Ebook History of Anthropology in India

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INDIAN ANTHROPOLOGY
HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN INDIA
Dr. Abhik Ghosh

Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology
Panjab University, Chandigarh
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Growth of Indian Anthropology

Arthur Llewellyn Basham
Christoph Von-Fuhrer Haimendorf
Verrier Elwin
Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Roy
Biraja Shankar Guha
Dewan Bahadur L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer
Govind Sadashiv Ghurye
Nirmal Kumar Bose
Dhirendra Nath Majumdar
Iravati Karve
Hasmukh Dhirajlal Sankalia
Dharani P. Sen
Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas
Shyama Charan Dube
Surajit Chandra Sinha
Prabodh Kumar Bhowmick
K. S. Mathur
Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi
Triloki Nath Madan
Shiv Raj Kumar Chopra
Andre Beteille
Gopala Sarana
Conclusions
Suggested Readings
SIGNIFICANT KEYWORDS: Ethnology, History of Indian Anthropology, Anthropological

History, Colonial Beginnings
INTRODUCTION: THE GROWTH OF INDIAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Manu’s Dharmashastra (2nd-3rd century BC) comprehensively studied Indian society of that
period, based more on the morals and norms of social and economic life. Kautilya’s
Arthashastra (324-296 BC) was a treatise on politics, statecraft and economics but also
described the functioning of Indian society in detail. Megasthenes was the Greek ambassador
to the court of Chandragupta Maurya from 324 BC to 300 BC. He also wrote a book on the
structure and customs of Indian society. Al Biruni’s accounts of India are famous. He was a
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Persian scholar who visited India and wrote a book about it in 1030 AD. Al Biruni wrote of
Indian social and cultural life, with sections on religion, sciences, customs and manners of the
Hindus. In the 17th century Bernier came from France to India and wrote a book on the life
and times of the Mughal emperors Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, their life and times.
Anthropology began as a colonial handmaiden is a phrase that lies deep in the murky heart of
the subject. However, it is true that in the initial stages the British administrators needed to
know more about those that they ruled and thus started creating detailed analyses of their
culture and society in order to understand how best to rule over them. This period ensured
that anthropologists from England came to India and collected data on Indian populations and
prepared monographs on them. This period is at the second half of the nineteenth century,
when a number of monographs on tribal and other communities were being written by the
British administrators and anthropologists.
Along with these, there appeared on the scene a small number of Indian anthropologists who
were being trained by the British masters to assist them in their anthropological work.
Anthropology happened to be taught at Haileybury College to train British Civil servants
going off to India under the East India Company. By 1807, the Company had realized the
importance of anthropological knowledge. The Governor-General had appointed Dr. Francis
Buchanan to collect information on the life and culture of the people of Bengal. At this time
very little was known about the communities that resided in India and thus descriptive work
was very much required that filled in the lacunae. In Victorian England, at that time, forms of
classical evolutionism and diffusionism were very much in vogue and thus many of the
anthropologists followed, consciously or sub-consciously, the theoretical regimes under
which they existed. These theoretical ideas supported the spread of British rule and agreed
with the subjugation of the natives. A political economy of support thus existed between the
subject’s non-stated aims and its activities.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, new Indian anthropologists came into the scene
voluntarily due to the nature of their work, who wished not only to be educated about
anthropology but also spearheaded the task of setting up Anthropology Departments in
various Universities. Once large numbers of students came into the scene, the British
hegemony over the subject weakened. As we shall see from the lives of the famous Indian
anthropologists, without overtly falling out with the British at any point, they actually often
disagreed with them openly on many important issues. However, British ideas kept emerging
in Indian Anthropology over the years and never really and truly died out.
One of the first things that happened in Anthropology in India was the setting up of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1774 by Sir William Jones. Under this organization, a number of
anthropological works were conducted and many were printed in the journal of the Society. It
is said by many that such work did not constitute an anthropology since they were written by
British administrators and missionaries rather than ‘true’ anthropologists. However, many
were well trained and their works are still studied, albeit as matters of historical interest, in
Indian universities. They included famous names like L. S. O’Malley, E. Thurston, Edward
Tuite Dalton, Herbert Hope Risley, R.V. Russell, William Crooke, J. T. Blunt, Buchanan, J.
P. Mills, R.E. Enthoven, J. Todd, Valentine Ball, Baden-Powell, Sir Edward Gait, Sir Richard
C. Temple, Sir Denzil Ibbetson, H. A. Rose, E. T. H. Atkinson, J. Shakespear, P. R. T.
Gurdon, N. E. Perry, T. V. Grigson, Sir Edward Gait, Campbell, Latham, and others. These
men compiled encyclopaedic material on castes and tribes of various parts of India. What
they could not collect, they compiled in other works where they described regions as well as
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the people they met on their travels. ‘True’ anthropologists like W. H. R. Rivers, J. H.
Hutton, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and C. G. Seligman also came to India. Their work influenced
people like Paul Olaf Bodding, Hoffman, Emelen, etc. to work on Indian communities in a
greater degree of sympathetic detail.
These anthropologists in turn influenced others who were of Indian origin to work in
anthropology. Such Indian anthropologists wrote of the cultures that they knew best and
among whom they had grown up. Thus, a limited kind of ‘auto-ethnography’ was already
being practiced in India by Indian anthropologists long before it became a major issue in
western anthropology.
This was seen to have an overriding factor in Indian anthropology by M. N. Srinivas (1996),
since such studies extended to the Indian diaspora which lived abroad over generations.
Anthropologists in India also had less funds than their Western counterparts. M. N. Srinivas
only had Rs 75 a month to carry out fieldwork among the Coorgs in 1940. Hence, it was a
necessity to conduct fieldwork in India since even today anthropologists rarely get enough
funds to carry out fieldwork in Africa, Latin America or west or south-east Asia.
Sarat Chandra Roy used to regularly review the work done in anthropology over the years
through a number of his articles in various journals. This had been taken up by D. N.
Majumdar in 1950, where he took up the terms used by T. K. Penniman in 1935 to classify
the various stages of Indian anthropology. S. C. Dube was sad that anthropology was not used
by the administrators and political leaders in administrating India. He complained of this to
his colleagues from India and abroad in 1952. G. S. Ghurye had also commented on the
influence of anthropology and sociology from the West and lamented in 1956 that they had
not been keeping up with the subject. S.C. Dube again complained of the inadequacy of
Indian research techniques and methods in 1962. In 1963, N. K. Bose gave an account of the
rise of anthropology in India. In 1964, a paper was presented by L. P. Vidyarthi on the issue
and in 1968 by Surajit Sinha.
Based on their reports it seems that Indian anthropology has gone through the following
historically defined phases (Basu Roy; 2003). These phases had earlier been mentioned by
other Indian anthropologists in various works (Sinha; 1980). These phases were then
modified by Basu Roy in 2003. It may be seen from their description that anthropologists
have not been strictly following the labels applied to them by others but were often found to
encroach into other areas and other labels. Vidyarthi (1975) states that development of
anthropology in India has occurred in an unequal manner.
The Formative Phase (1774-1919)
For Majumdar (1950), this phase ended in 1911. According to Vidyarthi (1975), this period
extended to 1920. This period seems to have been characterized by an emphasis on tribes, a
natural history approach and descriptions of the diversity of customs. A variety of
encyclopaedias on tribes and castes were published during this period. A search for primitive
survivals from the viewpoint of classical evolutionism and an attempt to piece together the
cultural history of the people was a hallmark. Apart from ethnographic reports, listings of
customs, and administrative reports, there were also land revenue settlement reports that gave
a more realistic functional idea of Indian rural society, like the works of Dalton, Buchanan
and Lord Baden-Powell.
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The Asiatic Society was established in 1774 (it became the Asiatic Society of Bengal later in
1784) and this seems to be the beginning of anthropology in this part of the world. By 1784
the journal of the society also started coming out regularly. By 1893, a separate section or
Part III was being published of the journal which contained only anthropologically relevant
material. This continued till 1904. Recently these old issues have been digitized for future
generations and copies of articles contained there may be obtained for a price. The Academic
Association began in 1828, the Bethune Society in 1851, the Benaras Institute in 1861 and
the Bengal Social Science Association between 1867 to 1878. All of these were Institutes
where social science research began to be carried out.
By 1872 the Indian Antiquary came out and contained many articles of anthropological
interest. The first journal solely devoted to Anthropology seems to be that of the
Anthropological Society of Bombay, published first on 31 December 1886, published first by
Edward Teyrrel Leith. The first Anthropological Society in India was formed through a
meeting on 7 April 1886 at Apollo Street, Bombay (now Mumbai). T. H. Huxley, E. B. Tylor
and Sir James Frazer became honorary members. It continued in a room in the Bombay
Asiatic Society offices and some grants were occasionally made available to it. Many well-
known Indian anthropologists were part of it.
H. H. Risley first published his account of the tribes and castes of Bengal in 1891. Later, he
was famous as head of census operations in India. This period resulted in The People of
India. He developed a wing in the census operations that was devoted to ethnographic survey
in 1905. According to many, this may be called the beginning of Indian anthropology (Sarana
and Sinha; 1976). After Independence in 1947, a social studies division was added to the
office of the Registrar General of India, who was in charge of the census operations in India.
Many others who were not anthropologists also influenced the discipline. These included
Indians like Dadabhai Naoroji, G. K. Gokhale, R. C. Dutt, M. G. Ranade, Raja Rammohun
Roy, K. C. Sen, Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda. All of them, through
their interpretations of Indian society, have affected the works of many social scientists and
anthropologists.
By 1915 a slew of other journals came out like The Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research
Society and Man in India in 1921. Books and District Gazetteers also came out and started
gaining public interest to such an extent that they have remained in print till today! After
Grierson’s linguistic survey of India, many associations brought out small monographs on the
tribes of their region, their social and cultural mores and customs, as well as their language.
The Mythic Society of Bangalore was also publishing a journal by this time. A Department of
Sociology opened in Bombay with F. Geddes as its head in 1919.
The Constructive Phase (1920-1949)
For Majumdar (1950), this phase began in 1912 and ended in 1937. By 1920, Anthropology
came into the curriculum of Post-graduate studies at Calcutta University with R. Chanda as
Head. This was a marked change from the earlier period. By 1918 it was a subsidiary subject
in Calcutta University but its true identity emerged only with its development into a full-
fledged discipline. K. P. Chattopadhyay was one of the first to be appointed there with R. P.
Chanda (who is famous for his idea of brachycephalization in Western India). They were
joined by L. K. A. Iyer. The first group of students included luminaries like N. K. Bose, D. N.
Majumdar, B. S. Guha, P. C. Biswas, T. C. Das, S. S. Sarkar, Dharani Sen and Andre

Beteille.
In 1947, a Department of Anthropology opened in University of Delhi, then in 1950 in

