Sentinelese are in the news. They killed John Allen Chau. John was a pastor from a missionary group based in Kansas City, the largest city in the US State of Missouri. John planned for several years to travel illegally to the North Sentinel Island in the Andaman & Nicobar union territory of India – with a mission to meet the ‘uncontacted’ Sentinelese Tribe. Not just illegal, it was flagrantly mindless because Sentinelese violently resist outside human contact. They killed 2 fisherman who stranded on their island when their boat went adrift. More recently, they did not let the Indian Navy helicopters to land on their tiny 23 sq mile island just 37 miles left of Port Blair, when the Navy went to check on their ‘welfare’ after the Indian ocean Tsunami.

John Chau’s mindless attempt violated a number of Indian laws. But most importantly it put the lives of the indigenous people at risk – they have no immunity to resist the disease agents that humans from the outside world would carry. When the British landed in the Andaman islands, there were 5000 Sentinelese people. Now, they are approx 40 to 400 (latest Census puts it at 40). Why trouble them?

A couple of years ago, a dear friend of mine called me to say that he was on his way to ‘Attappadi’ a tribal settlement in the Western Ghats (the southern hills of India). Their goal was to help the tribes learn new use-cases for their traditional medicinal methods. But, why would we teach them anything? Who decides what is in their ‘best interests’. If we define ‘interests’ using constructs of modern civilization– modern medicine, modern education, modern housing, modern technology – is that right for them – who decides? Whose choice?

Sentinelese are happy with their life. Their choice is to remain un-contacted. They are peaceful. The Indian nation respects it. Going beyond 5 nautical miles closer to their island is illegal. Contacting them is illegal. It is the right thing to do not to prosecute them for killing an intruder in self-defense. Leave them alone.

A world away, in the Silicon Valley, the world’s technology capital, you see visuals in stark contrast, of Millennials – are they also becoming ‘un-contacted’ people if ‘contact’ means in its old world sense, a face to face conversation, a day without a cell phone, a day off-line, with no apps to order for food, no Uber for travel, no Google maps, Twitter, YouTube, banking apps, amazon and more.

What makes Sentinelese who they are & what makes Millennials who they are – Modern civilization? Technology? Innovation? Intellectual Property? Patents?

Technology seems to be making human race evolve into people who do not like face to face conversations, who do not want to go back home and listen to stories from grandparents, who can’t be social ‘without media’ – that is also a form of becoming ‘uncontacted people’.  Technology may be taking human beings back through a full circle, changing people’s habits. Many people are shutting their ears using a headphone. New cordless headphones have a feature to tap and turn it off for you to hear what someone is asking you. Otherwise you prefer not to hear, ‘uncontacted’! Your car talks to your phone. Your phone talks to your laptop (IoT). Soon the refrigerator will talk to your washing machine. So, you will have very little to talk or do with them – soon nothing to talk. Again, technology is creating islands of ‘uncontacted’ people – may at some point connected only virtually.

So, there isn’t much of a difference between Millennials and Sentinelese. One is Uncontacted and the other is Shun-contacted!