6/1/2020 Frontier articles on Society & Politics https://www.frontierweekly.com/views/jun-20/1-6-20-Hindu Anthropology in India.html 1/3 Hindu Anthropology in India: An Exploration Abhijit Guha Any consideraƟon in the contemporary context, of the tradiƟonal Hindu method of tribal absorpƟon is therefore, sheer madness to my mind. In the present context this is simply anachronisƟc. — Niharranjan Ray (1972: 23). I Research on the history of anthropology in India unlike western countries has not yet become a formidable tradiƟon despite the fact that courses on the growth and development of anthropology in India had been recommended at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the Model Curriculum Development Report of the University Grants Commission as early as 2001 (Model Curriculum Development Report in Anthropology 2001). There are of course few published works on the history and the development of anthropology in India, which included L.P. Vidyarthi’s magnum opus enƟtled Rise of Anthropology in India: A Social Science OrientaƟon (Vols. I & II) published in 1978. Vidyarthi’s book contained a lot of useful data on the history of anthropology during the colonial and post-colonial periods but it did not venture into a search for Hindu anthropology in India. II There is a standard criƟque of Indian anthropology advanced by some of the Indian anthropologists. The criƟcs say that Indian anthropology is the product of a colonial tradiƟon and the Indian anthropologists for various reasons followed their colonial masters in one way or the other. As early as 1952, Nirmal Kumar Bose in a significant arƟcle enƟtled ‘Current research projects in Indian anthropology’ published in Man in India enumerated the research projects undertaken by the Department of Anthropology, Govt. of India( the former name of the Anthropological Survey of India) and the anthropology departments at CalcuƩa, Madras, Lucknow, Delhi, GauhaƟ and Osmania universiƟes. Bose’s invesƟgaƟon was exhausƟve and based on wriƩen replies from the Heads of the aforemenƟoned insƟtuƟons. AŌer reviewing the overall scenario, he concluded: There does not seem to be any problem which Indian anthropologists have made peculiarly their own. Anthropology in our country has, on the whole, followed the tracks beaten by anthropologists in the more powerful countries of the West. What they do, we generally try to repeat on the Indian soil (Bose 1952:133). (Italics mine). Bose however, ended with the posiƟve note that there were excepƟons to the above generalisaƟon and if Indian anthropologists could work independently on Indian problems, there was sƟll sign of hope. AŌer 10 years, N.K.Bose published another arƟcle ‘Researches in Indian anthropology’ in the same journal in which he turned the aƩenƟon of the readers from applied to ‘certain fundamental problems in anthropology’ and menƟoned about the researches done by the social anthropologists on the persistence of the caste system. Along with this Bose menƟoned the anthropometric surveys(measurements on human body) carried out by the physical anthropologists at the all-India level as another type of fundamental research and he found young anthropologists at the Anthropological Survey of India as ‘first-class workers’ (Bose 1962:179). AŌer Bose, his famous student Surajit Sinha in his insighƞul arƟcle published in the Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society in 1971 (hereaŌer JIAS) observed that despite considerable growth in research publicaƟons and professional human power in social and cultural anthropology during the last 100 years, the Indian anthropologists largely remained dependent on western and colonial tradiƟons (Sinha 1971: 1-14). In conƟnuaƟon of his perƟnent examinaƟon of the colonial dependence of Indian anthropology, Sinha contributed a full chapter enƟtled ‘India: A Western ApprenƟce’ in a book, Anthropology: Ancestors and Heirs, edited by the Marxist anthropologist Stanley Diamond in 1980 published by Mouton. In the arƟcle Sinha discussed ‘the process of naturalizaƟon of the different strands of Western anthropological tradiƟons’ and finally unlike his teacher N.K.Bose, ended with a pessimisƟc note: For some Ɵme, the proliferaƟon of trained manpower, random efforts at catching up with the latest developments in the West and a general increase in the number of publicaƟons will characterize the development of Indian anthropology (Sinha 1980: 281).(Italics mine). Sinha pursued this criƟque of Indian social science by converging his aƩack on Indian anthropology in the subsequent arƟcles. Taking note of his earlier arƟcle in the JIAS, Sinha in his ‘Foreword’ of the precious book Bibliographies of Eminent Indian Anthropologists (1974) wriƩen by Shyamal Kumar Ray made a remark: …. there was a general reluctance among Indian scholars to take due note of the research publicaƟons of Indian pioneers and contemporaries. As a result, research endeavours of Indian scholars tend to be derivaƟve, leaving the responsibiliƟes of breaking new grounds exclusively to western scholars (Sinha 1974: iii). (Italics mine). Although Sinha praised N.K.Bose and T.C.Das at the individual levels for their insight and ethnography respecƟvely the criƟques advanced by Sinha in his 1967, 1971 and 1980 arƟcles on the overall achievement of Indian anthropology was quite pessimisƟc and distressing. For him, there was hardly any sign of an independent, let alone naƟonalist Indian anthropology. III On the reverse side of the criƟques there also existed a view that an Indian form of Anthropology could be discerned in many ancient Indian texts and scriptures before the advent of a colonial anthropology introduced by the European scholars, administrators and missionaries in the Indian subconƟnent. As early as 1938 Jogendra Chandra Ghosh in his interesƟng arƟcle Hindu Anthropology published in the Anthropological Papers (New series) no. 5 of the University of CalcuƩa tried to show that before 6th Century B.C. the Hindus innovated various measurements on human body and its parts, which in European terms may be called Anthropometry, an important branch of Physical Anthropology. Ghosh began his arƟcle by saying: