John Allen Chau behaved immorally and recklessly when he approached North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal last week. A Christian from Washington in the US, Chau apparently wanted to convert the Sentinelese people to Christianity. The Sentinelese are a neolithic tribe that has had virtually no engagement with modernity. They’re notoriously hostile to outsiders. So when they saw Chau approaching in a kayak, they took fright and fired arrows at him. Chau died in a ‘hail of arrows’.
He must have known the risks. India, which oversees North Sentinel and surrounding islands, has outlawed contact with the Sentenilese people. As a result of having been secluded for thousands of years, the Sentinelese people probably lack genetic immunity to common ailments like flu and measles. Contact with people from the modern would could prove lethal for them. Chau wanted to save them for Jesus, but he could have ended up harming them terribly.
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