Doyens of Indian Anthropology- 1920-2019 (Part-3)

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To know about Man one must go among men. There is no other alternative. Perhaps it is the key contribution anthropology has made to Science. Under this backdrop anthropologists tend to deal with societies on the basis of his close first hand observation and this is one o the important tools to the field through which anthropologists can gather information about other human societies. In India anthropology was introduced by the administrators of British India, who strongly felt that they could only smoothly rule this sub-continent, if they were able to know the diverse cultural attributes of Indian citizens; because in this sub-continent diverse cultural attributes with diverse ethnic boundary are harmoniously living and are well respected.

Anthropological knowledge is very much helpful in administration for good and fruitful governance. _ e present volume is a continuous of earlier two volumes with same title and published in 2019 and 2020 from the same publishing house at Delhi and compilation of some more Indian Anthropologists ( along with least known contemporary) who studied various tribal / ethnic groups / villages / or in a cultural zones during the period 1920-2019and their contributions are / were like ‘drops of water make ocean’, made the discipline a strong praiseworthy foothold which is expected to inspire the present generation for their future journey in anthropology. _ is treatise also dealt with information which is faded memories of anthropological organization at Calcutta during 1920-2019. Lastly, how anthropological Knowledge is helpful in understanding and analyzing a culture of forest based tribe has also been dealt in detail for the benefit of students, Go’s and government officials for execution of any developmental plan in those areas.

This book will not only helpful for the students and faculty members of various institutions but also it will give light to present administrators of various States of our country for understanding the society through anthropological knowledge for better execution of developmental work under their control.

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 20 (twenty) books and more than 175 research papers in reputed journals including contribution in People of India: Bihar Volume and number of edited books. 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, SIMA (Society for Indian Medical Anthropology), 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.(Contact:AG-44. Salt lake, Sector-2, Kolkata-700091).

To know about Man one must go among men. There is no other alternative. Perhaps it is the key contribution anthropology has made to science. Under this backdrop anthropologists tend to deal with societies on the basis of his close first hand observation and this is one of the important tools to the field through which anthropologists can gather information about other human societies. Indian anthropology especially social anthropology is basically an image of British social anthropology. In India anthropology was introduced by the administrators of British India, who strongly felt that they could only smoothly rule this sub-continent, if they were able to know the diverse cultural attributes of Indian citizens; because in this sub-continent diverse cultural attributes with diverse ethnic boundary are harmoniously living and are well respected.

A cursory look at the available literature on social anthropology makes it obvious that social anthropology studies the primitive peoples; however, the traditional social anthropologists have, theoretically as well as principally, argued that social anthropology goes beyond the study of primitives and also studies the contemporary societies In this regard Evans-Pritchard (1964, Reprinted) observation was "while social anthropologists consider that their subject embraces all human cultures and societies, including our own, they have......for the most part given their attention to those of primitive peoples".

Anthropological knowledge is very much helpful in administration for good and fruitful governance. The present volume is a continuous of earlier two volumes with same title and published in 2019 and 2020 from the same publishing house at Delhi and compilation of some more Indian Anthropologists (along with least known contemporary) who studied various tribal/ethnic groups/villages/ or in a cultural zones during the period 1920 2019 and their contributions are / were like 'drops of water make ocean', made the discipline a strong praiseworthy foothold which is expected to inspire the present generation for their future journey in anthropology.

Being a Part-3 of the same title, this volume also tried to focus some more Indian scholars including least known as well as contemporary scholars of anthropology and their contributions in the discipline which helped us for further progress and open the new dimensions of anthropology for research work. In all such cases their contributions in anthropology were only possible because of their intensive field work in respective field areas. The contributions of Doyens of Indian Anthropologists (1920-2019) [along with contemporary least known anthropologists] discussed in this treatise are chronologically arranged as per their year of birth.

Anthropology never attained its present status all on a sudden. It has been enriched by the ideas which are the products of experience of life long trial and error method. The knowledge of different communities was given by voyagers and travelers on the customs of people attracted the attention of educated men in Europe. The travelling was facilitated due to the invention of steam engine and steam ship which happened at the period of Industrial revolution of Western Europe and the impetus for such revolution came from the renaissance.

In the seventeenth-eighteenth century anthropology first came into existence. Darwin's theory of evolution played a great role for the formation of anthropology. The impact of Darwin's theory of evolution brought a revolutionary thought process at that time. With the idea of evolution some social reformers of that time thought that there were some simple societies (which were described in travelers account) from where the complex society developed through many successive stages; the society developed from simple (which were found among primitive, savage people etc.) to complex (man is not the creation of God). Man is evolved through evolution. It is also sure that before entering these developed complex society there were some simple societies and certainly those were the primitives. In this way anthropology came into existence.

Now, it is a question before us that, how the idea of Darwinian theory of evolution emerges?

In the 13-15th century there occurred 'Renaissance'. The cause of renaissance was that after the destruction of important sites of learning by the foreign invaders many scholars, learned social reformers and scientists took shelter in neighbouring country like Italy. They sowed the seed of renaissance which ultimately turned the societies into new prosperous life and Darwin got impetus from this revolution.

**Contents and Sample Pages**