Lucknow and in 1952 in Guwahati. Other Universities having Departments of Anthropology
included Sagar, Pune, Madras, Ranchi, Dibrugarh, Utkal, Ravi Shankar at Raipur, Karnataka,
North-Eastern Hill at Shillong, Garhwal, and so on. Many would still claim that despite this
growth, the number of Departments were not adequate as many Universities in India still
have no Departments of Anthropology. The anthropologists mentioned above as well as
others like K. P. Chattopadhyay made inroads into detailed systematic studies of Indian
populations. Many Indian anthropologists also began to be educated abroad, especially as
students of W. H. R. Rivers (like G. S. Ghurye and Chattopadhyay in 1923) and B.
Malinowski. Tribal monographs with a functional orientation were published and there was
an interest in kinship studies. Some studies were also conducted on the American diffusionist
school lines and there were studies related to acculturation. Though missionaries were often
from the Austro-German diffusionist school, their impact has been much less. Applied
problems were also being studied, like the condition of industrial labourers, the future of
aborigines, the impact of famine on Bengal society, etc.
By 1939, Verrier Elwin had commented that the tribes should be left alone and they should
be allowed to develop in isolation, away from the mainstream. This would ensure that outside
populations did not influence and exploit these tribal populations. On the other hand, G. S.
Ghurye had not even wished to enumerate the tribals separately in the census operations, thus
enforcing his contrary idea that the tribals should be completely assimilated by the Hindus as
a part of the mainstream. J. H. Hutton had claimed that tribals were to be seen as backward
Hindus, and also that their assimilation into the Hindu fold had been going on for a long time.
Later, aided by Elwin, Nehru set out the panchsheel document, which became the Golden
Mean between these two extreme methods. He claimed that (a) people should be allowed to
develop on the lines of their own genius and nothing should be imposed upon them; (b) tribal
rights in land and forest should be respected; (c) induction of too many outsiders into tribal
areas should be avoided; (d) there should be no over-administration of tribal areas and as far
as possible work should be done through their own social and cultural institutions; and (e) the
results should be judged not by the amount of money spent but by the quality of human
character that is evolved.
The Analytical Period (1950-1990)
For D. N. Majumdar (1950), this phase began in 1938 and carried on to the present. The
earlier anthropologists like Surajit Sinha called this the recent phase. By this time Indian
Anthropologists started regularly interacting with anthropologists abroad and many kinds of
collaborative works were taken up. A shift was seen from the descriptive studies of preliterate
villages to the analytical studies of complex societies. Village studies still remained the norm
and began to be raised to the level of a methodological deity. The Americans who came to
India during this period made their works famous for all time and immortalized also the
names of the villages they worked in. These studies began with the work of Sir Henry
Sumner Maine in 1871 and Sir Baden-Powell in 1892. Morris Opler of Cornell University
(Madhopur and Rampur), Oscar Lewis of the University of Illinois (Rampura) in 1952, David
Mandelbaum of the University of California, W.H. Wiser and Charlotte Wiser of Cornell
University in 1933-36 (Karimpur), Alan and Ralph Beals from University of California
(Namhali and Gopalpur), Harold A. Gould (Sherupur), Kathleen Gough, Stephen Fuchs, Ruth
and Stanley Freed from the National Museum of Natural History at New York (Shanti
Nagar), F. G. Bailey (Bisipara), Robert Redfield, W. A. Rowe of Cornell University
(Senapur), M. S. Luschinsky in 1954-57 (Senapur), M. R. Goodall of Cornell University
(Chittora), Scarlett Epstein (Wangala and Dalena), David Mandelbaum, McKim Marriott
(Kishan Garhi, Wai town near Pune), John T. Hitchcock (Khalapur), John J. Gumperz
(Khalapur), Kolenda (Khalapur), Ralph R. Retztaff (Khalapur), Leigh Minturn (Khalapur), A.
P. Barnabas (Sharanpur), Adrian C. Mayer (Ramkheri), G. M. Carstairs (Deoli), Henry
Orenstein (Gaon), Robbins Burling (Rengsanggri), Milton Singer (Madras), Gerald D.
Berreman (Sirkanda), David G. Mandelbaum, O. T. Beidelman, Martin Orans (Jamshedpur),
etc. Indian anthropologists who were included in this group included S. C. Dube (Shamirpet),
M. N. Srinivas (Rampura), A. Aiyappan, D. N. Majumdar (Mohana), Prof. Inder Pal Singh
(Deleke), K. S. Mathur (Potlod), Yogendra Singh, G. S. Ghurye (Haveli Taluka), etc. A large
number of village study monographs were published in the 1960s through the Census of India
1961. The first of these was a study of Ghaghra by L. P. Vidyarthi.
These studies ensured that new concepts and ideas began to germinate and a large amount of
data was generated on a very large number of villages from all over India. This provided a
very good baseline from which emerged other kinds of studies as well as new theoretical
ideas. The work of L. P. Vidyarthi, B. K. Roy Burman, R. M. Sarkar, Baidyanath Saraswati,
Makhan Jha, A. Danda, M. K. Raha, P. K. Misra, K. S. Singh, T. N. Madan and others is
memorable. P. K. Bhowmick’s study of the Lodhas and the setting up of the society ISRAA
for their development in a village created by him called Bidisa is memorable. Such Action
Anthropology was a direct influence of the famous anthropologist Sol Tax and others.
Further, in places like Panjab University, inter-University collaboration with Universities
abroad resulted in a detailed palaeo-anthropological study of the Siwalik region and the
discovery of many fossils, some of whom, like the Gigantopithecus fossil, became very
famous. It led to the Department becoming specialized in such work and much work was
done in this region on Palaeo-anthropology by those from this University over the years.
In spite of these influences from American cultural anthropologists, the influence of British
anthropology on Indian anthropologists continued to be very important. A professional cadre
of anthropologists was developing with a Ph.D. degree being very important. Influences from
Redfield were coupled with those of Levi-Strauss, Dumont, Leach and Radcliffe-Brown.
Books and articles increased tremendously and many publications of Indian anthropologists
in foreign journals occurred. However, in following the West so assiduously, Indian
anthropologists seem not to have followed a constructive trend in their own approaches to a
logical conclusion. In 1952, Ghurye made a reference in Vienna to the mistrust of social
workers and popular political leaders of anthropologists. According to D. N. Majumdar in
1956, Indian anthropologists had an inadequate knowledge of American anthropology.
By 1953, attempts were being made in India to use anthropological knowledge to intervene,
train, develop, and in other ways to help, the tribals. This was done through the setting up of
the Tribal Research and Training Institutes all over India at the instance of the Commissioner
for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes. Such institutes would conduct researches and
their data would be used for all planning and welfare programmes. This has not really been
done in thorough detail even now. This seems to have been due to the apathy of many
government employees, their lack of autonomy and initiative, and the fear of annoying those
in power that their present schemes may be wrong. Even while evaluating welfare schemes,
such institutes have remained non-controversial in their approach. However, even after many
forays in the field of applied anthropology, few anthropologists were being consulted by the
government for most plans and programmes. Perhaps, it is in this context that S. C. Dube
commented on a cautionary note that, “There are obvious dangers in overselling applied
social science and anthropology and in making high sounding but impossible claims as a
science of human engineering” (Dube; 1958: 152 in Sachchidananda; 1972: 27).
In studying culture change, Indian anthropologists have been involved in studies relating to
the determination of whether the caste system is disintegrating or whether it has been
strengthened since Independence. Studies have also been conducted on adult franchise,
urbanization, industrialization and their effects on the caste system. With this there has been
an emphasis on the nature of Indian unity and the characteristics of various categories of sub-
nationalism. Finally, the role of the Indian social and religious traditions in economic
development were studied, with special emphasis on the theories of Max Weber.
In other words, the utilitarianism of Indian anthropology was a feature within colonial
anthropology, and this attribute continued to play an important part in anthropology all
through, even after India’s Independence in 1947. A major part of this work was that of the
Anthropological Survey of India with its headquarters in Kolkata and having hundreds of
anthropologists employed in seven regional stations. Anthropologists are also employed by
the Harijan and social welfare departments. They are employed in the National Institute of
Community Development, National Institute of Family Planning, International Centre for
Population Studies, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, National Institute of Health and
Family Welfare as well as the departments of preventive and social medicines in various
hospitals, forensic science departments attached to the Home Ministry in the centre and
various states as well as at anatomy departments in some hospitals. They are Public Relation
Officers attached to governments, in relation to health and NGOs as well as consultants and
counsellors. They are present at the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) at
the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad.
They are, of course, present at the Office of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes, social welfare departments of the Government of India and state
governments, the Office of the Registrar General of India, the Gazetteer Division of the state
information departments, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and the Ministry of
Tribal Affairs. There are anthropologists associated with the country’s major museums also.
The Indian Museum at Kolkata and the National Museum, New Delhi both have
anthropology departments. The Government Museum at Chennai, The Prince of Wales
Museum at Mumbai, Gujarat Vidyapith museum in Ahmedabad all have anthropologists and
the Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya museum near Haridwar also has a section on
anthropology. A trend of picking up locally trained anthropologists in various Departments of
Anthropology led to a regionalism and parochialism in their setup. The better-financed, semi-
autonomous, inter-disciplinary institutes where anthropology was also being carried out,
became outward-looking and American-focussed, as in the National Institute of Community
Development, the Indian Institutes of Management and the UNESCO Research Center for the
Developing Nations in South and Southeast Asia. Meetings between anthropologists were
restricted to seminars/conferences or as external examiners, often due to a paucity of funds.
Further, anthropology has been a part (though now sadly a smaller part) at the Indian Science
Congress Association, the Indian National Science Academy (earlier National Institute of
Sciences in India), the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (and NISCAIR), Indian
Council of Medical Research, Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Planning
Commission. Anthropologists were also employed by the Indian Institutes of Technology, the
Indian Institute of Management at Kolkata, as well as the Administrative Staff College at
Hyderabad, Udaipur and other areas. In spite of a lack of facilities and the slow growth rate,
India is second only to the United States of America in the number of professionally trained
anthropologists working in different institutions (Sarana and Sinha; 1976).
By 1979, 8420 social science periodicals were in print in India. By 1980, the number of
Ph.D.s awarded by Indian universities in social science exceeded 10,000. The study of social
science seems to have been restricted to universities between 1947 to 1969. After this period,
it has come out of these centres to other institutes and organizations. One major event was the
setting up of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in 1969, which started
funding a lot of social anthropological work (Sharma; 1992).
Apart from such general cultural studies a growing body of studies incorporated Indian
culture as a whole in their studies. N. K. Bose tried to see India as two basic zones of material
culture which cut across linguistic divisions. He sees a pyramidal form of Indian unity in
diversity. He sees a non-competitive economic ideology in the caste system and a Hindu
mode of tribal absorption. There was also an interrelationship between the village and other
supra-local centres. For M. N. Srinivas, there was the fact of sanskritisation combined with
the role of the dominant caste in local and regional integration. For Iravati Karve, there was
an agglomerative character to Indian society. For Surajit Sinha, Indian society was an
‘evolutionary emergent’ from a tribal base while for L. P. Vidyarthi, among caste groups
there was the concept of a sacred complex while for tribal groups there was a Nature-Man-
Spirit complex. Most Indian anthropologists happened to be apolitical except for some
Marxists and Gandhians.
Those who developed a distinct research methodology to conduct their studies included Das
(using genealogies to study Parum society), N. K. Bose (spatial distribution technique used to
date Indian temples, use of human geography in study of culture-historical issues as well as
the use of family histories in studying social change in urban centres), Chattopadhyay and
Mukherjee (use of statistics in studying social change), Iravati Karve (text analyses
incorporated with kinship studies) and L. P. Vidyarthi (using the concepts of sacred centre,
cluster and segment to study sacred complexes). Perhaps, a caste structure and community
content of the Indian anthropologists may have influenced their comments on Indian
civilization. According to Sinha (1980: 281), “it is unlikely that Indian anthropology will find
a strong domestic orientation in the near future. For some time, the proliferation of trained
manpower, random efforts at catching up with the latest developments in the West and a
general increase in the number of publications will characterize the development of Indian
anthropology.”
The Evaluative Phase (1990-present)
The complexity of Indian society was frequently described by Western anthropologists in

terms inimical to many Indian anthropologists. Hence, Indian anthropologists began to feel
that a better interpretation of such complex interrelationships could be given by Indian
anthropologists. As a result, many anthropologists have proposed their own theories.
The study of recent improvements and changes in anthropology in India deserves to be done
in much more detail. However, it has become clear that not only are the earlier trends being
maintained but many areas of anthropology are emerging anew and other sub-fields within
are becoming active. An increasing interest in Medical Anthropology, Religion, Development

studies, Psychological studies, as well as other areas is becoming more evident.
It seems apparent to many that Indian anthropology has many new directions to travel in.
Where it will eventually go is something that may only be wondered at. Some of the ideas
may come from our guides in anthropology from the past. M. N. Srinivas seems to believe
that due to its particular history, Indian anthropologists have gained much more expertise in
studying their own histories and cultures. He advocates that this background should enable
studies of others to understand the self (self-in-the-other) may now give way to studies of the
self itself as a valid mode of anthropological inquiry. Each life (one’s own) thus becomes a
case study, which the anthropologist self is uniquely placed to study (Srinivas; 1996).
The description of the anthropologists given below does not form a complete record. It is
only representative. However, present-day anthropology stands on the shoulders of these
stalwarts who created a field of study where none had existed before.
JAMES H. HUTTON
Hutton was well-known as an anthropologist who was also an administrator. When he was a
political agent to the Naga hills among the tribes there he made thorough studies of the
Angami and Sema Nagas. They were both published as books and became a standard
reference work for the region over the years. As an ethnologist, he studied the entirety of the
cultural life of the tribal communities, including their language and physical characteristics.
The book on the Angamis, published in 1921, described their mythological origin, law,
customs, domestic life, religion, language and folklore, ending with an appendix on their
physical characteristics.
At that time, in England and in other parts of the continent, the trend among ethnologists was
to find the evolutionary origins of various socio-cultural institutions. This mode was also
followed by Hutton. He concludes from his study that the Nagas must have originated and
migrated from somewhere close to China. He discusses the institution of head-hunting and
the Negrito element among the Angamis. This evolutionary and diffusionist work was also
extended to the study of the caste system, on which Hutton wrote another book.
Hutton was also very much in sympathy with the problems of the tribes. In fact, he was of the
opinion that autonomy could be granted to these tribes for conducting their own affairs. This
stood him in good stead with the local administration and he was appointed Political Agent to
the Naga hills before he became the Census Commissioner. He was also appointed as the
Chairman of Anthropology at Cambridge. He was first to be appointed the President of the
Indian Science Congress in 1921.
ARTHUR LLEWELLYN BASHAM
A. L. Basham was born in 1914 in England. He conducted his Ph.D. under L.D. Barnett on
History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas, which later came out as a book.
Professor A. L. Basham was a historian of great repute with the Australian National
University in Canberra. He joined the University in 1965 as a Professor of Oriental
Civilizations. This later became a Professor of Asian Civilizations. He retired from the
University in 1979. An annual public lecture series is given in his honour at this University.
He is most well known for his book The Wonder That Was India. However, he also wrote the
famous treatise The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism jointly with Kenneth G.
Zysk. One of his best known students is Romila Thapar who conducted a Ph.D. under him on
‘Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas.’ Overall, he had supervised over a hundred students
for their Ph.D. His student, Kenneth G. Zysk was Assistant Professor of Near Eastern
Languages and Literature at New York University. He became an authority on ancient Indian
history, politics, archaeology, religion and culture. His academic output was large, with over
hundreds of articles and many more reviews and forewords to books, and he was associated
with many international societies and councils of historical research.
He used to frequently visit Kolkata. He had once given a talk and a slide show on gypsies at
the Victoria Memorial building, with the help of Dr. N. R. Ray the director of the museum.
He was a tall, lean person with sharp deep-set eyes and a soft voice. Most people believed
that the gypsies in Europe had wandered in from Egypt. In 1845, a Hungarian Calvinist who
knew Hindi was surprised to hear the language spoken in French docks by gypsies. Hence, he
claimed that were of Indian origin, formed by descendants of Rajput soldiers who had slowly
spread over Europe and America. According to A.L. Basham, they were the progeny of Doms
or wandering minstrels. The King of Persia seems to have ordered ten thousand of them.
Perhaps this is how they came to Europe. This is proved by Firdausi’s Shahnama (a classic
work written in Persian), which claims this incident. However, this group did not settle down
through land grants given by the King of Persia and dispersed slowly to other areas. Dom
means man in European gypsy language. This later came to mean Roman or Romanis. They
were often seen as untouchables, thieves and kidnappers. They felt being childless would take
them to hell, thus making them kidnap children. According to Basham, this belief was
typically Indian as were the gypsy words for some of the numbers. Their language was close
to Vedic Sanskrit than Hindustani. Even though the language changed from country to
country, Syrian gypsy language is still closer to Sanskrit. The gypsies seem to have left India
by the sixth century AD. Pictures of their wagons showed them to resemble Indian tongas.
They sang and danced in front of the fire like Indian tribals. They suffered by being flogged
and hanged for petty offences. They told omens and made predictions. Some also practiced
Siddha medicine. They practiced festivals like the jatras. Following this Basham also gave a
talk on All India Radio on gypsies.
He joined the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1948 as Lecturer in History of India.
By 1957 he was on a Chair of History of India. By 1964, he was the Director of the Royal
Asiatic Society, London.
Basham came to the Australian National University (A.N.U.) in 1965, when Asian studies
were just beginning to expand. He joined as Foundation Professor of Oriental Civilization
and the Head of the new Department of that name. In 1965, he as awarded an honorary
D.Litt. from the University of Kurukshetra, India. In 1966, he received a D.Litt. from the
University of London. Between 1968 to 1970 he was Dean of Faculty. He was a Foundation
Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a member of its Council and its Vice-
President from 1970-72. In 1971, the 28th International Congress of Orientalists was held at
A.N.U. He left his Chair at the A.N.U. in 1974. In 1975 he received the Bimal Churn Law
Gold Medal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta. In 1977 he was elected Vice-President
of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. Also in 1977, he received an honorary D.Litt.
from the Nava Nalanda Mahavira. In 1979 he was President of the First International
Conference of Traditional Asian Medicine held in Canberra, leading to the formation of the
10
International Society of Traditional Asian Medicine. In December 1985, Rajiv Gandhi

conferred upon him the Desikottama Award of the Vishvabharati University.
A. L. Basham died in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on 27th January 1986.
CHRISTOPH VON-FUHRER HAIMENDORF
Christoph von-Fuhrer Haimendorf was responsible for many tribal studies. Initially, he began
his work in the Naga hills. He accompanied J. P. Mills on his tours in the region. At the time
Mills was a Political Agent. He wrote a travelogue in 1938 entitled The Naked Nagas as a
result of his tour. In this work, a very subjective account was written about the Konyak
Nagas, about which the world knew very little at the time.
Later, he went on to study the Chenchus of Andhra Pradesh, a hunting-gathering community.

