Retrospect of 100 Years of Indian Anthropology (1920-2019)

In India anthropology as a discipline was started in 1920 in Calcutta University Anthropology had developed as a distinct discipline of human study and transformed into a unique pattern of understanding because of its field tradition from where one could generate first hand empirical data. It is true that British colonial administration in India was instrumental in introducing anthropogy to India for their own Interest. In the year 1920 S.C.Roy was elected Sectional President of Anthropology and Ethnography Section of the Indian Science Congress Association. The said Presidential address entitled 'Anthropological Research in India' opened new dimensions of anthropological science in India. Moreover, in 1912 Sarat Chandra Roy as the first Indian ethnographer has written on the Mundas of Chotanagpur. With the initiative of and inspiration from S.C.Roy Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, the then Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University introduced anthropology as a full fledged academic discipline in 1920.

In this backdrop we are trying to prepare a treatise to remember the contribution and development of the discipline and it's sub-disciplines for the last 100 years. With this passage of time, various sub-disciplines also have established a strong foot hold in the academic circle as well as have proved to be helpful in understanding the process of national integration and nation building in which Anthropological Survey of India also plays a great role. This is the only discipline through which one can know the social situation empirically from grass-root level. The planners and NGO's can easily formulate any developmental programme on the basis of first-hand information documented by anthropologists. Due to this reason, British Colonial administration in India has encouraged and sponsored anthropological investigation in the country, steered by the officers like Risley, Hutton, Dalton and others, many of whom were the charge of local administration.

Dr. Biman Kumar Dasgupta (Born: 1934) M.Sc. Ph.D. retired from Anthropological Survey of India as Deputy Director. During his tenure in the Anthropological Survey of India, he was involved in about 29 different research projects and authored (or jointly edited) around 40 papers / monographs. His especial interest was North-east India and Central Indian tribal groups. He was the Associate Managing Editor, Asstt. Managing Editor and then Asstt. Editor of the Journal of Indian Anthropological Society for about thirty years. He also visited South Korea under Indo-Korean Cultural Exchange Programme.

Dr. (Mrs.) Samira Dasgupta (Born 1953) a M.Sc., Ph.D (Science) in Anthropology from the University of Calcutta She has specialized in Cultural Anthropology and has noteworthy contributions are on culture ecology, role and status of tribal women in unorganized sector, tribal ethnography, ethno-science, religious belief system, traditional knowledge system among the tribals and cultural tourism etc. deserve for praise in academic arena being a perceptive researcher. She has published 17 (seventeen) books and more than 100 research papers in various reputed journals of the country. She possesses 35 years research experience and carried out intensive field work among various tribal communities and weaker section of Rajasthan, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand. She is a life member of INCAA, Indian Science Congress Association. She was associated with Anthropological Survey of India from 1977 to 2013 and carried out several research projects for ASI where during Xith Plan Period she was involved with the study of Tangible & Intangible Cultural Heritage Traditional Knowledge System: Ethno Medicine. She is also involved as consultant researcher and devoted in generating empirical data from tribal area of Odisha .

Dr. Amitabha Sarkar (Born 1952) is a M.Sc., Ph.D (Science) in Anthropology from the University of Calcutta and Specialized in advanced Social-Cultural Anthropology. His remarkable empirical contribution in anthropological research arena is on Impact of industrialization, tribal ethnography, culture ecology. ethno-science, religious belief system being integrative process and culture change, management of environment with traditional knowledge. He has published about 18(eighteen) books and more than 115 research papers in reputed journals. He possesses 35 years research experience and carried out empirical study among tribal and weaker section of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal. He is the life member of INCAA, Indian Science Congress Association and Indian Anthropological Society. He was associated with Anthropological Survey of India from 1977 to 2012 He is also consultant researcher and involve in generating empirical data from tribal area of Odisha.

The attention of Indian anthropologist have been virtually limited to the Indian social landscape. The Indian scholars have largely seen their society and culture through the English speaking western eyes and have quickly adopted the latest phase of research interest on India among the westerners. Yet, spontaneous sympathetic immersion in their own civilization has made it possible for a few Indian anthropologists to provide some original and incisive concepts in the study of the total structure of Indian civilization. To the extent that the research interests of a nation are circumscribed by its peculiar phase of history, it is unlikely that Indian anthropology will move predominantly in the direction of receiving the external stimuli from a strong home base in the near future (Sinha, 1968, the article prepared for presentation in a conference Sponsored by Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research). Anthropology is the only discipline which has deep interaction with the grass-root of the human being by its empirical study. In order to understand the society the relevance of empirical studies (both microscopic and particularistic) to understand the structure. of society i.e. to know how the different social institution helped a society to exist (Dasgupta, 2007).

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