A discussion on colonial and post-colonial Anthropology and Adivasis

BABUL ROY1 <babul_roy@hotmail.com> Anthropology in post-colonial India unwittingly has received a mistaken tag from the colonial experiences when Anthropology and Ethnological findings were largely used to serve the colonial masters in designing native administration and control. Although down the 20th Century till today Anthropological investigations have matured enough to qualify as a scientific discipline investigating man from all possible angles, colonial stigmas are still pervasive in most popular opinion. And this subject has failed to draw popular attention in academics. This has been reflected in a recent article published in Economic & Political Weekly. Here, a modest attempt has been made to critically analyze some to the main conclusions made in that article. And hope that this attempt would contribute to place Anthropology in its right platform in postcolonial modern India. Bhangya Bhukya in his recent article the mapping of the adivasi social: colonial anthropology and adivasis published in Economic & Political Weekly (September 27, 2008) seems to have tried his historigraphic skills to analyze the development of anthropology in India as a colonial agenda, which, as he claimed, continued to remain the same with distorted and fascist reporting on adivasis. Very well written and eloquently argued to invite attention from even those who are not directly involved with the subject. Unfortunately, however, the author has flopped in his attempt being trapped completely on the wrong side of the road. It seems that the author is not well versed with the vast body of anthropological knowledge and development. Throughout the article, he has picked up issues in bits and pieces to fabricate his

Senior Research Officer (SS), Social Studies Division, Office of General & Census Commissioner, India, Seba Bhawan (1st Floor), R. K. New Delhi 110066. Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are purely have no bearings whatsoever with the authors current official correspondence: <babul_roy@hotmail.com >

the Registrar Puram, Sec.-I, personal, and position. For

2 story of anthropological contribution on what he termed mapping the adivasi social. The article is utterly misleading and mis-representative to the factual situation, and, therefore, is this discussion. Caught on the wrong foot Anthropology as a science of man having distinct conceptual and theoretical orientations, matured over the years, is an independent entity, although dependent upon ethnography/ethnographic documents and other literatures on human type, condition of living, culture and ethnicity compiled by travelers, missionaries, indologists, partially trained and professional anthropologists on which the anthropologists rely upon to formulate their knowledge. Methodologically, it has progressed from early arm-chair-anthropology to intensive field-work-anthropology, while conceptually beginning with exclusive evolutionary concept passed through several theoretical developments like diffusionism, functionalism, structuralism, etc. Anthropology as a field science has gone a further drastic change with the new ethnography approach. The author has failed to recognize the vastness of methodological and conceptual developments that has taken place over the years. His identification of different stages of advancement (e.g. darvanic (taxonomies of race) anthropology or official anthropology, missionary anthropology, romantic anthropology, Hindu nationalist anthropology) of what he called the adivasi anthropology of colonial period unfortunately has no basis, but only imaginary. The very approach of interpretation confounded the situation. The criterion of time and space has been ignored in interpretating the problem, although interpretation set out down the time line from colonial to post-colonial period. Ethnographic account compiled by travelers, missionaries, and indologists in 18th or early 19th century and those written after extensive research by professional anthropologist in 20th century are completely different genera of information. Any historical study of anthropology must not ignore this truth. Otherwise, historigraphic approach based on scanty information picket up in bits and pieces and lump them together to address a field science as vast as anthropology certainly would lead to some dubious conclusions. It is utterly misleading when only some works of one or two persons have been quoted to represent each of the so assumed broad stages of progression, such as Risley and Thurston have been quoted for darvanic anthropology of early period, Haimendorf and Elwin for romantic anthropology of mid period, and Ghurye and Srinivas for Hindu nationalist anthropology of early 20th century.

3 Representing the whole phase of the so called late colonial period anthropology scarcely around the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI) is at all level insufficient. The author gives evidence of his not being fully aware about ASIs full range of research activities. The author also has made some mis-quote, such as Man In India is a journal of ASI. In fact, Man In India is the oldest anthropological journal published from India founded by S. C. Roy in 1921, a date much before ASI constituted. The ASI has its own journal, Journal of ASI. Civilized/ Uncivilized divide In colloquial speech, the term uncivilized signify negative qualities like violent, lawlessness, ill-mannered, brute, uncultured, etc. in opposition to civilized. L. H. Morgans (Ancient Society (1877) comprehensive scheme of human evolution through savagery, barbarism, and civilization likely formalized anthropological use of terms like savage and barbaric, although such uses had been in practice even earlier. Most classic anthropological works bear one of these terms as title (e.g. Primitive Culture by E. B. Tylor, 1871 and Primitive Society by R. H. Lowie, 1920, The Savage Mind by Levi Strauss (originally published as La Pense Sauvage, 1962). Morganian evolutionary scheme, however, did not last long. Use of terms like primitive, savage, barbaric, uncivilized, etc. to refer tribal societies at the bottom of the evolutionary scale gained virtual disapproval following realization that many of the so called primitive tribes have more complex social institution and cultural practices. Tribes untouched by civilization, tribes living outside civilizationetc. are some of the common phrases often found in early ethnographic/ anthropological writings. A question, however, need to be asked that did (all) early ethnographers/ anthropologists use the civilized/ uncivilized dichotomy purely in ethnocentric or negative sense. The artist-traveler George Catlin, who lived for eight years among 48 North American Plains Indian tribes during 18311838, wrote: "All history goes to prove that when first visited by civilized people, the American Indians have been found friendly and hospitable --- from the days of Christopher Columbus to the Lewis and Clark expedition ... And so also have a great many travelers, including myself: Nowhere to my knowledge, have they stolen a six-pence worth of my property, though in their country there are no laws to punish for theft. I have visited 48 different tribes, and feel authorized to say that the North American Indian in his native state is honest, hospitable, faithful, brave... and an honorable and religious human being..." 1

4 The native American Indians to be described as honest, hospitable, faithful, brave, honorable and religious human being would be enough to justify that any reference like exterior to civilization was hardly a racialist comment. European epistemology of the term civilization got changed with the discovery of many oriental cultures of golden height. Uncivilized is now a derogatory. And civilization more appropriately coins to refer literatures, modern arts, skill of writing and reading, modern machineries and technological know-how, etc. After 1960s, various terms like primary, preliterate, small-scale, marginal, etc. gained currency replacing earlier uses of primitive, savage, uncivilized, etc. The Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth in its recent statement condemned the use of terms like stone age and primitive to describe tribal and indigenous peoples alive today.2 While use of the term uncivilized completely has been dropped in modern anthropological writings, distinction of civilization is still used in positive sense. Tribes untouched by civilization, in positive sense, means tribes not yet come with the use of writings, formal literatures, and other modern material and technological developments. Such distinctions certainly have practical relevance in developmental policies. Positive use of the term primitive, such as primitive in technological and material cultural content, has the same practical relevance. Most importantly, however, the civilized/ uncivilized divide perhaps has never been a racialist problem in Indian anthropological writings (by Indians) for not being a practice of European viewing on Orientals, but more of a kind of self-ethnography writing about India by Indians.

Nationalist agenda From the 1920s onwards, as has been argued, young Indian anthropologists began to adopt a nationalist agenda. G. S. Ghurye and M. N. Srinivas reported to have been strongly tempered by the politics of Hindu nationalism. This was the time when the focus of anthropological research began to shift from exclusive tribal studies of cutoff regions to folk and peasant societies. In America, Robert Redfield exclusively represents this school. Redfields Great and Little Tradition and folk and civilization continuum soon become popular as significant methodological approach. Back in India, anthropological research gained interest on studying Hindu castes and civilization. M.N. Bosu, G. S. Ghurye, M. N. Srinivas, S. Sinha, L. P. Vidyarthi and many others devoted their studies on adivasi and Hindu caste interface and Hindu civilization. At the same time, as the road map to Indias freedom from colonial dominion opened up, many started churning