He also went on to make a detailed study of the Gonds of Adilabad. He described the social
life of both these tribal communities and paid special attention to their problems. He
suggested separate development programmes for them.
He then went on to study the Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh. He made an extensive study
and was favourably impressed by their stage of development. The Apatanis were well-
educated and were able to compete for posts in the bureaucracy.
Using this comparative background study of the tribes of India, he proposed a developmental
future for these communities based on their isolation from other communities. This has been
called isolationism. In 1984, in a D. N. Majumdar lecture, he argued that the Gonds were
being deprived of their lands and were becoming poorer due to their contact with outsiders.
The Apatanis were isolated because of their houses being in difficult terrain. This has resulted
in their faster development. Development in this area reached the grass root level and was not
taken over by outsiders. The Indian governmental policy of not allowing people into this
region has also contributed to this state. In fact, by 1985, his book on the Tribes of India
clearly states the Indian government policy of state terrorism against the tribals protesting for
their own land to be left to them instead of being repeatedly usurped by outsiders and taken
over. This was based on a postscript in the book on the planned shooting down of unarmed
Gond tribals on 20 April 1981 at Indravelli, Adilabad. A quote from the magazine Olympus
that he quotes is very clear in its denouncement:
“Tribals are fighting a grim battle for survival. The depredation of forest contractors has
upset their economic life. And now their lands are sought to be snatched away by the new
‘voortrekkers.’ The plainsmen with the power of the modern state behind them are moving
in.” (Furer-Haimendorf; 1985: 326)
He has also written on the morals and merits in South Asian societies. Haimendorf has also
worked on communities in Nepal. He retired as a Professor from the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), London. In 1976, he retired from the Chair of Asian Anthropology
at the University of London. He is well-known for his many meticulously detailed
ethnographies but is not so well-remembered for the few theoretical approaches that he used.
11
VERRIER ELWIN
Verrier Elwin came to India as a Christian preacher, but took up anthropology as a primary
interest. He was an ethnographer and in 1932 began to work among the Baiga tribe of
Madhya Pradesh. This was later published as The Baiga in 1939. This was introduced by
Hutton. It was cited often but it contained the first citation of his statement on isolationism
for tribals. He had noted that the Baigas were being destroyed by the landlords and the
missionaries. To protect them from exploitation he suggested that the State should prevent or
control their interaction with outsiders.
Verrier Elwin has always been associated with the issue of the integration of tribal societies
with the greater Indian society. Such an integrationist stance was initially opposed by him,
when he proposed that tribals should be left alone instead of being constantly interfered with
and acculturated. This gave him the reputation of being a person who advocated separate
‘reserved national parks’ for tribals. Such national parks he also called ‘Tribal Reserve Area.’
Such a stance was also being used at the time by the United States government.
After this, Elwin went on to study the Murias of the Bastar region. He devoted one book to
the study of the youth dormitories among the Murias there. It was seen from his work that
such youth dormitories were an indispensable part of many other tribal societies as well. It
was responsible for training the youth in various social activities and for initiating them into
sexual activities. This led others to work on the activities of the youth dormitories in other
tribal societies.
He went on to publish many more works on tribal and other cultures. He published one on the
religion of the tribes, their folklore, myths of origin, etc. In a study of the Borneo highlanders
he again supported isolationism. This was criticized by several nationalist leaders and pro-
assimilation anthropologists. Finally, when Elwin wrote A Philosophy For NEFA he
propagated a more assimilationistic stance in collaboration with the Prime Minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru. In his integrationist model of the tribe, he propagated the idea, following
Nehru’s panchsheel that the tribes should be allowed to develop according to their own
dictates.
Elwin went on to become a member of several committees on tribal affairs and also an editor
of Man in India. His house in Shillong now houses his wife and son, and a host of
memorabilia that exhibit his travels among the tribals of India. Many of the photographs that
he took now adorn the walls of the Museum and Department of Anthropology, NEHU,
Shillong.
RAI BAHADUR SARAT CHANDRA ROY
Yet, within this history and culture of anthropology in India is a history of interaction
between anthropologists and tribals and its effects in the last one hundred years. S. C. Roy
started his work among the tribals of Chotanagpur in the early years of this century.
S. C. Roy never talked of Anthropology without it being contextualized within India.
“From our Indian view-point the ulterior object of the science of Man is, or should be, to
understand the meaning and goal of human existence, – the trend, direction and aim of human
culture and civilization, the eternal spiritual reality behind life and society, the Sat behind the
12
Asat, and to ascertain, as far as possible, the laws that govern the thought and behaviour of
man in Society.” (Roy; 1937: 243)
Anthropology is frequently accused of being the study of ‘Primitive Society.’ Yet, this is
because “primitive society exhibits the ground-plan on which the more complex structure that
we call civilization has been built up” (Roy; 1937: 249). Such studies should be followed by
studies of complex and advanced societies. Different cultures at various levels of complexity
should be analyzed, compared and comprehended (Roy; 1937: 249).
On the issue of charismatic figures, he says:
“It is on these horses of thought, action and feeling, who with their kindling ideas and
throbbing words, and inspiring message and example, act as levers to lift society to higher
levels by introducing new ideals and viewpoints, it is on them that the measure and standard
of a people’s culture depend.” (Roy; 1937: 252)
According to Roy (1937) anthropology is for use, for nation-building in a positive sense, for
fellow-feeling among human beings and for writing the eternal history of humankind.
S. C. Roy was no objective anthropologist. He began with the idea of helping the oppressed
tribals of the region. In order to reframe the way outsiders manipulated them, he had to
prepare an outline of their customary laws. In order to do so, he had to study their oral and
mythical history, their social and cultural life, at first hand. The only discipline that suited
him was that of the anthropologist. He wished anthropology to be there as a subject in all
Universities and also as a requirement of officers in administration and bureaucracy.
It soon became apparent that early accounts of Indian tribes were mostly written by British
authors. Out of 100 articles on anthropology published between 1784 to 1883, in the Journal
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, only 3 articles were by Indians. In Calcutta Review, there
were 53 articles on anthropology published between 1843-1883, only three by Indians (Roy;
1992: 13). There were no monographs on tribes by Indian authors.
Sarat Chandra Roy took care to learn the dialects of the various tribes of the region. He had
no formal training, yet he managed to create a good rapport by his ability and knowledge. At
the time there were very few roads. Photos exist in his house showing his travels on elephant-
back through jungles. A large map also exists showing all the villages of the area. S. C. Roy
marked all the villages he had visited with a red circle. The entire map was a mass of red.
Few villages survived being marked. During his later years he frequently talked of his work
to Nirmal Kumar Bose and to his youngest daughter, Mira Roy, who died in February 2006.
According to him, all his works needed to be revised to include individual differences that
occur in each of the different villages. As a first step, he made notebooks for each thana and
tehsil where he numbered and noted down one village on each page. On these pages, he noted
whatever information he knew regarding the villages. This was a remarkable attitude of
collecting local data, which is only now becoming popular.
Yet, Roy’s work must also be seen in the context of the everyday life of the Oraon which did
not have (and still does not have) a structuralized behaviour pattern for behaving with
outsiders. S.C. Roy was also one of the ‘diku’ yet clearly was never called such names.
Further, the researcher in his attempt to gain intimacy becomes a ‘friend’, a term which an
13
Oraon well understands. This deep effect of the anthropologist on tribal society was well
observed by D.N. Majumdar:
“How far this was true was seen by us in 1921, when some of us, then students of
anthropology at Calcutta visited the Munda country with Dewan Bahadur L.K. Anantakrishna
Iyer, Reader in Anthropology, Calcutta University. We visited hamlet after hamlet, we went
into the interior villages of the Munda country, we enquired about the intimate social life of
the people and everywhere we visited we felt the invisible presence of Roy. Every village we
passed through, we were greeted with shouts of Sarat Babu Ki Jay. It is no wonder that Roy
represented the tribal people of his district in Bihar Legislature for successive terms.” (in
Roy; 1980: 210)
It is the social-ness of the work of S. C. Roy that is his main advantage. His house had a set
of rooms prepared for his tribal clients so that those who came from far-off villages could
stay on while his case was being fought in court. Ultimately, S. C. Roy was thinking not just
in the tribal language but in terms of their own worldview. An incident that shows this side of
him relates to the construction of a bridge over a river at Lohardaga:
“The river side had Hindu and Oraon settlements. Since the bridge was washed out twice
earlier, the contractor wanted to placate the Gods of both the villages. He repaired an old
dilapidated temple of Hindus and presented a flag with a railway engine painted on it to the
Oraon which was a symbol of power to that parha of Oraons in the Jatra festival. But
envious of this, one of the neighbouring parha made a same kind of flag having the emblem
and led [to] trouble at the annual Jatra festival at Bhasko. Two persons were killed. Fearing
similar trouble next year, Roy was consulted by the sub-divisional Magistrate and he then
presented a flag emblemed with an aeroplane and explained the superiority of it to the senior
members of the parha of the latter village next year. A happy solution came out and no
trouble occurred at the jatra that year.” (Roy; 1980: 215-216)
In the last years of his life he was very ill. He found no strength to get up from his bed. He
slept straight with his feet pointing through the doorway to the length of his study. He would
request his servants to turn his book-shelves towards him so that he could look at his beloved
books all day. Once, in a moment of sadness he told his daughter that if he were to die, to be
re-born in another place, he only wished he retained the memories of all the books he had
read intact.
His vision and his genius were his alone. None after him was ever able to put together a
plausible worldview of the various tribals of the region into a whole. When he died on 30th
April, 1942 on the holy day of Buddha Purnima, he left a yawning emptiness. His students
often berated his constant delays and re-corrections of his own articles since it kept him from
writing more. He wrote much but he took away much more. Notes on improvements of his
various books abound, ignored and forgotten in that sprawling empty house of his where only
his youngest daughter stayed till her death in 2006. A museum, a library, a table and a chair
exactly as he left it and whole generations of anthropologists and tribals who come to buy his
books and copies of the journal that he started now frequent the house where anthropology
began in this part of the world.
14
A CHRONOLOGY OF RAI BAHADUR SARAT CHANDRA ROY’S LIFE
4th Nov., 1871 Born at Nonnagar, Manikpur in Khulna district to Purna Chandra Roy (father) and
Smt. Rajlakshmi Devi (mother). Conflicting accounts give the name of the village as
Gholgholé or Kadapada.
1885 Age 14 years. Purna Chandra Roy, a member of Bengal Government Judicial
Service, died leaving behind 5 sons and 3 daughters.
1888 Age 17 years. Passed Matriculation from City Collegiate School in Calcutta.
1892 B.A. (Honours) English from General Assembly Institute (now Scottish Church
College), Calcutta.
1893 M.A. in English from General Assembly Institute (now Scottish Church College),
Calcutta.
1895 Obtained a B.L. degree from Rippon College (now Surendranath College), Calcutta.
1896 Headmaster at Mymensingh High School at Dholla. Principal of G.E.L. Mission

High School at Ranchi for a short time (8 months).
1897 Started his legal career at the district court of 24 Parganas in Alipur Bar.
1898 Being ill, he was advised to go to Ranchi. He decided to settle down there. Started as
a lawyer in the recently opened courts of the Chotanagpur Judicial Commissioner.
Here he learnt of tribals and their problems.
1903 By this time he built a large house in Ranchi and educated himself in Anthropology.
1908 His first article on the Mundas appears in Indian World.
1911 Certificate of Honour by Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, in the name of George V,

Emperor of India, on the occasion of His Majesty’s Coronation Durbar, for
recognition of his ethnographic work.
1912 First monograph by an Indian National on a major tribe, The Mundas and their
Country. He discussed their history and their land systems in great detail. Funding
was made available to him by the Government of Bihar under Sir Edward Gait, the
then Governor of Bihar.
1913 ‘Kaiser-i-Hind’ medal awarded to him by the Government for his services.
15
1915 The Oraons of Chotanagpur was published. He became Secretary of the Bihar and
Orissa Research Society.
1916 Beginning from this year, he began a series of publications in the Journal of the
Bihar and Orissa Research Society on his excavations in Chotanagpur of a number of
Asur sites.
1918 Was curator of State Museum at Bankipore, Patna.
1919 Bestowed the title of ‘Rai Bahadur’ with two certificates of Honour and two other
medals.
1920 Principles and Methods of Physical Anthropology was published based on

Readership lectures given in Patna University between January and March 1920. He
also became an elected Honorary Member of the Folklore Society of London.
1921 The journal Man in India was started by him in Ranchi in order to found an Indian
School of Anthropology that would be the authority in finding out a current
interpretation of the evolution of Indian Man in respect of racial affinities, mentality
and culture. He became the President of the Anthropology and Ethnography Section
of the Indian Science Congress Association. Became a member of the Bihar
Legislative Assembly and continued upto 1937.
1925 The Birhors was published.
1928 Oraon Religion and Customs was published. This book showed the effect of
acculturation and rapid culture contact among the Oraons, as seen in the Bhagat
movement. He also became a member of the Provincial Committee that sat with the
Simon Commission in this year. He was also a member of the Indian Franchise
Committee headed by Lord Lothian.
1932-33 Elected President of the Anthropology and Folklore section of the All India Oriental
Conference.
Feb., 1933 Elected Fellow of the Bose Research Institute. Gave up his practice.
1934-35 Caste, Race and Religion in India was published.
1935 Became the foundation Fellow of the National Institute of Sciences in India. The Hill
Bhuiyas of Orissa was published.
16
1936 Elected Member of the Permanent Council of Congress International des

Anthropologiques et Ethnologiques. Prof. J.H. Hutton in a Presidential Address to the
Anthropological Society of India called him the ‘Father of Indian Ethnology.’ The
title stuck. Was a member of the Provincial Committee that sat with the Simon
Commission. Also became a member of the Lothian Committee (Indian Franchise
Commission).
1937 The Kharias was published in two volumes with the help of his son Ramesh Chandra
Roy. The anthropometric data was analyzed by P. C. Mahalonobis, the
internationally renowned statistician. This book was a classical ethnography with
both socio-cultural and physical anthropological data.
1941. Homage paid to him by the Indian Science Congress.
30th April, 1942 Buddha Purnima. S. C. Roy dies after prolonged ill-health.
25th February, 2006 Ms. Mira Roy, the youngest daughter of Sarat Chandra Roy, who was managing the
house, the museum, the library and the journal of S.C. Roy (Man in India) dies.
BIRAJA SHANKAR GUHA
B. S. Guha was born in 1894 and began by being a student of philosophy, obtaining his
Masters degree from Calcutta University. He then became a student of Anthropology. He was
also interested in natural history, antiquarianism and primitive tribes. He had been interested
by the work of Prof. Dixon, and having obtained the Hemenway Fellowship, went to Harvard
University, and did his Masters and Ph.D. in Anthropology on ‘The Racial Basis of the Caste
System’ from there in 1924. He studied all the branches of Anthropology, and worked under
the famous Anthropologist Ernest A. Hooton, R. B. Dixon and A. M. Tozzer. He also worked
as Graduate Assistant at Harvard University in the Peabody Museum. By the time he came
back to India after four years, Anthropology had begun in India at Calcutta University. He
joined the Department, but later went on to join a post as an Anthropologist in the Zoological
Survey of India from 1927. This became the central point of growth for the subject here, and
in 1931 was responsible for the Census Operations work. In 1936 he found the Indian
Anthropological Institute in Calcutta using amateur ethnographers.
He became a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal and then became its Honorary
Secretary. In 1938, he helped to put together the National Institute of Sciences in India, being
its Founder Fellow and Treasurer between 1938-42. In 1938, he was the President of the
section on Anthropology and Archaeology at the Indian Science Congress. He was also
elected Vice-President of Physical Anthropology and Racial Biology in the International
Congress at Copenhagen. In 1943 he was awarded the Annandale Medal by the Royal Asiatic
Society of Bengal for his distinguished contribution to the anthropology of Asia. His efforts
ensured the creation of an Anthropological Survey of India from its parent Zoological Survey
of India in 1946, whose first director was B. S. Guha. He went on to create several training
and extension programmes for social workers and social scientists. In 1955-56 he was invited
to organize a training centre for Social Education Organisers (Extension Officers for India’s
17
Community Development Programme) working in tribal areas. He also contributed to the

founding of the Indian Museum, Calcutta and the Bihar Tribal Research Institute, Ranchi
(which became a centre for tribal researches from 1956-59). The Ranchi Institute was
reorganized into six sections – Cultural Anthropology, Physical Anthropology and Human
Biology, Linguistics, History, Social Psychology, Biometrics and Statistics. Each had a head
and several research assistants. A good library and a rich museum came up under him. There
was a division on Primitive Art and Photography.
He had visited several tribes in Assam and Bengal before he went to Harvard. In the United
States he worked among the Utes and the Navajos of Colorado and New Mexico in 1921 as a
Special Research Officer of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. He was in the
expedition to the Naga Hills for abolishing human sacrifices near the Burmese border
between 1926-27. He went to Chittral in north-west Baluchistan (now in Pakistan) to solve
the problem of the linguistic affinity of the tribes of Central India and the Brahuis of the
North-West Frontier. He had also worked for some years on the Khasas. He believed strongly
in fieldwork and would advocate it strongly. He disliked theoretical work done with
insufficient field data. He created a field station of the Anthropological Survey in the
Andaman Islands in 1952.
His researches in the Anthropological Survey of India seemed to be based on the osteological
studies of historic and prehistoric human remains from materials excavated by the
Archaeological Survey of India and a continuation of the study of anthropometry of the
Indian population that was started at the request of the 1931 Census operations.
He wrote the Report on the Human Remains Excavated at Nal in 1929, at Mohenjodaro in
1931 and 1937, Racial Affinities of the Peoples of India in the Census of India for 1931, Vol.
I, Part III in 1935 and Racial Elements in the Population in 1944.
He contributed to the creation of a racial map of India. In order to do this he collected

