BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 23 of 143

Correct — C, Andaman and Nicobar. The Shompen are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group of Great Nicobar, the southernmost of the Nicobar Islands, and the whole Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands returns exactly one member to the Lok Sabha — so once you know where the Shompen live, the constituency is not a choice at all. The Election Commission's own account of the 2024 general election records the moment in a single sentence: 'In a historic move, the Shompen tribe of Great Nicobar voted in the Lok Sabha Election - 2024 for the first time.' The same record places it among the Commission's inclusion outcomes for that election, alongside the Lambada tribe at Thiruvur and the Nishi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh, and the islands went to the polls in the first phase, in April 2024. What makes this more than a curiosity is what it took. The Shompen are semi-nomadic forest dwellers of the interior of Great Nicobar, a few hundred people in total, living at a distance from settled administration by choice as much as by geography; getting a polling arrangement to them at all required the Commission to build the booth around the community rather than expect the community to come to a booth. The same official record describes free transport being arranged for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups in several States and new polling stations being located in previously inaccessible areas, and the Shompen vote is the sharpest single example of that policy working.

• (a)Vizianagram, Andhra Pradesh — Vizianagram, Andhra Pradesh — a real Lok Sabha constituency in north coastal Andhra Pradesh, and a plausible-sounding answer because Andhra Pradesh genuinely does have Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of its own in the Eastern Ghats. But the Shompen are an island people of Great Nicobar, found nowhere on the Indian mainland, so no mainland constituency can be the answer however many tribal communities it contains.
• (b)Tripura East — Tripura East — a Lok Sabha seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes, which is exactly why it appears here: a candidate scanning for a tribal constituency will find one. Tripura's tribal communities are entirely different from the islanders', and the state's own Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group is the Reang, also called Bru. The Shompen have no presence in Tripura or anywhere in the north-east.
• (d)Tura — Tura — the Lok Sabha constituency covering the Garo Hills of Meghalaya, and likewise a seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes. The Garo are one of the larger tribal communities of the north-east and are not a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group at all; the classification exists for very small, isolated and demographically fragile communities of the kind the Shompen are. Two of the four options being reserved tribal seats is the deliberate design of this question.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are a sub-category within the Scheduled Tribes, created for communities so small and so isolated that ordinary tribal development programmes do not reach them. The category began on the recommendation of the Dhebar Commission as 'Primitive Tribal Groups' and was renamed in 2006; seventy-five groups are notified. The criteria are specific rather than impressionistic — a pre-agricultural level of technology, a stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy, and a subsistence economy — and UPSC has keyed as correct both that a stagnant or declining population is one of those criteria and that PVTGs are found in eighteen States and one Union Territory. That one Union Territory is the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and it alone accounts for five of the seventy-five: the Great Andamanese, the Jarawa, the Onge and the Sentinelese in the Andamans, and the Shompen in the Nicobars. Great Nicobar itself is doubly significant in the syllabus, because besides the Shompen it holds Indira Point, the southernmost point of Indian territory, and the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve — and because a large port and development project proposed there has made the island's ecology and its people a live policy question.

Answer this by locating the community, not by scanning the constituencies. If you know the Shompen belong to Great Nicobar, the rest follows mechanically, because the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a single-seat Union Territory and there is no second island constituency to confuse it with. Notice how the wrong options are built: two of the three are seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes, so a candidate who searches the list for anything tribal will find two plausible answers and no way to choose between them. The question is testing which tribe lives where, and nothing else. The way to make that cheap is to store the island groups together, because examiners return to them constantly — the Sentinelese on North Sentinel, the Jarawa and the Onge and the Great Andamanese in the Andamans, and the Shompen in the interior of Great Nicobar. Note also the phrasing of the stem: it says the Shompen exercised their right to vote 'for the first time', which is a claim about their first participation in a general election rather than about any legal disability. They were always entitled to vote; what changed in 2024 was that voting was actually brought within reach.

• The Election Commission's record of the 2024 general election states: 'In a historic move, the Shompen tribe of Great Nicobar voted in the Lok Sabha Election - 2024 for the first time.'
• The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a Union Territory with a single Lok Sabha constituency, so Great Nicobar has only one seat it can belong to.
• Seventy-five Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are notified in India; the criteria include a pre-agricultural level of technology, a stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy and a subsistence economy, and UPSC's 2019 prelims keyed as correct that they are found in eighteen States and one Union Territory.
• The Andaman and Nicobar Islands hold five of those groups — the Great Andamanese, the Jarawa, the Onge and the Sentinelese in the Andamans, and the Shompen, who are semi-nomadic forest dwellers of the interior of Great Nicobar.
• Great Nicobar also contains Indira Point, the southernmost point of Indian territory, and the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve.
• The same official account lists this alongside other inclusion measures of 2024, including the Lambada tribe voting at Thiruvur and the Nishi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh, and free transport arranged for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups to reach polling stations from remote areas.

• Choosing a reserved tribal constituency because it is reserved. Two of the four options, Tripura East and Tura, are Scheduled Tribe seats and neither has any Shompen population.
• Confusing the Shompen with the Nicobarese. Both live in the Nicobar Islands, but the Nicobarese are a much larger community and are not classed as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group.
• Reading 'for the first time exercised their democratic right to vote' as meaning they previously lacked the right. The entitlement was never in question; what changed was that polling was physically brought to them.

BPSC takes a single current-affairs sentence and turns it into a place question, filling the options with real constituencies chosen so that more than one looks tribal, so the mark depends on knowing which community lives where rather than on having read the news item. UPSC asks the classification instead — where a named tribe is found, or which statements about the PVTG category are correct, including the exact number notified and the criteria used — so the same material needs preparing as a map for one paper and as a definition for the other.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Indira Point, the southernmost point of Indian territory, is located on which island ?

  • (a)Little Andaman
  • (b)Car Nicobar
  • (c)Great Nicobar
  • (d)North Sentinel

  Answer(c) Great Nicobar — the same island that is home to the Shompen and to the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve. North Sentinel is the island of the Sentinelese, far to the north in the Andaman group.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following is NOT one of the criteria used to identify a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group ?

  • (a)Pre-agricultural level of technology
  • (b)Stagnant or declining population
  • (c)Extremely low level of literacy
  • (d)Residence in a Sixth Schedule area

  Answer(d) Residence in a Sixth Schedule area — the four criteria are a pre-agricultural level of technology, a stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy and a subsistence economy. The Sixth Schedule is a separate constitutional arrangement for certain tribal areas of the north-east and has nothing to do with PVTG identification.