5 ideas of how to integrate different communities into mainstream India. The problem of national integration became an issue of serious debate and discussion among a large section of publics, politicians, and academics. In view of these perspectives, the new found anthropological interest on caste Hindu societies and tribe and caste continuum was developed as a nationalist agenda, as argued, or it was just in response to the usual shifting of anthropological focus from tribe to peasant/folk societies could be an issue of historical debate. It is claimed that Ghuryes nationalism had a strongly Hindu fascist content simply on the basis of some excerpts from his book The Aboriginal So-called And their Future (published in 1944, which later on re-published in 1954 as The Scheduled Tribes of India). Would it be a justified move to label a stalwart as tall as G. S. Ghurye to be motivated by fascist Hindu nationalism simply on the account that Ghurye once labeled adivasis as Hindus? Hindu literally has no cultural boundary; its geographical boundary delineates its cultural frontier. Even though tribes are often believed to be isolated, isolation is only relative. Over 4,000 years history and development of Hindu civilization, no tribe today perhaps remained completely impervious. Many tribal deities are Hindu deities and likewise many Hindu deities are tribal. Universalization and parochialization, as pointed out by McKim-Marriott, are the two ways process of social formation ever operated in India. It would even more a wild blunder to comment that like Ghurye, M. N. Srinivas, also a Brahman, originally formulated a Brahminical model that later on re-shaped it as a more universal model of sanskritization. It has been argued that Srinivas in his sanskritization also had labeled subordinate adivasi communities as Hindus. Srinivas theory of Sanskritisation was dominated by Hindu nationalist ideology is an inapt commentary, particularly when this model has been tested over and again more extensively than any single theory put to test in Indian sociological and anthropological studies. The original theory of sanskritisation, which was in fact a Brahminical model of absorption, later on broadens by Kshatriya model. And the concept of dominant caste that Srinivas himself introduced makes sanskritisation further wider a concept. The author has been only partially correct to say: Although while it is true that many communities tended towards the Hindu model, their demand emerged within the colonial context and within the demographic politics of colonial rule, and it was as much a sociopolitical as a religious one. Truly, sanskritization as an assertive political movement had been a phenomenon of 19th and early 20th century political situation in India. But, sanskritization as a silent process ever operated, and remained one of the chief mechanisms yielding the vast sociological diversity that India now contain.

Isolationists and Assimilationists As has been argued, during the late colonial period, anthropologists and ethnographers became divided into two groups the isolationists and assimilationists. The first group had environmentalist and romantic learning. The second group was more connected with statepatronized research institutions such as the ASI. The author, however, did not clarify his own position. On the one hand while criticizing Ghurye, the author has acknowledged many studies that provided strong evidence that contact had been often devastating for the adivasis, what Ghurye supposedly had ignored in his practice of labeling adivasis as Hindus, on the other hand Haimendorf and Elwin were criticized for their alleged advocacy of isolation policy. The debate on the question whether tribes should be left on their own foot to grow their natural growth or they should be brought into the fold of modern world is as old as anthropology itself. Isolationists and assimilationists never assumed two distinct schools of thoughts. Most anthropologists and policy makers agreed on the mid way between, which also has been adopted as the official adivasi policy in free India. The author has wrongly understood ASI to be assimilationist. The ASI declares a balanced position in its profile, as: After Independence, the need to bring in harmony among the people separated by the clashing interests of ethnic, cultural and religious affiliations and to devise ways and means for the aboriginal and disadvantaged social groups to suitably adjust to the changing conditions in and outside the country, without jeopardizing their ways of life, was the challenging task for India.
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On the issue of Race and Racism Eugenics movement becomes a world-wide phenomenon by the end of 19th Century, particularly in Europe and New World, when theories of selective breeding of Francis Galton gained currency. In several counties this eventually took shape into a violent racialist movement of discrimination, torture, and extermination of so considered inferior races. Throughout the 1st quarter of 20th Century America was a Raciest America. Many professional anthropologists of that time contributed research providing justification to the racialist movement. In 1926, the American Association of Physical Anthropology and the National Research Council constituted a committee on the Negro. Ale Hrdlicka, who founded the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 1918 and was one of the co-founders of the American Association of Physical Anthropology (1929), was appointed member along with