anthropometric measurements of 2511 subjects from various parts of India (in its undivided
form) representing 34 population groups. He then discovered in 1937 the racial elements
which seem to have entered the population of India.
First to come were the Negritos, who seem to have been autochthones or indigenous to the
initial Indian population. Their heads are small, round, medium or long, the nose is straight,
flat and broad, with short or pygmy stature, dark brown to dark skin colour, woolly hair,
bulbuous forehead, and smooth supraorbital ridges. They are closer to Melanesian pygmies
than the Andamanese ones and are represented by the Kadars, Pulayans of Cochin and
Travancore, Irular and other tribes of the Wynad.
Next to be added to the population were the Proto-Australoid, who had a dolichocephalic
head, markedly platyrrhine nose depressed at the root, short stature, dark brown coloured
skin, wavy or curly hair, delicate limbs, less developed and slightly retreating forehead, and
prominent supraorbital ridges. They seem to be similar to the Australian tribes and differ
from the Negritos in having wavy hair. This racial element is seen most frequently among the
Pulayan women of Travancore, the Urali of Travancore, the Baiga of Rewa, etc. Tribes like
the Male, Chenchu, Kannikar, Kondh, Bhil, Santal, Oraon, etc. belong to this group.
The Mongoloids have scanty body and facial hair, eyes that are obliquely set with epicanthic
folds, flat face with prominent cheek bones and straight hair. They seem to have entered India
18
through the north-eastern region in successive waves of migration. They are of two types –
the Palae-Mongoloid and the Tibeto-Mongoloid. The Palae-Mongoloids are of two types –
the long-headed and the broad-headed type. The long-headed type posses a long head,
medium nose, medium stature, prominent cheek bones, dark to light brown skin colour, short
and flat face, and faintly developed supra-orbital regions. They are found in the sub-
Himalayan region in the tribes of the Assam like the Sema Nagas and the Limbus of Nepal
and Burma frontier. The broad-headed type has a broad head, round face, dark skin colour,
medium nose, obliquely set eyes with a marked epicanthic fold. They are found among the
Lepchas of Kalimpong, the hill tribes of Chittagong like the Chakmas, the Maghs, etc. The
Tibeto-Mongoloids have a broad and massive head, long and flat face, tall stature, long or
medium nose, oblique eyes with epicanthic folds, body and facial hair are absent and light
brown skin colour. This type is found among the Tibetans of Bhutan and Sikkim.
The Mediterranean consists of three distinct sub-types. The Palae-Mediteranean are very
ancient and resemble the Proto-Egyptian. They have a long and narrow head, bulbous
forehead, projecting occiput, high vault, small and broad nose, narrow face, pointed chin,
slightly built body, dark skin colour, scanty face and body hair and medium stature. The
skeletal remains of Adittanallur, the Dravidians like the Tamil Brahmins of Madura, Nairs of
Cochin, and Telugu Brahmins show this kind of feature. The Mediterranean sub-type shows
long head, arched forehead, long face, narrow and prominent nose, tall to medium stature,
light skin colour, well-developed chin, dark hair, dark brownish to dark, facial and body hair
in plenty, and slender-built body. This type is found in Uttar Pradesh, Bombay, Bengal,
Malabar and are represented by the Nambudri Brahmins of Cochin, the Brahmins of
Allahabad, Maratha ladies of Indore and the Bengali Brahmins. The third sub-type is the
Oriental of Fischer and they look like the Mediterranean sub-type but their nose is long and
convex. They are found in the Punjab, Sind, Rajputana, with the Punjabi Kshatriyas and the
Pathans.
The Western Brachycephals are the fifth type described by B. S. Guha. They are also divided
into three sub-types. The Alpenoid has a broad head, rounded occiput, prominent nose,
medium stature, round face, light skin colour, abundant body and facial hair, and thickly set
body. This is found among the Bania of Gujarat, the Kathi of Kathiawar, the Kayasthas of
Bengal, etc. The Dinaric sub type has a broad head, rounded occiput, high vault, long and
convex nose, tall stature, long face, receding forehead, darker skin colour, dark hair and eyes.
They are found among the people of Bengal (like the Brahmins), Orissa, Coorg (Kanarese
Brahmins of Mysore), etc. The Alpino-Dinaric type seems to have entered through
Baluchistan, Sind, Gujarat, Maharashtra to Kannada and Ceylon, Tinnevelly and Hyderabad.
The Armenoid sub-type is close to the Dinarics, though the marked occiput, prominent,
narrow and acquiline nose set it apart. The Parsis of Bombay represent this group.
The Nordics have a long head, protruding occiput, arched forehead, tall stature, long face,
strong jaw, fine, narrow and straight nose, fair complexion, bluish tinged eyes and powerfully
built body. They are found scattered in different parts of Northern India in Punjab and
Rajputana, especially among the Kho of Chitral, the Red Kaffirs, and the Khatash. They seem
to have come from the north, from South-east Russia, South-west Siberia, to Central Asia and
India.
It seems that while taking note of the Negritos in India as the autochthones, he put undue
emphasis on the hair form and type as the marker which seems to have been unwarranted. He
was also wrong in attributing such characteristics to the deformed Jewurgi skull described by
19
Taylor. Also, the entire population should show such traits to some extent to account for such
conclusions, which they unfortunately do not. There is also more evidence that shows the
Australoids to be original to India.
He published only fifteen papers and books in all but he ensured that Anthropology survived
and grew in India as a holistic discipline integrating all the various sub-disciplines and
linking them to the various other scientific and social science fields. At the time of his death
he had been working for the Ministry of Education, Government of India, reconstructing
prehistoric skulls from North Western India. He died in 1961.
DEWAN BAHADUR L. K. ANANTHAKRISHNA AIYAR
L. K. A. Iyer was born in 1861. He was in an orthodox family in Lakshmi Narayana Puram
village of Palghat district of what is now Kerala. Krishna Iyer, his father, a Sanskrit scholar,
died early. He passed his matriculation in 1878 from Palghat High School. Then he went to
Kerala Vidyasala, later called Zamoria’s College at Calicut. He passed his B.A. from Madras
Christian College in 1883.
He wanted to be a teacher but became a clerk at the Revenue Settlement Office at

Ootacamand. He then joined Victoria College, Palghat as a teacher in 1890 and continued
there till 1897. He obtained a Diploma in Licentiate of Teaching. He became a head master at
Changanachery in the State of Travancore in a local missionary school. Then, depressed over
his wife’s death, he became a Science Assistant in Maharaja’s College, Ernakulum. In 1908,
he became a Deputy Inspector in the Inspectorate of Schools. He also had to work as
Superintendent of Ethnography in Cochin State. He came to anthropology in 1900. He came
into ethnography in 1902 and remained in its forefront. He was also regarded as the founder
of field studies in Indian anthropology.
In 1903, The Ethnographic Survey of Mysore was started under Dewan Bahadur
Nanjundeyya as Superintendent of Ethnography. The Superintendent died in the middle of
this work and thus Iyer was handed this work on 7 August 1924.
Between 1904 to 1906 twelve monographs were published from the Government Press,
Ernakulum on a tribe or caste. These and others were then revised by him (after being
requested by the then Diwan) from July 1907 to appear in a single volume with illustrations.
In 1914, Sir Asutosh Mukherjee chaired as the President of the first Indian Science Congress
which took place in the premises of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. He was interested to
include Anthropology as a part of the Indian Science Congress. In that session,
Ananthakrishna Iyer was chosen as the President of the section on Ethnology, which later
became the section on Anthropology and Archaeology. By this time he was well known for
being a very acute researcher in India. In that first session he had presented two papers. One
was ‘Study of Marriage Customs of the Cochin State’ and the other was on the ‘Nambuthari
Brahmins of Malabar.’ At that Science Congress, as L.K.A. Iyer was leaving for Ernakulum,
he was told that he might be able to serve Calcutta University.
20
Another two studies of his read out at the Indian Science Congress in 1915 in Madras was
entitled the ‘Prehistoric Monuments of the Cochin State’ and the ‘Vettuvans of North
Malabar.’ In 1916, in the Science Congress at Lucknow he presented papers on ‘Malabar
Magic’ and ‘The Thandapulayans.’ Also in 1916, from February 14-19 and 21-23, L.K.A.
Iyer gave a series of nine Readership lectures on the ethnology of India in the Madras
Museum. He read out ‘Anthropological Notes on the Eurasians of Indo-Portuguese Descent
in Cochin’ at the Indian Science Congress in Bangalore in 1917. In 1918, he read out
‘Serpent Shrines in Malabar, Cochin and Travancore’ at the Indian Science Congress,
Lahore. He retired from the Cochin State Service in 1920. Iyer went on to become the
President of the Indian Science Congress in the Anthropology and Archaeology section again
in 1927 and then in 1937 (presenting a paper on ‘An Ethnographical Study of the Coorgs’),
the only one to become the President thrice.
He joined the Calcutta University in 1920 as Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Ancient
Indian History and Culture. At the same time, Mr. Patrick Goodies had offered him in the
Department of Sociology, Bombay University at a higher salary. It was published through the
Associated Press in Madras Mail and The Hindu. Sir Asutosh seems to have been initially
humiliated by others commenting on the betrayal of Iyer but was pleased when Iyer refused
Bombay University and joined Calcutta University, since he had promised Sir Asutosh
Mukherjee first. He was in the Department with Dr. Rama Prasad Chanda, Panchanan Mitra,
B.C. Mazumdar and Sarat Chandra Mitra. He gave a course of 12 extension lectures in
Anthropology at the University in February-March 1920, which were published in 1925. He
was then appointed a Reader in Anthropology. He became the Head of the post-graduate
Department after Mr. Rama Prasad Chanda left in 1922 and he maintained this post till his
retirement in 1933.
In 1924, the Maharaja of Travancore and Cochin assigned to him the responsibility of
creating the State Museum, Zoological Gardens and Industrial Bureau. He was teaching in
the Department of Anthropology at Calcutta all the year round, and in the vacations
conducted his fieldwork studies. Much of his ethnography centred around life cycle rituals,
seeing caste and tribe as isolated entities rather than seeing their linkages with neighbouring
groups.
After his retirement in 1933, he visited Florence, Rome, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Cambridge,
Vienna and other places in Europe, presenting a series of lectures on Indian Ethnology. In
London, at the International Congress of Anthropology, he presented a paper on ‘Agricultural
Basis of Religion in South India.’ At the Institute of Anthropology in Florence he presented a
paper on ‘Primitive Culture of South India.’ He was given an honorary membership of the
institute with a special university medal for his recognition as an outstanding contributor to
Indian Ethnology. The President of France also gave him the title Officer d’Academic. The
British Government gave him the title Dewan Bahadur. Due to his legendary status,
Anthropology in India was jokingly referred to as ‘Ananthropology.’ His house in Tollygunje
was a library where students visited and were lectured on ethnography and race, with special
references of C.G. Seligman. His son wrote An Account of the Tribes and Castes of
Travancore. His grandson L.K. Bala Ratnam was also an anthropologist
He died on 25 February 1937 in Madras.
21
GOVIND SADASHIV GHURYE
G. S. Ghurye was born in 1893 and was a Sanskritic scholar, teaching it in Bombay, before
he went on to become a Ph.D. scholar under the famed anthropologist W.H.R. Rivers and
A.C. Haddon, at Cambridge University in England. He was an evolutionist and he used
indological texts to work on caste and race in India, an interest that continued throughout his
life. He was one of the pioneers of the use of indological texts in sociology. He was also
known as the father of systematic teaching of Sociology in India.
The work of G. S. Ghurye has been seen by many as having progressed anthropology greatly
in its initial period. However, Ghurye’s work was multi-disciplinary in nature and he was as
important for the scholars of sociology. After coming back from Cambridge in 1924 he
became the first Reader of the Department of Sociology in Bombay. He was the second
Chairman of the Department of Sociology, Bombay University. He served there till the early
1950s. After retirement he continued on his researches for a very long period. He worked for
over 70 years on classical texts, the study of comparative religion, survey methods, problems
of urban women, bureaucracy, political processes and elites.
During his work there he wrote Caste and Race in India, which came out in 1932 under the
History and Civilisation series edited by C.K. Ogden. It soon became a basic text. He tried to
give a comprehensive picture of castes, along with its origin, features, function, development,
and so on. It was revised in 1950 and came out as Caste and Class in India. He had added the
gently developing system of caste under the present milieu of political, economic and social
change in India. He also wrote on the tribes of India and gave details of their administration.
He was an assimilationist and wished to incorporate the tribals of India into the ‘mainstream’
of Indian culture. He also showed how the earlier British Administration had created
problems in the administration of the tribes.
This led him to write The Aborigines – ‘so called’ and Their Future in 1943. He enumerated
the problems of the aboriginal tribes of India in a truly anthropological manner. He was of the
opinion that these tribes should neither be called ‘adivasis’ nor ‘aborigines’. They should not
be a separate category but should be merged with castes and should be treated as backward
classes.
Ghurye’s work was textually oriented and did not involve fieldwork. According to many,
including M. N. Srinivas, he was conjectural, historical and indological. This did not mean
that he was unaware of the current context of the castes on which his researches were based
as this following statement shows:
“Various ambitious castes quickly perceived the chances of raising their status. They
convened conferences of their members and formed councils to take steps to see that their
status was recorded in the way they thought was honourable to them. Others could not but
resent this ‘stealthy’ procedure to advance and equally eagerly began to controvert their
claims. Thus a campaign of mutual recrimination was set on foot. The leaders of all but the
highest castes frankly looked upon the Census as an opportunity for pressing, and perhaps
obtaining some recognition of social gains which were otherwise denied by persons of castes
higher than their own.” (Ghurye; 1924: 169)
He died in 1983.
22
DHIRENDRA NATH MAJUMDAR
D. N. Majumdar was born on 3 June 1903 in Patna, the eldest son of Kushum Kumari and
Rebati Mohan Majumdar. He was educated at Dacca Government College (now in Dhaka),
University College Calcutta (now in Kolkata), Cambridge University and Dalton Laboratory
in London.
He became a Masters in Anthropology from Calcutta University in 1924 (securing first

position), winning several awards. He started lecturing on Primitive Economics at the
Department of Economics and Sociology, Lucknow University as a Lecturer in 1928. He had
been selected for this appointment by Professor Radhakamal Mukherjee, who was really
interested in Anthropology. By the mid-twenties, he had turned down his nomination as a
sub-Collector and was ready to conduct fieldwork in the Chotanagpur region. In this he had
been encouraged by S. C. Roy. He was awarded the Premchand Roychand Scholarship by
Calcutta University in 1926 for his original work during this period. In 1929 the University of
Calcutta awarded him the Mouat Gold Medal.
D. N. Majumdar, a student of Sarat Chandra Roy from Calcutta University, went to

Cambridge to conduct his Ph.D. under Professor T. C. Hodson in 1933. For his fieldwork, he
selected a tribe called the Ho in the Kolhan region of Chotanagpur. This study became a basis
for the study of society by students in the future. The approach could be shortened to MARC,
or Man, Area, Resource and Cooperation. The relationship between these four elements
guided the existence of any society. Man here refers to human beings having certain
biological needs and physical properties. Area refers to the spaces which they occupy, the
geographical referent which forms the basis of their existence. Resource signifies the
materials available in the spaces that they occupy. Finally, cooperation indicates the
relationships between the human beings studied. Harmony in all these four elements leads to
a functional unity in society. This unity breaks down due to external pressures.
Using this model Majumdar claimed that the Hos were being influenced due to external
pressures. He saw that primitive tribes were declining and this was for him a primary concern
for anthropologists. An advanced culture impinging on a simple and passive society,
according to him, caused such a decline. He did not agree that this could be stopped by
creating reserves for tribals so that they may not be influenced, or by including them very
closely within the Hindu fold as a backward form of Hinduism, but that they should be
integrated into Indian society, a form that he called “creative or generative adaptation.” He
believed that dominant groups should give respect to those communities that were backward
or downtrodden. A social change, in his opinion, should not be disruptive but should be in
continuity with existing cultural traditions. Thus, his work was on culture contact and
acculturation among the Ho. His Ph.D. was awarded in 1935. During this period, he was
invited to deliver a course of lectures at Cambridge and was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1936.
In spite of his specialization in Social Anthropology, he managed to keep up with trends in

Physical Anthropology and Prehistory. He advanced in his training through his teachers
Professor G. M. Morant and Gates, who taught him advanced techniques in the field. He also
regarded Bronislaw Malinowski as his teacher and was greatly influenced by him. He
rejoined his post in Lucknow University on his return. In 1939, he became the President of
the section of Anthropology and Archaeology of the 26th Indian Science Congress held at
Lahore. Medals and honours continued to be showered upon him. In 1941 he became a fellow
23
of the National Institute of Sciences. He was also elected a fellow of the American
Association of Physical Anthropology. In 1950, he was awarded the Research Medal by the
Gujarat Research Society, Bombay. In 1958, he received the Annandale Gold Medal by the
Asiatic Society of Bengal for his contributions to Asian Anthropology.
He was involved in the decennial census operations of 1941, carrying out anthropological and
serological surveys in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). P. C. Mahalonobis, the
famous statistician, collaborated with him. Majumdar also went on to study polyandrous
societies like the Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar in the Himalayas, the Korwas and the Tharus as
well as towns and castes in Uttar Pradesh. After Sarat Chandra Roy, he carried on the
traditions of fieldwork in India. He extended his work from tribals to urban societies also. In
physical anthropology, he worked on blood groups, anthropometric surveys, health and
disease also. Anthropometric and serological data was analysed statistically by him (known
as biometrics). In Uttar Pradesh, he tried to find out the biometrical correlates of caste
hierarchy. Though using racial factors in his analysis he was opposed to the concept of race
and was not fond of single factor explanations in caste studies. Using physical anthropology,
he also studied the school children of Lucknow. He was also known to be interested in
prehistoric archaeology, keeping up with the latest on the topic and occasionally lecturing on
it. He became more and more knowledgeable about the castes and tribes of the country and
went on to promote a problem-oriented research work based on theory rather than mere
ethnographical ones. He learnt more about the tribes and castes of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh
(studying the Gonds of Bastar), Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat (studying the Bhils) and West Bengal.
Another promoter of this approach was his peer Verrier Elwin.
In 1946 he delivered the Rathodkar Memorial Readership Lectures at Nagpur University. He

