Tool, Multidisciplinary, Monthly, Multilanguage Journal Indexing in All Major Database & Metadata, Citation Generator
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