7 anthropologist Earnest Albert Hooton and eugenist Charles Davenport. Ten years later they published their findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology that the Negro race is phylogenetically a closer approach to primitive man than the white race. Hooton who is still famous for his Up From The Apes did more to establish racial stereotypes about black athleticism and black criminality from an anthropological framework. The scenario, however, took a completely divergent direction in 1940s when a host of anthropologists strongly argued against race concept. Ashley Montagu had been the most leading figure joined with Washburn, Hiernaux, Livingstone and others. By 1960s, the modern scientific concept of race has found a shape. Presence of racist statement in early anthropological works conduced in 19th and early 20th Century, as pointed out in Thurstons works, is not of any great significance in present context. The pertinent question to be asked is whether the anthropologist still practices the same. The argument that classifications of race [and language] in colonial census reports, monographs and ethnographic notes pushed adivasis to the bottom of the civilisational ladder is a flaw, when race wise there is no variation between adivasis and caste Hindu population. Neither Aryan is a race, nor Dravidian, nor do any of the Hindu upper castes (e.g. Brahmin) constitute a race, although here and there particularly in early works some scholars possibly being influenced by the then world-wide eugenic movement had made vain exercise to draw similarities of Hindu Upper castes with Caucasians. In India, race has never taken a centerstage of social discrimination. Caste being the main ingredient of social matrix and no caste being racially homogeneous, Indian society never ever got divided on racial line. All the racial elements found in adivasis are also found across Hindu castes. The late colonial anthropology to be represented by ASI and the ASI to be primarily engaged in anthropometric and morphologic studies of dividing human beings is entirely a false statement. At present, anthropometric and morphologic studies of human beings are carried out for a variety of clinical and practical purposes (e.g. health and nutrition studies), while racial classification of human population either completely lost ground or no longer remained a fancy in anthropological investigation. The author has mis-quoted and erroneously mentioned that K. S. Singh recently divided Indian adivasis into four racial stocks Negrito, Proto-Austroloid, Mongoloid and Caucasoid by measuring their head and nasal sizes, as well as calculating genetic study findings in People of India Project. The true fact is that Indian population has long been reported to be having elements/ strains of all these four major racial types. Classification of Indian population into racial types although assumed interest in physical anthropological studies but completely lost ground by 1950s with the realization that no Indian

8 population group is homogeneous to be grouped into any definite race. The People of India Project has produced a series of books on Indias communities, and in the introductory volume (People of India: An Introduction, Vol. I, p.71) it has been clearly stated that: We have today moved away from the study of the racial types not only because of racist implications but also because it does not tally with our existing knowledge of variations of traits among populations within a region. Our physical anthropologists today say that variability of genetical and morphological traits within a community are more than those between communitiesTherefore, we have to rethink the application of racial types to classify castes and other communities of India. In anthropology today, biological race has no connection with social and political construct of racism or any superiority complex constructed around culture, civilization, language, intelligence, or any other faculties of man. No race, as found today, is a true race. All races have experienced several hybridization processes down generations.4 Concluding remarks The dichotomy of adivasi Vs Hindu civilization, one of the central arguments forwarded, is in fact a false dichotomy. Anthropologists never ever had suggested all adivasis to be same by all qualities to be in opposition to the so called civilized Hindus. Neither all adivasis are racially, linguistically, historically, culturally, materially, technologically equal nor all are equally interacting and interdependent with caste-Hindu society. Similarly, there are several different sects, linguistic, cultural and social groups among the Hindus. Anthropological and ethnographic literatures produced over the years contributed in documenting the unparallel social and cultural diversity exist in India. Adivasis created to be a distinct category in anthropological writings in opposition to Hindu caste civilization is authors self creation. On the contrary, the political developments in post-colonial India have contributed in homogenizing adivasis, better known as scheduled tribes, into an identity. Bhangya Bhukyas treatment of colonial and post-colonial anthropology, however, is a truth other-side. A large section of non-anthropological thinkers and policy makers in postindependent India assumed anthropology as a tool of colonial masters out of their sheer misunderstandings. As science is not responsible for its mis-use, anthropology can not be held at ransom as such. Bhangya Bhukya has diligently represented this other truth about

9 anthropology. It will be his solo contribution, if here the truth has been successfully extorted out from the truth. Notes: 1. See at: http://www.barefootsworld.net/lovepeople.html 2. For the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealths statement on the use of 'primitive', see at: http://www.theasa.org/news.htm 3. For Anthropological Survey of Indias web-site, see at: http://www.ansi.gov.in/profile.htm 4. For the American Anthropological Associations statement on race and related issues, see at: http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm & http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/race.htm