was a visting Professor at Cornell University from 1952-53 and at London University, School
of Oriental and African Studies from 1957-58. He went to the Wenner-Gren International
Congress in Anthropology at New York in 1952, the World Congress on Population held in
Rome in 1954 and the International Sociological Congress in Paris in 1954. In 1953 he
collaborated with M. E. Opler of Cornell University in a research project on village studies.
By 1945-7, he laid the foundation of what became the thriving ‘Ethnographic and Folk
Culture Society’ (EFCS) in Lucknow. The society wished to collect ethnographic data on the
local cultures of rural Uttar Pradesh. Under this society, the Eastern Anthropologist started
out as a premier journal in Anthropology. The journal has a good readership and is still
popular. The society has now started two other journals in Anthropology – Manav (in Hindi)
and the Indian Journal of Physical Anthropology. He contributed greatly to village studies in
anthropology in India. He recommended the kinds of studies that were required for the future
and also demarcated the social contours of an industrial city. He also incorporated an
evaluation of administratively engineered social change. He was further involved in carrying
out excavations of archaeological sites.
He wrote many important works like Race Elements in Bengal (which he wrote with C. R.
Rao), Social Contours of an Industrial City (with N. S. Reddy and S. Bahadur), A Village on
the Fringe, Race and Cultures of India, Fortunes of Primitive Tribes and A Tribe in
Transition. He also wrote a very famous textbook which has been reprinted again and again,
remaining popular till date – the book An Introduction to Social Anthropology that he wrote
with T. N. Madan.
24
In 1960-61, at the time of his death, he had promoted Anthropology all over the country in a
number of universities and also inculcated anthropology among many generations of
students. He had then been the Head of the Department and Dean, Faculty of Arts. He
apparently died after a full day’s work on 31 May 1960 after a cerebral haemorrhage.
Recently, a full year of celebratory seminars, conferences and lectures were held by EFCS to
celebrate the centennial year of D. N. Majumdar’s birth.
NIRMAL KUMAR BOSE
Nirmal Kumar Bose was born on 22 January 1901 in Calcutta. He completed his schooling
from the Anglo-Sanskrit School, Patna (his father being posted there as a Civil Surgeon),
Sagar Datta Free High School, Kamarhati, 24 parganas and Ranchi Zila School, Ranchi and
became a first class honours B.Sc. from Presidency College, Calcutta University. In 1925, he
completed his Masters in Anthropology from the same University. There he was taught by
Prof. Haran Chandra Chakladhar, Prof. T. C. Das and Prof. Tarak Chandra Das, the latter of
whom taught him the Functionalist Approach of Malinowski. He became more interested in
Geology.
His involvement in the freedom struggle as well as his following of Gandhian principles drew
him closer to Anthropology. Nationalistic events often interfered with his academic career.
He left the Government College to participate in Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement. He
participated in the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1922, the Civil Disobedience Movement in
1930-32 and the Quit India Movement in 1942. He went as Gandhi’s Private Secretary in his
walking tour of Noakhali (now in Bangladesh), Bihar and Bengal between 1946-47.
He settled in Puri in Orissa. The Orissan temple architecture fascinated him and he met a
temple architect called Ram Marasana from whom he learnt of Orissan temple architecture.
He became a guide and gave lectures to visitors. During this time he met Sri Asutosh
Mukherjee, the Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, who persuaded him to join the
University for a Masters degree in Anthropology.
He remained in contact with S. C. Roy throughout his life and kept going to his house in
Ranchi. Though he was attracted by the works of the diffusionists and the functionalist
Bronislaw Malinowski, he was influenced greatly by the works of M. K. Gandhi, Sigmund
Freud and Karl Marx. He then saw himself as a ‘social historian,’ a school of thought of
which he became the founder member.
He conducted his fieldwork among the Juangs of Orissa in 1927, where he was impressed by
the simple life of the poor tribals. He wrote Selections from Gandhi in 1934 and Studies in
Gandhism in 1946, while My Days With Gandhi written in 1953 described his experiences
while he was the private Secretary of Mahatma Gandhi in 1946-47.
In 1937, he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology,

Calcutta University. Later, he taught Anthropology and Human Geography at Calcutta
University as Lecturer and then Reader from 1937 to 1959. He was a visiting scholar at
California, Berkeley and Chicago in 1957-58. From 1959 to 1964 he was the Director of the
Anthropological Survey of India. He also went to the universities at Wisconsin, Michigan,
Columbia, North Carolina, Howard (Washington) and Hiroshima (Japan) also.
25
After his retirement, he was a special invitee of the Study Team for Hill Districts of Assam
under Tarlok Singh in 1965. In 1965 he represented India in USA at the Annual Conference
for the Association of Asian Studies in New York. He was also asked to look after the
educational problems in NEFA in 1966. He was also the Advisor on Tribal Affairs to the
Government of India. In 1964 he retired, but continued to serve in various honorary positions.
In 1969, he was appointed President of the Anthropology and Archaeology Section of the
Indian Science Congress. He served as the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes, Government of India from 1967 to 1970. He was a devoted social worker
for many organizations.
He was granted the S. C. Roy medal and the Annandale Medal for his researches by the
Asiatic Society of Bengal (1948). He became the President of the Anthropology and
Archaeology Section of the Indian Science Congress in 1949. He participated in famine relief
through the Sadharan Brahma Samaj in Bankura district in 1917 He was an honorary member
of the Goa Bagan working men’s institution in 1919. He was the Chairman of the Palli Seva
Niketan at Bangram near Santiniketan. He organized the Khadi Sangh in Bolpur in 1930. He
was awarded the Padma Shree in 1966 by the President of India. He was the President of the
Asiatic Society and also the President of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad when he died. He was
a very prolific writer. He wrote about 40 books and over 700 articles in English and Bengali
on temple architecture, art, prehistoric archaeology, human geography, urban sociology,
geology as well as travelogues. Apart from his work in archaeology, spring festivals in India
and the underlying basis of the caste system, he was also trying to develop an idea of the
culture zones within India and a social survey of Calcutta. He claimed that instead of
following the West, Indian anthropology should attempt to develop its own indigenous
models and theories based on Indian data in order to create a uniquely Indian identity to
anthropology.
He authored Cultural Anthropology in 1929, Canons of Orissan Architecture in 1932,

Excavations in Mayurbhanj in 1949 with Dharani Sen, Peasant Life in India in 1961,
Calcutta: A Social Survey in 1964, Culture and Society in India and Problems of National
Integration in 1967, Problems of Indian Nationalism in 1969, Tribal Life in India in 1971 and
Anthropology and Some Indian Problems in 1972. He was also an editor of Man in India
from 1951 to 1972. He wrote profusely in Bengali and his Hindu Samajer Gadan of 1949,
Nabin O Prachin and Paribrajaker Diary became very popular works. The first of these was
later translated into English The Structure of Hindu Society by Andre Beteille and published.
It is still in print. He died on 15 October 1972 (Mahashtami) after a long fight with cancer.
IRAVATI KARVE
She was born in 1905 in Burma and educated in Pune. She had a B.A. in Philosophy and then
she completed her M.A. in Sociology in 1928 from Bombay University. She then went to
Berlin University in Germany where she was honoured with a D.Phil. for her outstanding
research work in 1930. She had worked under the tutelage of Eugene Fischer at Berlin
University. She was also knowledgeable in both social as well as in physical anthropology.
In 1939 when she came back to India she joined the Deccan College Postgraduate and
Research Institute in Pune as Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. In
1939 she was the President of the Archaeology and Anthropology section of the Indian
Science Congress. By the 1940s she had worked with the famous H.D. Sankalia on
prehistoric cultures and had published two papers with him. She concentrated on the racial
26
composition of the Indian population, the kinship organization in India, the origins of caste
and sociological studies of rural and urban communities.
She wrote many research papers in various journals in both English as well as in Marathi. She
became famous and her work was read widely. She conducted anthropometric studies in
Maharashtra with some financial aid from Emslie Horniman fund. These were published as a
book in 1953, marking a new level of data collection in Indian caste studies.
She wrote Kinship Organisation in India in 1953 and Hindu Society: An Interpretation in
1961. In the former she divided India’s kinship pattern into four zones – North, South,
Eastern and Central. To show the integration of Hindu society, she gave illustrative examples
from various Hindu mythologies, trying to relate them with modern customs. She tried this
again in her work Yuganta in 1967 (in Marathi). It became very popular and won the Sahitya
Academy Award for that year. In this work she studied the cast of players in the
Mahabharata, as well as its society in an anthropological manner. It seems that in her manner
and attitude, trying to strive to create a new type of Department, she was disliked by some
(Bhagwat; 1991).
She died in 1970 while she was still in service. She was seen to be one of the three stalwarts
who created a name for Deccan College, the other two being H.D. Sankalia and S.M. Katre.
HASMUKH DHIRAJLAL SANKALIA
H. D. Sankalia was born on 10th December 1908. His parents were upper middle class
Gujarati and his father was a solicitor. He was of a very delicate physique and many thought
that he would be unsuited to a career in archaeology. He was well read in Indian history and
traditions but a reading of Lokmanya Tilak’s The Arctic Home in the Vedas at about sixteen
years of age inspired him to read Sanskrit and History in order to discover the antiquity and
original home of the Aryans.
In 1925, he secured the highest marks in Sanskrit, winning the Chimanlal Ranglal Prize of
Shri Surti Dasha Porwad Hitechhu Sabha in his matriculation. He joined St. Xavier’s College
and his Jesuit teachers encouraged him to read Sanskrit when his father and his uncle would
have him study law, like them. He wrote a paper in the college which was published in the
college journal and later was published unchanged in 1966, which showed similarities in
Dinnaga’s Kundamala and Bhavabhuti’s Uttara Ramacharita. In his B.A. he took Sanskrit
and then in his M.A. he took History. In his M.A. he wrote a thesis on Nalanda which was
published in 1934. At this time he also won the Pandit Bhagwanlal Indrajit Prize from
Bombay University. Simultaneously, to keep his father and uncle happy, he obtained an Ll.B.
degree. After this he joined Gandhi in the freedom struggle. He went to England in 1934 to
do his Ph.D. in Ancient Indian History at London University, writing a thesis on the
Archaeology of Gujarat, which was published in 1941.
He learnt archaeology by going for excavations at Maiden Castle, a Roman castle being
excavated by Mortimer Wheeler. He also learnt much from F. J. Richards, an I.C.S. officer.
In 1935-36 he went to Sind to see the excavation of the Harappan site Chanhudaro conducted
by Ernest Mackay. However, his greatest teachers were the two volumes on the prehistoric
antiquities in India by Robert Bruce Foote, the father of Indian prehistory. He completed his
Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor K. de B. Codrington on a general survey of
archaeological remains of Gujarat, obtained his degree in 1936 and then returned in India in
27
January 1937 to do research in the Prince of Wales Museum and the Asiatic Society in
Bombay. He was also teaching at the Heras Institute of Indian History and Culture. He
became a Professor of Proto-Indian and Indian History at Deccan College in 1939 at a salary
of 150 Rupees.
He found a reference in the District Gazetteer of a suburb of Poona having some megalithic
structures at Bhosari and investigated them. He explored Gujarat in 1940, taking clues from
Bruce Foote and located new Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites in the Sabarmati valley of
Mehsana district. He also jointly excavated Langhnaj, the famous Mesolithic site with Iravati
Karve, finding microlithic and other tools as well as faunal remains and human burials.
In 1943-44 he investigated the Godavari Valley and its tributaries in the Nasik district of
Maharashtra and found a flake tool industry made of chert and jasper. This became part of the
Middle Palaeolithic in India. In 1950-51, he excavated Jorwe on the Pravara river,
Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra. In 1952 he found a basalt industry in Gangapur near
Nasik in the Godavari sediments exposed while constructing a dam. In 1953-54 he excavated
Maheshwar and Navdatoli on the northern and southern banks of the Narmada in Nimad
district, Madhya Pradesh. Navdatoli is likely to be drowned by the rising height of the water
caused by the Narmada dam by now. In 1954-55, at Nevasa in Ahmednagar district he dug a
Chalcolithic mound, and found a three-tier chronology in successive gravel deposits of the
Pravara river (a tributary of the Godavari). He called them Series I (consisting of typical
Acheulian industry of handaxes and cleavers made on basalt and associated with mammalian
fossils), Series II (sandy-pebbly zone with small flake tools of chert and jasper associated
with mammalian fossils which formed the Middle Palaeolithic assemblage) and Series III
(blade tools made on chalcedony and being a part of the microlithic phase). This disproved
the Bruce Foote idea that the basalt area did not have human habitations. This distinct Middle
Palaeolithic phase was reported by him in the famous journal Science in 1964.
In 1957-58 and 1958-59 he excavated Navdatoli. They found through this largest of all,
excavations at that time a Chalcolithic village of second millennium BC. Links were found to
Iran and he thought that it must have contained an Indo-Aryan speaking people. In 1954-56
and 1959-61 he excavated Nevasa in Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra. He found remains of
a Chalcolithic site here and after a gap the later historical periods. This region, then, as a
whole, had sites from the Lower Palaeolithic to the present. In the 1960s he explored
Saurashtra and found more sites. He excavated Sangankallu, a Mesolithic and pre-Mesolithic
site in Bellary district, Karnataka. In 1961-62 he excavated the Chalcolithic site of Ahar near
Udaipur in Rajasthan. It was a large settlement from the late third millennium BC to the mid-
second millennium BC. In 1969-70 he explored the Liddar River at Pahalgam in Kashmir and
found a few early Palaeolithic tools there. He also excavated Inamgaon, in Pune district,
Maharashtra, later carried out by his students, for twelve years in an elaborate manner. It was
dated from 1600 BC to 700 BC and contained over two hundred human skeletons. He had
also excavated Tripuri near Jabalpur in 1966 (Chalcolithic habitation) and Tekkalakota
(Bellary district, Karnataka). He also excavated Dwarka in Gujarat but was unable to find
anything beyond the Christian era.
It is his impress upon archaeology, prehistory, protohistory and inscriptional ethnography that
has enabled Indian archaeology to rise to its present status in the world. He developed from
scratch Archaeology at Deccan College, turning it into an area of excellence with a number of
multi-disciplinary laboratories and trained personnel. It is the only such University
Department in India even today. Unlike others, he was devoted not only to teaching and
28
research but was also involved in putting archaeology across to the people at large, writing
popular articles in English, Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. In 1963 he wrote a monumental
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan. The second edition came out in 1974.
He associated many people in his excavations from different fields. Professor G.M. Kurulkar,
anatomist, Govardhandas Medical College, Bombay helped in Langhnaj. It was visited by
Wheeler who advised him to call Professor F.E. Zeuner. He was also helped by J.C. George,
D.R. Shah and Juliet Clutton-Brock for the animal bones. The relationship with Vishnu-
Mittre at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow continued over a lifetime. A.N.
Gulati, K.T.M. Hegde, Sophie Ehrhardt of Germany and Kenneth A.R. Kennedy of USA
were also associated with him. He used all kinds of data to construct a timeline for the region
which was fairly successful and which he had learnt from his teacher F.J. Richards. He
supervised about 47 Ph.D.s in his lifetime, and their names are like a roll call of
contemporary issues and names in Indian Archaeology.
He retired from Deccan College in 1973. However, he continued to find sites in and around
Pune, and many articles written by him attest to this. His house was on an earlier bed of the
Mula-Mutha river and was called Sat-Chit-Anand. He excavated the land on which his house
was built and found more tools. He then invited the Prime Minister of India in 1987 to see the
site and the finds. A rare archaeologist, he published a stream of detailed reports on all that he
excavated and also summarized the findings, creating texts for students as a remarkable
synthesis of all the data available.
He received many medals and awards. In 1968, he received the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial
Fellowship. In 1974, the President of India awarded him with the title Padma Bhushan for his
contributions to Archaeology. He was awarded the Explorer’s Medal from the Explorer’s
Club in New York in 1984. He became an Honorary Fellow and member of many Institutes
and organizations. He delivered lectures at Kannada Research Institute, Dharwad (1955),
Panjab University, Chandigarh (1960), Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (1965), Sagar
University (1967) and so on. As a national lecturer in 1973-74 he delivered lectures at Delhi
University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Calicut University and
Karnataka University.
He died on 28th January 1989 in Pune.
DHARANI P. SEN
Dharani Sen was born in September 1910. In 1934, he completed his Masters degree from the
Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University. He went on to specialize in Prehistoric
Archaeology. He then became a Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, Calcutta
University. He became a Reader and officiating Head at the Department of Anthropology at
Lucknow University between 1952-53. From 1962-74 he was an extra-mural Lecturer at the
Department of Archaeology, Calcutta University. In 1977 he was a Visiting Professor at the
Department of Anthropology, Dibrugarh University. He retired as a Reader from the
Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University.
He worked on Siwalik and Pleistocene stratigraphy, stone age culture and chronology, and
human environments of West Punjab in Pakistan, East Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Poonch
and Madras. He excavated stone age sites in Mayurbhanj (Orissa), Singhbhum (Jharkhand)
and explored sites in Narmada Valley and Mirzapur. He worked under the Yale-Cambridge-
29
India Expedition in 1935, where he explored areas in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, studying
Pleistocene geology and prehistory.
He became a sectional President of the Indian Science Congress in 1954. He was fluent in
Bengali, Hindi and English.
MYSORE NARASIMHACHAR SRINIVAS
One of the most well-known individuals in the history of sociology and social anthropology
of India would remain M. N. Srinivas. He was born on 16 November 1916 in Mysore, and
was educated initially in Karnataka. In his own house he was close to Tamil, Telugu,
Kannada and Marathi, as well as a colony of urban shepherds or Kurubas. He felt that his
field area seemed to exist almost in his backyard in Mysore.
He completed his B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology at Mysore University in 1936. Having
completed his Masters in Sociology from Mysore University in 1939, where G. S. Ghurye
integrated both Sociology as well as Anthropology within the Department of Sociology. He
went on to complete an Ll.B. degree. He then completed his Ph.D. from Bombay University.
Based on the fieldwork among the Coorgs, he introduced the concept of ‘Brahminisation’ as
a mode of caste mobility for the first time in his Ph.D. work among them.
He was trained by G. S. Ghurye, with whom he often disagreed. He used indological work in
an occasional way, to highlight some of his other work. He was also very much a field-
oriented social anthropologist and was a promoter of the structural-functional approach. He
was also adamant in claiming that while the book view of society gives an overall view of
society through its ritual writings (read indological scripts), a field view showed that there
were many variations in the interpretations of the book view which needed to be understood
better (read fieldwork-oriented social anthropological ideas). He was strongly influenced by
the fieldwork of both A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and Bronislaw Malinowski. This interest enabled
him to conduct his first fieldwork among the Coorgs of South India. This led to the
publication of Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India in 1952.
He was a research fellow from 1940-42 and research assistant from 1942-44 in Sociology at
Bombay University. He was awarded the Carnegie grant at Oxford from 1945-47. He was
awarded the Simon Senior Research Fellowship to visit Manchester University from 1953-54.
He was then awarded the Rockefeller Fellowship to stay in American Universities from
1956-57.
He went on to do a D.Phil. in Social Anthropology from Oxford University, which he

completed in 1947. He worked closely with the anthropologists A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and
E.E. Evans-Pritchard. To some extent, he had also been influenced by Emile Durkheim, Max
Weber, Raymond Firth, Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton and Bottomore, among others. He
was appointed as a Lecturer in Indian Sociology at Oxford for some time. More concepts
were introduced in his work, which included the terms ‘Sanskritization’ traits and the idea of
a spread within Hinduism.
For Srinivas, Sanskritization (a term he introduced in 1962) was a more inclusive term than
Brahminization. It involved the taking up by the lower castes and other tribes of the rituals of
the upper castes, especially the twice-born castes like the Brahmins. Hinduism was also seen
to involve an All-Indian form, a Peninsular form, a Regional form and other local forms. He
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also differentiated between the concepts of Varna and Jati and popularized the use of local
terms to understand Indian society better. His studies of village life in India remain
unparalleled. Through these concepts he tried to understand the issue of social change in
Indian society.
Srinivas’ major fieldwork was conducted in Rampura in Mysore. He exposed the two kinds
of statuses found in such societies – calling them ritual and secular statuses. To accommodate
the two kinds of status the concept of a ‘dominant caste’ was found to be very useful.
Important political processes could be understood through the use of this concept since it
involved the advantages of being the first to be introduced to Western education, a high ritual
status, numerical preponderance, and economic and political power at the centre. He
introduced the term Westernization in 1966. Contemporary ground realities in Indian society
could be understood from his 1959 paper on Dominant Caste in Rampura in American
Anthropologist.
By 1951, he started missing India and came back to join at the Maharaja Sayajirao University
at Baroda. He became the first Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology there. He
trained people there through his new syllabi in B.A., M.A. as well his Ph.D. programme. He
appointed the sociologist I. P. Desai and the anthropologist Y. V. S. Nath.
In 1959, he founded the Department of Sociology at Delhi University, through the

cooperation of the Vice-Chancellor V.K.R.V. Rao. There he appointed sociologists like
M.S.A. Rao and Savitri Sahani and anthropologists Andre Beteille and Gouranga
Chattopadhyay. For twelve years he instilled among his Ph.D. students there a tradition of
fieldwork. By 1968, the Department had gathered some very good students from all over the
world and had been granted a Centre of Advanced Study by the University Grants
Commission. As a result, it had its own building, faculty, staff, visiting professorships,
fellows and research scholars.
In 1972, the Institute for Social and Economic Change was set up in Bangalore by V. K. R.
V. Rao and M. N. Srinivas became its Joint Director till 1973. He became a Visiting
Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies at the Indian Institute of Science in
Bangalore – a relationship that continued till his death. He was also an active member of the
University Grants Commission, the Indian Council of Social Science Research, Economic
and Political Weekly, as well as many other Government Committees. He received many
awards, fellowships, prizes and medals for his work throughout his career. He was University
lecturer in Indian sociology at Oxford University from 1948-51, Professor at M. S. University
at Baroda from 1952-59, Simon Visiting Professor at University of Manchester in June 1963,
Fellow at Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in California
from 1964-65 and 1970-71, and Andrews D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University
from September 1970 to November 1976.
He was awarded D.Sc. (Hons.) by the University of Chicago in 1971, D.Litt. (Hons.) by the
University of Mysore in 1972, Doctorate Honoris Casa by University of Nice in France in
1972, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science at Boston in
1973, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland,
Honorary Life Member of the South Asia Association in Australia and Honorary Member of
the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in 1976. In 1963, he delivered the Tagore
Memorial lectures at the University of California, Berkeley.
31
In 1955 he received the Rivers Memorial Medal, in 1958 the S,.C. Roy Memorial Medal, in
1971 the Dadabhai Naoroji Memorial Prize for Social Science other than economics, in 1976
the T. H. Huxley Memorial Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland in London, and in 1977 the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India. In
1957 he was President of the Anthropology and Archaeology Section of the Indian Science
Congress and in 1966-67 was President of the Indian Sociological Society.
While Srinivas was staying in Stanford University in the USA, his field notes and other
papers he was working on were lost due to a dormitory fire. Undaunted by this tragedy he
went on to recollect from memory the data he had collected and published Remembered
Village in 1976, a unique ethnographic work. He had also published works such as Caste in
Modern India in 1962, Social Change in Modern India in 1966 and edited India’s Villages in
1955. His works and ideas regarding fieldwork are reproduced in The Fieldworker and the
Field written in 1979 with A.M. Shah and E.A. Ramaswamy. Many of his other writings have
been published in Indian Society Through Personal Writings in 1996. Most of these are still
used as texts in Departments of Anthropology and Sociology. He had written more than a
hundred research papers.
In recent years he has studied issues relating to national integration, dowry, bridewealth, the
effect of industrialization on villages, urban communities, hospitals, gender issues, etc. His
fieldwork in Coorg was for a year (1940-42), in Tamil Nadu for three months in 1943, in
Andhra Pradesh for three months in 1944, and Rampura in Mysore for thirteen months (1948
and 1952).
M. N. Srinivas died on 30 November 1999 in Bangalore.
SHYAMA CHARAN DUBE
S. C. Dube, born on 25 July 1922 in Seoni in Madhya Pradesh, initially finished a degree in
Political Science before he decided to join Anthropology. The course in Political Science had
a special paper in Social Anthropology. He then conducted a study of the Kamars of Raipur
in order to do a doctoral dissertation in Sociology. They were considered to be an extremely
backward community and before S.C. Dube went to study them, not much was known about
them. Dube studied their society holistically using traditional anthropological methods.
Dube went on to go to England as a Lecturer in Anthropology. In the early 1950s, like all the
American scholars of Anthropology who came to India, he became interested in village
studies, especially of those villages which had a multi-caste social structure. He came back to
India to study a village in Hyderabad called Shamirpet. He studied the interrelationships of
Hindus and Muslims in the framework of jati relationships. He was able to show through his
data that communalism was not a major problem in Indian villages. He showed that a
distance was kept between different castes and different religions in the same village. Both
Hindus as well as Muslims followed many folk customs. These customs united the people
into a whole and thus communal feelings were kept in abeyance. He also worked in West
Orissa.
After these studies, Dube became interested in studying the impact of community
development planning on villages. This formed a very important part of this period of his
research interests, where he contributed both to Sociology as well as to Social Anthropology.
He wrote Indian Village in 1955 and then India’s Changing Villages: Human Factors in
32
Community Development in 1958 as well as Power and Conflict in Village India. He also
wrote several research papers. He also worked on red tapism in Indian bureaucracy and was
in favour of the development of an indigenous anthropology. By 1978, he told his colleagues
that it was very important for them to begin studying the problems of the Third World as a
part of indigenous anthropology. Since the problems encountered by them were very different
from those encountered by the developed countries. A central problem of such Third World
countries was exploitation, inequality and injustice.
He wrote on Social Science in Changing Society where he advocated an inherently dynamic

social science that was responsive to the changes occurring in society. To fulfill this, he
himself put together Contemporary India and Its Modernization in 1973, Explanation and
Management of Change in 1971 and Modernization and Development: The Search for
Alternative Paradigms in 1988.
Like M. N. Srinivas, Andre Beteille and a few others, Dube contributed both to Sociology as
well as to Social Anthropology equally. He taught Political Science at Lucknow University
and Sociology/Social Anthropology at Nagpur and Osmania. He served for some time at in
the Anthropological Survey of India and also at the National Institute of Community
Development (1961-64). He became the Head of the Department of a joint Department at
Saugor, Madhya Pradesh, staying there till 1972, and was the Chairman of the Madhya
Pradesh University Grants Commission. He also taught at London and Cornell Universities.
He conducted fieldwork in Chhattisgarh, Telengana in Andhra Pradesh, West Orissa and

north Madhya Pradesh. In 1962 he went to Pakistan as a UNESCO consultant to advise on a
major study of leadership in that country. He attended many seminars and conferences around
the world. In 1976 he won the S. C. Roy Gold Medal. In 1993 he won the Indira Gandhi
Gold Medal. Both of these were from the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 1972 he became the
Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies till 1978. He had a brief spell as a
founding director of the Institute of Social Sciences, Allahabad. Two years were then spent as
National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and a year as Consultant
of the UN Asia Pacific Development Centre in Kuala Lumpur. Between 1983-88 he was the
Chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Higher Education Grants Commission. In 1993 he won the
Moorti Devi award for his essays in Hindi.
In 1987 he was granted an honorary doctorate from Kashi Vidyapeeth and in 1994 from
Kanpur University. He also gave the K. K. Birla Foundation Lecture in 1995.
He died in 1996.
SURAJIT CHANDRA SINHA
Surajit Chandra Sinha was born on 1st August, 1926. In 1949, he completed his Masters
degree from the Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University. In 1955, he completed an
A.M. in Anthropology from Northwestern University, USA. In 1956, he completed a Ph.D. in
Anthropology from Northwestern University with a thesis on The Acculturation of the
Bhumij: A Study in Inter-Ethnic Integration and Stratification. Thus, he specialized in
cultural anthropology. In 1963-64, he was a Fellow, Centre for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California. He became a Fellow of the American
Anthropological Association.
33
Apart from his visit to the USA as a Fulbright scholar, he was a Visting Assistant and
Associate Professor at various Universities around the world, and visited others at various
conferences and seminars, like USSR, Norway, London, Sweden, Austria, Australia, Canada
and Bangkok. He was Visiting Assistant Professor in Anthropology, Chicago University in
1961-62. In 1962-63 he was Visiting Associate Professor in Anthropology at Duke
University.
In India, he was Principal, College of Agriculture and Social Science, Visva-Bharati

University, district Birbhum, West Bengal in 1964-65. He went on to become the Vice-
Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University. In 1965-66 he became Professor of Social
Anthropology at the Indian institute of Management, Calcutta. From 1969 to 1972 he was a
Joint Director at the Anthropological Survey of India. From 1972 to 1975 he was the Director
of the Anthropological Survey of India. He was President of the section on Anthropology and
archaeology, of the Forty-Ninth Session of the Indian Science Congress.
In his researches Surajit Sinha worked on tribal transformation in India, working on the
integration of the Bhumij tribals within the Hindu caste system. He worked extensively
former south Manbhum, Ranchi, Singhbhum, and Mayurbhanj districts within West Bengal,
Bihar (undivided) and Orissa. He conducted researches on an anthropological study of Indian
civilization and of cultural evolution. He conducted an All-India survey of the weaker
sections of the Indian population. He studied the organization of the ascetics of Kashi. He did
an anthropological appraisal of Rabindranath Tagore’s ideas on the nature of Indian
civilization. He also worked on the social and cultural transformation of the Rarh region of
West Bengal.
He was a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Indian Anthropological

Society, the Indian Anthropological Association, Current Anthropology and the Asiatic
Society. He was editor of the famous anthropological journal Man in India started by S.C.
Roy in 1921 from 1973 through 1980. For a time, he was also the editor of the Journal of the
Indian Anthropological Society. He was fluent in Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit and English.
He died on 27 February 2002.
PRABODH KUMAR BHOWMICK
Professor Prabodh Kumar Bhowmick was born on 6th September, 1929 (with some
conflicting accounts claiming this to be 1926), in an affluent landowning caste in coastal
Midnapur, West Bengal. The village was called Amdabad and was located in Nandigram
Police Station in Midnapur. He did his schooling upto Matriculation in Kalagachhia School in
Khejuri Thana, getting a first division with distinction. He became a participant in the Quit
India movement at this stage, suffering a two-year long incarceration during his life as a
student. For his Intermediate, he came and studied at the Bangabasi College but again became
embroiled in the movement against the Partition of India. He went to Sylhet (now in
Bangladesh) and stayed there for a month even after the riots began.
Dr. Prabodh Kumar Bhowmick was born in Nandigram on 3rd September, 1927. The place
where he was born is well-known as a place of educated people. As a result, he was
motivated to study hard since his school days. According to him, by the time he was in Class
VIII he had finished reading the complete works of many major Bengali classical authors like
Bankim Chandra, Sarat Chandra, etc. He was a student of National School and hence his
34
main education was in English. He was very much influenced by many freedom fighters. He
was sent to jail for assaulting the Deputy Magistrate of Midnapore district, remaining
imprisoned for two years.
He completed his B.Sc. (Honours) in Anthropology in 1949 from Bangabasi College and then
his M.Sc. in Anthropology from Calcutta University in 1951, specializing finally in
social/cultural anthropology. Then, he completed his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Calcutta
University in 1960 on the topic Socio-Economic Life of the Lodhas of West Bengal. In this he
had been encouraged by Professor Nirmal Kumar Bose. Later, under the same guidance he
was influenced to set up a center to change the habit of the Lodhas from criminal tendencies
to a useful member of society. As a result he set up the Samaj Sewak Sangha and then the
Institute for Social Research and Applied Anthropology (in 1955), near Narayangarh,
Midnapur. Many teachers and scholars joined him and it has been visited regularly by many
scholars, administrators and planners. He called it Bidisha, meaning ‘diffusing light’. It
continued on to become one of the premier centers for Applied Anthropology in India,
perhaps the only one of its kind. His stated aims may be summed up in his own words as
follows:
“Anthropologists are aware of the fact that human society is in a process of rapid
transformation now. At such a crucial stage, a scientific strategy should be developed by
collecting basic information needed to identify the roots of the problems and to formulate
effective solution thereof to have the desired changes. Undoubtedly, constraints of varied
nature might be faced at different stages and times, which can be eliminated easily, if a
calculated approach is made. Interactions with the bureaucracy, politicians and social workers
in this field, that might cause any constraint, could be resolved by a scientific, concerted,
need-based acceptable action programme.” (1990: 17)
He completed his D.Sc. in Anthropology, the first ever to do so from the Asian continent,
again from Calcutta University in 1967 on the topic Socio-Cultural Profile of Frontier
Bengal.
He became a Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, Bangabasi College, Calcutta

University, Calcutta in 1952 and remained there till 1962. He was then appointed Lecturer at
the Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University, Calcutta in 1962 and remained at this
post till 1970 when he was appointed Reader. He remained a Reader till 1976. During this
period he visited Netherlands to attend the World Congress in Applied Anthropology, in
1975. He finally became Professor and, for a period, Head, of the Department of
Anthropology, Calcutta University, Calcutta. He had also been a Dean of the Faculty of
Science in the University of Calcutta. He has been a visiting Professor of Anthropology at S.
V. University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. He was attached to the Indian Institute of Social
Welfare & Business Management, Calcutta and the I.I.T., Kharagpur as a Guest Lecturer. He
was a Visiting Lecturer in England and France. He had also spoken at Kalyani University,
Kalyani and Vidyasagar University, Midnapur. He was an Inspector and Lecturer at the
International School of Dravidian Linguistics, Trivandrum. He became a member of the
U.G.C. He retired in about 1994.
He has worked on the Socio-Economic Life of the Lodhas and Mundas of West Bengal;
Munda Life in Three Distinctive Ecological Settings of West Bengal: Midnapur, Sundarban
and Tea Plantation Area; Temple Studies in Midnapur; Social Mobility of Agricultural
Labourers in West Bengal; Study of Rural and Urban Complex: Tamluk (Municipal Town),
35
West Bengal; Emergence of Urban Features in Rural Areas; Breakdown of the Rural
Economy: Study on Pavement Dwellers of Calcutta; Folk Festivals of Bengal.
He has been a member of the Asiatic Society, Indian Science Congress Association, Institute
of Social Research and Applied Anthropology, and the Indian Anthropological Association,
among others. He has also participated at the World Congresses of Applied Anthropology at
Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Italy and West Germany. He was the co-Editor of Man and Life and
two journals in Bengali. His numerous students dot the globe and are working in premier
institutions of Anthropology and allied disciplines. Partly due to his interest, anthropology is
taught as a subject in different colleges and schools of West Bengal. He set up the Nandigram
Sitananda College, the Medinipur Sanskriti Parishad and the Medinipur Itihas Parishad.
He attended the festival at Bidisha called Nabanan, on 6th-7th December, 2002. On 13th
December, 2002, Professor Bhowmick took a taxi to Calcutta University from Lake Town,
where he lived. He started across the road. A man got off a slowly-moving bus and collided
with him as he climbed the pavement. He fell down on his left side and was in some pain. He
was picked up and taken to Globe Nursery nearby where he rested for a while and was then
taken home to Lake Town. He kept feeling pain and X-Rays were taken and found a
longbone head smashed. He had an operation about the 20th-21st, December, 2002. He
improved and was taken home on 2nd January, 2003. He could not eat properly or swallow
after this and kept vomiting. He was checked and given some medicines, then admitted to
hospital from where he was taken back home only on the 20th January. The problems of
eating, swallowing and digesting kept recurring. There were ruptures in his stomach and after
a few days in hospital had a stroke. He died on 5th February, 2003 at 10:10 p.m.
The Seminar at Bidisha was an annual affair. It coincided with the day when his daughter,
Sarita Bhowmick, died in a car crash. It was one of the most painful memories of his life.
Further, she was a student of Anthropology and he saw her as carrying on his work to the
next generation. A memorial lecture was organized on the day and all the members would
walk to the spot where a memorial pillar had been erected and put flowers in memory of her
just before the lecture.
Dr. Bhowmick utilized his ideas, knowledge and experiences of the rural people in the study
of anthropology. He was, therefore, a good fieldworker right from his college days. This
came under the observation of Prof. N. K. Bose, a doyen of Indian anthropology. As a result,
Dr. Bhowmick conducted his Ph.D. dissertation under his supervision. Prof. N. K. Bose,
influenced heavily by Mahatma Gandhi, had his own vision for building up the nation. As a
result, Prof. Bhowmick became interested in actively doing something for the downtrodden.
He applied the methodology of Social Anthropology to identify the problems of a denotified
tribe called the Lodha in Midnapore district. He did not restrict himself to merely writing up
his Ph.D. thesis but initiated the work of helping the people through the use of the social
sciences, especially the people in Fulgeriah of Midnapore district.
Hence, he was not merely awarded a Ph.D. but commenced a new anthropological approach
– Action Anthropology – by establishing a voluntary organization called Samaj Sevak
Sangha. The organization was located at a place which he called Bidisha or ‘diffused light’.
The poor, downtrodden, oppressed and exploited people were pushed towards this center for
growth. They were beginning to be employed in various positions like in agriculture, social
services and other technical jobs. Once the Lodhas had been hunter-gatherers and forest
36
dwellers. They began to find out about a new way of survival in settlements, thus getting rid
of their nomadic life and the unending conflict that went with it.
Alongwith their sustained livelihood, Prof. Bhowmick also developed an awareness of

education among them, since most were illiterates. He believed in enhancing their knowledge
through real life situations. In order to do this, he had intended to develop their personalities
through the promotion of their traditional culture through folk arts, folk songs, folk drama,
etc. He arranged performances of such indigenous cultural festivals like Nabanna Utsav,
Paus Mela, etc. A school was established at Bidisha exclusively for the tribal students. Prof.
Bhowmick’s effort became a permanent effect in the region with its acceptance by the
government and the sanctioning of government aid. He made the whole developmental
programme holistic. In order to do this he established the Institute of Social Research and
Applied Anthropology. Under its auspices, he organized a National Seminar every year
where many anthropologists of renown came and contributed papers. The philosophy behind
this activity was that it encouraged anthropologists to think of the rural people in a rural
setting. Few anthropologists exist in India who have not attended one or more of his seminars
at Bidisha.
Prof. Sol Tax gave the new concept of Development Anthropology at the Chicago
Anthropological and Ethnological Congress in 1958, but since 1951 Prof. Bhowmick’s
‘helping and learning’ concept for the downtrodden people was in vogue and was being
practiced in India.
Prof. Bhowmick’s academic excellence was not confined to the classroom. He had supervised
57 Ph.D.’s in his lifetime. Dr. Bhowmick’s contributions to Anthropological research are
really significant. His Ph.D. thesis on the Lodha gave a new avenue of research to
anthropology. A further research work on the Chenchu, a hunting-gathering tribe, was
published as a book and received an International award from Germany. In this work he tried
to establish the interrelationship between ecology, culture and humanity. He focused on the
human rights of the community and called upon the anthropologists to work for the service of
man. He often defined anthropology as a science of men, but in his opinion this science did
not merely discuss the society and culture of men but it was also the science of service to the
human society. He worked hard to popularize anthropology, writing popular articles in
different languages. His work on the Socio-Cultural Profile of Frontier Bengal was an
anthology of regional culture and gave him the recognition of being a ‘living encyclopaedia’
of the undivided Midnapore district. Largely due to his efforts, Bidisha is now still carrying
on his work and is now having a museum housing a large number of cultural artefacts from
the undivided Midnapur district.
K. S. MATHUR
He was born in 1929 and specialized in Social Anthropology with a special interest in
Religion, Economics and Society. He took up projects from I.C.M.R. on Growth and
Development of Indian Infants and Children, and R. P. C. Projects on Economic
Development and Social Change. Other projects taken up were on caste, untouchability,
occupations, and border hill areas of Uttar Pradesh. He was employed as a Lecturer from
1951 and as a Reader from July 1964 at Lucknow University. He was Reader and Head of the
Department of Anthropology, Lucknow University. He was a Member of the Ethnographic
and Folk Culture Society, Association of Social Anthropologists, Indian Anthropological
Association and was an Associate for Current Anthropology in the USA.
37
LALITA PRASAD VIDYARTHI
L. P. Vidyarthi was born in 1931 in a multi-caste village near Patna. He felt constrained by
his middle caste origins in the village. He completed part of his schooling from the village
and then went to Gaya in 1940 when his father became the Mokhtar or Assistant lawyer in
the Mukhsudpur estate. He was admitted to a middle school passed his Matriculation in the
first division from Gaya in 1946. In 1948, he passed his I.A. from Patna College, narrowly
missing a first division. In 1950 he secured a first class in his B.A. from Patna College. He
then did an M.A. in Geography from Patna, securing a first division in the first year, after
which he shifted to Anthropology. He completed his M.A. Anthropology from Lucknow
University in 1953. L. P. Vidyarthi was taught in Lucknow University by D. N. Majumdar.
He then joined immediately as the founder Lecturer in Bihar University, which became
Ranchi University. He was there till 1956.
In 1957 he became a Fellow at the University of Chicago till 1958, when he received his
Doctorate. He worked under the very famous anthropologists Sol Tax, Robert Redfield at
Chicago, Julian Steward, Milton Singer, Fred Eggan, Victor Turner, etc. He initially
conducted a detailed study of what he called a ‘sacred complex’ in the famous Hindu
religious pilgrimage spot of Bihar called Gaya. This work provided an idea of the structure of
all such sacred complexes that emerge in religion-based areas or towns or temples. This
resulted in Sacred Complex of Hindu Gaya in 1961. He extended it to the study of tribal and
primitive areas by studying the Maler of Rajmahal Hills, where he called it the Nature-Man-
Spirit complex. To structure the features of such complexes he introduced the terms ‘sacred
geography’, ‘sacred performance’ and ‘sacred specialist.’
He questioned the terms used by Robert Redfield and others like Great Tradition and Little
Tradition. The traditions followed by the majority were Great Tradition, while those followed
by small portions of it were Little Traditions. McKim Marriott extended this issue to claim
that sometimes, Great Traditions peter out and become Little Traditions while in some cases
Little Traditions become very popular and eventually become part of the Great Tradition. L.
P. Vidyarthi claimed that simple societies and tribes were isolated from the mainstream of
civilization. Here, the Great Tradition had never been a part of their lives. In order to study
such communities he proposed the Nature-Man-Spirit complex. He found this complex to be
of great value not only to study the Maler but also in understanding the issues relating to
Applied Anthropology. A total or holistic understanding of the tribal world through these
methods would be of great assistance to understand their needs and thus development
programmes could be utilized to fulfill these needs in a more effective manner. He showed
through the effects of resettlements due to industrialization and urbanization that tribals had
never been understood properly by planners and administrators and that is why they had
failed in their objectives to resettle them well. This resulted in The Maler: Nature-Man-Spirit
Complex in Hill Tribes of Bihar in 1963.
He came back to Bihar University and joined as a Reader and Head of the Department of
Anthropology from 1958 to 1968. He was appointed a Professor in 1968, continuing as Head
of the Department.
L. P. Vidyarthi worked on issues relating to Applied Anthropology and Action Anthropology

till his death. In 1967, a task force was appointed under him to study the effect on the tribals
of various kinds of planning. He was thus able to formulate plans for tribals that suited them.
38
This came through in his work Applied Anthropology in India in 1968. In 1968, he wrote on
the effect of industrialization among tribal societies.
He was instrumental in putting Indian Anthropology on the world map in a big way. He
popularized it among bureaucrats, administrators and other academicians and systematically
conducted works that were mentioned abroad. He was instrumental in ensuring that major
journals in International Anthropology incorporated Indians and their journals as abstracts,
contents or as a showcase for their comments regarding major issues in Anthropology. He
was also responsible for putting Ranchi on the world anthropological map.
He has written extensively on the tribals of the Bihar and Chotanagpur region, and also
propounded theoretical ideas that are still popular today as hallmarks of Indian Anthropology
as well as research problems for new scholars. He was also interested in folklore research,
scheduled castes, fieldwork, leadership studies and anthropological theories.
He also studied the Cultural Contours of Tribal Bihar in 1964 as well as the problem of
student protest in the region, among other things. He wrote, at this time, Conflict and Tension
of Social Trend in India in 1968. He had also written the two-volume Rise of Anthropology in
India in 1978, and Trends in World Anthropology in 1979. His work on Tribal Cultures of
India which he wrote with Rai in 1977 is still a popular textbook today. He had also started
the Journal of Social Research from the Department of Anthropology and initiated the Centre
for Advanced Study in Anthropology there as well as an Action Research Unit.
He was appointed by the Planning Commission to head the Task Force for the Development
of the Backward Areas. The concept of the Tribal Sub Plan was a result of this Task Force.
He was a President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
(IUAES) from 1973 to 1978. In 1978, the Tenth International Congress of Anthropological
and Ethnological Sciences (ICAES) came to India largely due to his efforts and he chaired it.
He was the Vice-President of the International Social Science Council of the UNESCO from
1979 to 1982. In 1983 he became the Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at Ranchi
University. He received the Distinguished Service Award jointly by the Association for
Anthropological Diplomacy, Politics and Society as well as the Association of Third World
Anthropology in 1983. He received many other positions, awards and honours throughout his
life.
L. P. Vidyarthi died in 1985.
At present, his anthropological collection is housed in Ranchi in the Ranchi Club building
where students may become members and consult the works kept there. It is managed by his
son Pankaj Vidyarthi.
TRILOKI NATH MADAN
He was born on 12 August 1931. He specialized in Social Anthropology and engaged in

research work. He completed a Masters in Sociology and Anthropology from Lucknow
University in 1951. In 1960 he completed his Ph.D. from the Australian National University.
From 1952 to 1956 and from 1959 to 1962 he was employed as a Lecturer at Lucknow
University. From 1962-63 he was a Lecturer at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies
(SOAS) at London University. Then he became a Reader at Karnataka University. Then, a
39
Senior Fellow (Sociology) and Head of the Asian Research Centre, Institute of Economic
Growth, University of Delhi. Then he became a Professor at the Institute of Economic
Growth, University of Delhi.
From 1963-66 he was a Reader at Karnataka University. Then became a Senior Fellow
(Sociology) and Head, Asian Research Centre, Institute of Economic Growth, University of
Delhi in 1969. He was a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of London.
He worked on a project on modern professions and on kinship, renunciation and family. He

has worked on family, kinship and occupation among Kashmiri Muslims in the Kashmir
valley. He has worked also on the religious ideology of the Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir,
caste, family and development in India and on the magnitude and structure of the professions
in India, among other things.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, a Life Member of the Indian

Sociological Society and the Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society, and a Member of the
Association of Social Anthropology of the Commonwealth. He has been an editor of
Contributions to Indian Sociology. He is fluent in English, Hindi, Kashmiri, Urdu and
French. He is still active in academic circles.
SHIV RAJ KUMAR CHOPRA
S. R. K. Chopra was born on 8 October 1931 in Ludhiana. He completed his B.Sc. (Honours)
in Zoology in 1951 and then his Masters in 1953. In 1955 he completed his Ph.D. from
Zurich.
He is known as the foremost palaeo-anthropologist in India and was the founder of the
Department of Anthropology at Panjab University, Chandigarh in 1960, separating it from the
Zoology Department. He then became the Head (Chairman) of the Department from 1960 to
1981.
In Zurich, Switzerland between 1953-55 he researched on cranial suture closure in Old World
and New World monkeys. These were compared with data on anthropoid apes and man by
other scholars and features in various famous textbooks. Between 1955-58, he was funded by
the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research to invent the Chopra’s
Pelvimeter. It was impossible at that time to measure the pelvic angle using standard
osteometric instruments. He used the instrument to check the angle of pelvic torsion in living
primates, comparing it with the South African Australopithecine innominate bone. The
results were discussed by many other scientists in connection with the problem of erect
posture in Australopithecines.
From 1967 onwards, at Panjab University, he had been investigating various hominoid and
other fossils from the Shivalik region, turning the region into a hub of activity through
various projects, fieldwork and becoming a major centre for palaeoanthropological work in
the world and the only such Department of Anthropology to conduct such studies in India. As
a result, the fossil of Gigantopithecus bilaspurensis was found by him and was cited and
quoted by many authors since his initial reports on it. He also described the variety and scope
of Dryopithecine fauna in the Siwalik region. He discovered Pliopithecus krishnaii (in the
Miocene beds) and Sivasimia chinjiensis (in the Chinjis).
40
He had also supervised Ph.D.s on growth and development, and also been working on the
ecology and environmental studies. He also researched on human adaptability in varying
climatic zones in association with Cambridge Himalayan High Altitude Research Expedition
in 1979 sponsored by Cambridge University, directly supported by the Medical Research
Council and the Royal Society.
He was awarded the Bombay Natural History Society Research Award in 1960. In 1976 he
was given a silver plaque by the Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society, Lucknow. In 1989
he was awarded the Excellence Award by the Shiromani Nehru Centenary Committee for
enhancing India’s prestige and contribution towards National development. The Wenner-
Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, USA gave him the Research Award twice –
in 1955-56 and then again in 1966-67.
He was a University Research Fellow at the Department of Anatomy, Medical School,

University of Birmingham, Birmingham between 1955-58. Between 1957-58 he was an
Invited Lecturer at the Duckworth Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. He was
a Leverhulme Visting Fellow at the Department of Anatomy, University of Birmingham,
Birmingham, in 1964-65. He was a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Anthropology,
University of Kiel, West Germany in 1965-67. He was also invited to the Primate Research
Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Japan in 1979 as a Visiting Professor. In 1988-89 he
was again a Visiting Professor at the United Medical and Dental Schools, University of
London, London.
In 1976 he gave the Majumdar Memorial Lecture at the Ethnographic and Folk Culture
Society, Lucknow. He was a National Lecturer of the University Grants Commission in
1980-81. In 1985 he gave the M. R. Sahni Memorial Lecture at the Palaeontological Society
of India in Lucknow. In 1985-86 he gave the Panchanan Mitra Memorial Lecture at the
Asiatic Society, Kolkata. He held many fellowships, especially at the International level, as
well as memberships and offices of various University Administrative bodies, within
Universities all over India at various periods. He also held memberships or offices with
various International as well as National academic bodies, societies, journals and institutions.
He gave keynote addresses, main lectures and received academic honours at various National
and International conferences and symposia.
He was the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala from 1983 to 1986. Apart
from holding many important positions and posts, he was also the Vice Chancellor of
Kurukshetra University, at Kurukshetra, in Haryana, from 1986 to 1989.
He worked all through his life in association with a number of laboratories all over the world.
In 1958, he made an invention which was published in Man. The instrument was called
Chopra’s Pelvimeter and it is used for the measurement of angles of torsion on the pelvis and
other bones. The invention was manufactured by M/s Blundell and Gascologne, Birmingham
(UK) and M/s Una and Co., Delhi.
A number of research projects were sanctioned by national and international agencies for him
and his associates. The German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungs-Gemeinschaft)
granted one in collaboration with the Institute of Anthropology at Kiel on biological surveys
in selected Himalayan populations. An anthropological survey was conducted in Lahaul and
Spiti between 1964-65 through funds received from the Government of Punjab. The Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research at Delhi funded him in 1965-68 for studies on physical
41
growth and development of children in the tribal populations of the Himalayan regions. The
Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, awarded him funds in 1973-76 for enquiries
on the postnatal skeletal age changes, eruption of teeth, order of appearance and fusion of
epiphyses in primates with special reference to the rhesus monkeys. From 1968, funds were
made available by A.S.I. for a project on a search for the earliest hominoids in the Sivaliks.
The Indian National Science Academy funded him in 1972-74 for a project on the
anthropological variability in Himalayan populations living under varying altitude
environments. Between 1978-81, the University Grants Commission funded a project on the
development of quarry-able sites for the recovery of Neogene hominoids in North Western
India. It further funded him in 1987-90 for a project on ecological studies and their bearing
on Human evolution in the Indian Sivaliks.
He had supervised about 19 Ph.D.s, was an examiner at various National and International
Universities and knew English as well as German.
ANDRE BETEILLE
Prof. Andre Beteille was born on 30 September 1934. In 1957 he completed his Masters in
Anthropology from Calcutta University. In 1964 he completed his Ph.D. from the
Department of Sociology, University of Delhi, on Caste, Class and Power: Changing
Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village. Thus, he specialized in social stratification,
inequality, social change and political sociology. He has been engaged all his life in teaching
and research. Later, he took up a project on agrarian class relations.
He was also employed at the Indian Statistical Institute during 1958-59. From 1959 onwards
he has been employed in Delhi University. He became a Jawaharlal Nehru fellow, a Simon
fellow and a Leverhulme fellow, University of Sydney. Between 1965-66, he worked at
Manchester University.
In 1959, he joined the Department of Sociology, University of Delhi as a Lecturer, a post he

occupied till 1964. He became a Reader and then a Professor at the Department of Sociology,
University of Delhi. He is a Member of the Indian Sociological Society, Association of Social
Anthropologists of Great Britain and the Commonwealth and the American Political Science
Association. He is fluent in Bengali, Hindi, English and French.
GOPALA SARANA
Profesor Gopala Sarana was born on 2nd January 1935. He completed his M.A. from
Lucknow University in 1955. From there, he went to the USA, to complete his Ph.D. from
Harvard University in 1966. His Ph.D. was on Comparative Methods (Approaches) in Social-
Cultural Anthropology: A Methodological Analysis.
He taught for a while at Panjab University, Chandigarh, and then became Reader upto 1970,
then Professor and Head, Department of Anthropology, Karnataka University, Dharwad in
1966, teaching there till 1979. He had also taught at the University of Santa Barbara,
California between 1965-66. Later, he was appointed as Professor at the Department of
Anthropology, Lucknow University in 1979, where he had taught earlier as a Lecturer. He
went on to become the Head of the Department. He retired from there in 1995. His expertise
is in Social-cultural Anthropology. He has been a member of many learned bodies including
the Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society. He has, for a time, edited The Eastern
42
Anthropologist. Amongst much acrimony, his term of office was cut short as editor, a fact
which has cut him to the quick. He has always remained honest and outspoken in various
issues.
He remained dedicated to teaching Anthropology and Sociology to students, even after his
retirement, where many teachers also went to learn from him in his classes. He speaks Hindi,
English and Bengali fluently. He worked in many parts of South Asia, including Israel as
well as Japan and Iran. He conducted fieldwork among the Khasa and the Oraon tribals of
Berhambe, near Ranchi, now in Jharkhand. He has studied the community life of a mid-
western American village (Groveport) in Ohio. He has been engaged in a project entitled
Culture Contents and Cultural Zones in Karnataka through the Anthropological Survey of
India. He had written 76 articles, 7 reviews and 6 books by 2004. Of these, 32 articles are on
theoretical issues in anthropology, anthropological method and comparative method. 11
articles are on applications of anthropology in various areas. Two articles (one an obituary)
are on D. N. Mazumdar. The others have been written on caste, the relation of anthropology
with other disciplines, anthropology of Indian civilization, change, development, physical
anthropology, prehistory and archaeology (Misra; 2004).
In his theoretical researches he moved from an interest in Radcliffe-Brown in 1957 to 1959,

through to structure and function as stated by Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski in 1970. He
organized a symposium on Radcliffe-Brown in 1981 and in 1984 on Malinowski. In 1986, he
wrote on Causality and Function while in 1998 he wrote on Manifest and Latent Function. In
1990, he organized a symposium on Levi-Strauss (Misra; 2004).
For many, from a theoretical perspective, the most important set of contributions which
received wide acclaim were his papers and a book on anthropological comparisons (Sarana;
1975). He went into a depth of detail relating to the origin of comparisons, why one
compares, what is compared, how these objects are compared and what are the results one
gains from comparing. A serious problem comes from the units that one uses to compare two
cultures. An unqualified use of cultural traits is thus wrong because it cannot be absolutely
delimited and may have different forms in different cultures. A trait may be biologic,
material, a set of rules, a particular relationship, an institution or social organization. It may
be an aggregate of traits or communities and culture areas. Other such classes of comparison
include ‘conceptual aggregates,’ which are not empirical referable as concrete manifestations.
Thus, the whole of human life may be brought under the rubric of comparisons, a fact that is
shown through anthropological examples by Sarana. He also analyzes those who claim that
anthropological comparisons do not yield the basic laws of human society and shows that
even these authors have used comparisons (Misra; 2004).
Sarana defined three different kinds of comparisons in anthropology:
1. Illustrative comparison: In this case data are chosen and used for illustration without
systematically covering any geographical universe.
2. Complete universe comparison by delimitation: In this case the universe is delimited

and this part is covered completely.
3. Hologestic comparison by statistical sampling: In this case statistical techniques are

used to select a representative sample. However, though this method is growing and
increasing in importance it does not answer the question of what is to be compared
43
and how much data is required to be collected for this comparison. Social and cultural
data is often not amenable to quantification. Often a forced quantification results in
the collection of data which loses all meaning (Misra; 2004).
Though, cultures are unique and should not be compared to each other, Sarana claims that the
comparison of similar customs having different functions in different cultures and vice-versa
would be fruitful in understanding their nature and form. Comparing totalities would lead
also to large scale generalizations and understanding. He also objects to controlled
experiments of studying one society in order to generalize about others since such
experiments were not possible. In social-cultural anthropology, therefore, he claims that the
complete universe comparison seems to be the most effective. Thus, comparison of societies
seems to be inescapable for human understanding (Misra; 2004).
CONCLUSIONS
At the end of this long section on the history of anthropology, then, one has to answer the
question of whether there is any identity to Indian anthropology as an Indian phenomenon.
This question is especially difficult to answer because Indian anthropology is not a
monolithic phenomenon. It has never been put together as a single event. Looking to the past
of India to its scriptures for an identity does not give it a pan-Indian focus. There does seem
to be, in spite of it all, an Indian anthropology that distinguishes it from other anthropologies.
This is seen in the way most anthropology texts from India focus on uniquely Indian contexts,
mostly because anthropologists here have focused on it more due to lack of funds to conduct
researches abroad.
The idea of ‘indigenizing’ this anthropology has often been discussed earlier by many
authors. They have claimed that this should be done to include local models which do not
come from the West. However, the problem that arises here is whether such a project is
possible within a subject that is itself borrowed from a colonial West. There seems to have
been a trend of looking at a version of the concept of India that involves the thinking of it as a
‘caste’, ‘tribe’, ‘hierarchy’, ‘Hindu’, ‘villages’ and other such labels, which is perhaps why
anthropology in India is still involved in studying such issues (like Mathur’s ‘foundational
categories’). One focus has always been for anthropologists to not only class themselves as
Indian and the subject as useful to Indian society in the practical sense, but also to ensure that
others know of this relevance of Indian anthropology. Sinha (2005: 150-51) sees this
happening because:
“The patronage accorded to anthropological organizations in India by governments (as early

as 1880s), have created a dependence upon the state. The bulk of anthropological research is
funded by the Central for various State governments… Funding from private organizations or
philanthropists is practically non-existent. Resources are scarce. What little is available
provokes intense competition from other social sciences. In such a context, it makes sense
that Indian anthropologists feel the need to demonstrate the relevance of their research to
administrators and policy-makers. In order to legitimate their cause, Indian anthropologists
have to present themselves as committed to planning, development and nation-building…
They must demonstrate the usefulness of their craft in the real world to be seen as relevant
and legitimate.”
It also seems that those in sociology Departments in Indian universities often tend to refer to
themselves as anthropologists when dealing with issues of reflexivity (Chatterji; 2005: 173).
44
There seems to be a constant referral and slippage to the other subject among both sides –
between sociologists as well as anthropologists. However, it is clear that sociologists do not
adequately know about or understand the depth of knowledge also collected by linguistic and
physical anthropologists also.
What anthropologists do and become known as doing is going to be a matter of practice as

well as of opinion. In the way of all life, anthropology in India will have to depend on time to
see which direction it will be likely to move to in the future. The agenda of its funding
organizations will also dictate a part of this direction. One thing is very clear – a society
bereft of knowledge of itself will never be able to plan adequately for future problems.
Anthropology and society both feed off each other. When one ignores the other, it is an
accurate reflection of the state in which the other survives.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the (Late) Ms. Mira Roy for patiently giving me information regarding
S. C. Roy. I would also like to thank Dr. Pradeep K. Bhowmick for entertaining me and
answering questions relating to the life of Prof. P.K. Bhowmick. I thank Mrs. Elwin at
Shillong, Meghalaya for answering my queries regarding Verrier Elwin and for showing me
around her house where the memorabilia of Verrier Elwin are still kept.
Suggested readings
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2. Basham, A. L. 1967. The Wonder That Was India. London: Sidgwick and Jackson.
3. Basham, A. L. 1989. The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism. Edited by K. Zysk. Boston:
Beacon Press.
4. Basu Roy, Indrani. 2003. Anthropology: The Study of Man. New Delhi: S. Chand and Co. Ltd.
5. Bera, Gautam Kumar. 2002. Dramatis Personae of Indian Anthropology: A Centenary Tribute to
Verrier Elwin in The Oriental Anthropologist, vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 81-96.
6. Beteille, Andre and T.N. Madan (eds.). 1975. Encounter and Experience: Personal Accounts of
Fieldwork. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing Co.
7. Bhagwat, Durga. 1991. Athawle Tasse (As I Remembered). In Marathi. Pune: Varada Prakashan.
8. Bhowmick, P. K. 1963. The Lodhas of West Bengal – A Socio-Economic Study. Calcutta: Punthi
Pustak.
9. Bhowmick, P. K. 1964(a). Some Problems of the Lodhas, a Denotified Community in West Bengal in
Bulletin of the Cultural Research Institute, Calcutta.
10. Bhowmick, P. K. 1964(b). A Regional Festival – Gajan in Folklore, vol. 5, No. 2.
11. Bhowmick, P. K. 1964. Pragoitihasik Sanskriti.
12. Bhowmick, P. K. 1969. Occupational Mobility and Caste Structure. Calcutta: Indian Publications.
13. Bhowmick, P. K. 1975. Socio-Cultural Profile of Frontier Bengal. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak.
14. Bhowmick, P. K. 1980. Some Aspects of Indian Anthropology. Calcutta: Subarnarekha.
15. Bhowmick, P. K. 1986. University of Calcutta and L.K. Ananthakrishna Iyer in Man in India, vol. 66,
No. 4, December, pp. 317-320.
16. Bhowmick, P. K. 1989, 1994. The Chenchus of the Forests and the Plateaux: A Gathering-Hunting
Tribe in Transition. Awarded the best book on a Dravidian-speaking tribe.
17. Bhowmick, P. K. 1990. Applied-Action-Development Anthropology. Calcutta: Institute of Social
Research and Applied Anthropology.
18. Bose, Nirmal Kumar and Dharani Sen. 1948. Excavations in Mayurbhanj. Calcutta: University of
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21. Bose, Nirmal Kumar, Dharani Sen and Gautamsankar Ray. Geological and Cultural Evidences of the
Stone Age in Mayurbhanj, pp. 49-55. 1958 Volume 38, Number 1, January-March Man in India
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Social Research and Applied Anthropology.
28. Bose, Nirmal Kumar. 1975, 1994. The Structure of Hindu Society. Translated from the Bengali Hindu
Samajer Gadan by Andre Beteille. New Delhi: Sangam Books.
29. Chakrabarti, Dilip K. 1999. India, An Archaeological History: Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early
Historic Foundations. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
30. Chakrabarti, S. B. 2003. Anthropology of Surajit Chandra Sinha – A Brief Note, Volume 38, Numbers
2 and 3, July-November, JIAS Special Issue in Memory of Surajit Chandra Sinha pp. 103-106.
31. Chakrabarty, Falguni. 2003. Contributions of the Elderly in an Agrarian Setting in Rural West Bengal:
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Ben-Ari and Syed Farid Alatas (eds.) Asian Anthropology. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 162-
176.
33. Chattopadhyay, Gouranga P. 2003. Saluting the Memory of Dr. S. C. Sinha and the Dalit Leadership of
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34. Chopra, S. R. K. (with D. Kapoor). 1969(c). Ethnic and Cultural Units in Lahul in Transactions of the
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New York: S. Karger.
36. Chopra, S. R. K. (with E. L. Simons). 1969(b). Gigantopithecus (Pongidae, Hominoidea: A New
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37. Chopra, S. R. K. (with S. Kaul). 1975. New Fossil Dryopithecus Material From the Nagri Beds at
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Basel and New York: S. Karger, p. 2.
38. Chopra, S. R. K. 1958. A ‘Pelvimeter’ for Orientation and Measurements of the Innominate Bone in
Man, vol. 58, p. 171.
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40. Clarke, Grahame. 1979. Sir Mortimer and Indian Archaeology. Wheeler Memorial Lectures. New
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41. Danda, Ajit K. and Bela Maulik. Obituary: Professor Dharani Sen, pp. Volume 14, Number 3, JIAS
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HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN INDIA

Dr. Abhik Ghosh

Introduction: The Growth of Indian Anthropology

SIGNIFICANT KEYWORDS: Ethnology, History of Indian Anthropology, Anthropological

INTRODUCTION: THE GROWTH OF INDIAN ANTHROPOLOGY

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The Formative Phase (1774-1919)

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The Constructive Phase (1920-1949)

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Majumdar, B. S. Guha, P. C. Biswas, T. C. Das, S. S. Sarkar, Dharani Sen and Andre

In 1947, a Department of Anthropology opened in University of Delhi, then in 1950 in

The Analytical Period (1950-1990)

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The Evaluative Phase (1990-present)

The complexity of Indian society was frequently described by Western anthropologists in

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are becoming active. An increasing interest in Medical Anthropology, Religion, Development

ARTHUR LLEWELLYN BASHAM

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International Society of Traditional Asian Medicine. In December 1985, Rajiv Gandhi

A. L. Basham died in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India on 27th January 1986.

CHRISTOPH VON-FUHRER HAIMENDORF

Later, he went on to study the Chenchus of Andhra Pradesh, a hunting-gathering community.

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RAI BAHADUR SARAT CHANDRA ROY

S. C. Roy never talked of Anthropology without it being contextualized within India.

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On the issue of charismatic figures, he says:

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A CHRONOLOGY OF RAI BAHADUR SARAT CHANDRA ROY’S LIFE

1896 Headmaster at Mymensingh High School at Dholla. Principal of G.E.L. Mission

1908 His first article on the Mundas appears in Indian World.

1911 Certificate of Honour by Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, in the name of George V,

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1918 Was curator of State Museum at Bankipore, Patna.

1920 Principles and Methods of Physical Anthropology was published based on

1925 The Birhors was published.

1934-35 Caste, Race and Religion in India was published.

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1936 Elected Member of the Permanent Council of Congress International des

1941. Homage paid to him by the Indian Science Congress.

BIRAJA SHANKAR GUHA

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Community Development Programme) working in tribal areas. He also contributed to the

He contributed to the creation of a racial map of India. In order to do this he collected

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DEWAN BAHADUR L. K. ANANTHAKRISHNA AIYAR

He wanted to be a teacher but became a clerk at the Revenue Settlement Office at

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He died on 25 February 1937 in Madras.

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GOVIND SADASHIV GHURYE