Tarak Chandra Das: The worst sufferer of academic amnesia in Indian Anthropology

by

Prof. Abhijit Guha

Amnesia

The celebrated sociologist and social anthropologist André Béteille in one of his articles published in the Sociological Bulletin in 1997 wrote:

In India, each generation of sociologists seems eager to start its work on a clean slate, with little or no attention to the work done before. This amnesia about the work of their predecessors is no less distinctive of Indian sociologists than their failure to innovate (Béteille 1997:98).

 

Béteille’s observation on Indian sociologists however, was not novel. About twenty five years before his pronouncement a doyen of Indian anthropology, Surajit Sinha in his insightful article published in the Journal of the Indian anthropological Society (hereafter JIAS) observed that despite considerable growth in

research publications and professional manpower in social and cultural anthropology during the last 100 years the Indian anthropologists largely remained dependent on western and colonial traditions (Sinha: 1971: 1-14). In continuation of his pertinent examination of the colonial dependence of Indian anthropology, Sinha contributed a full chapter entitled “India: A Western apprentice” in a book Anthropology: Ancestors and Heirs edited by Stanley Diamond in 1980 published by Mouton. In that article Sinha discussed ‘the process of naturalization of

the different strands of Western anthropological traditions’ and finally ended with a pessimistic note:

 

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 (Sinha 1980: 281).

 

Taking note of his earlier article in the JIAS, Sinha in his ‘‘Foreword’’ the precious book Bibliographies of Eminent Indian Anthropologists (1974) written by Shyamal Kumar Ray, made a remark which foretold André Béteille’s statements of 1997 in the Sociological Bulletin.

I quote Sinha:

 

…. there was a general reluctance among Indian scholars to take due note of the research publications of of Indian pioneers and contemporaries. As a result, research endeavours of Indian scholars tend to be derivative, leaving the responsibilities of breaking new grounds exclusively to western scholars (Sinha 1974: iii).

 

Nothing is truer than the oblivious behaviour of the Indian anthropologists towards T.C.Das. Béteille in his articles ‘Newness in Sociological Enquiry’ (Béteille 1997:97-110) published in Sociological Bulletin and ‘Teaching and research’ in Seminar in 2000 (Béteille 2000: 20-23), however, did not mention about his initial experiences of learning Anthropology in the hands of the pioneering generation anthropologists in India, including T.C.Das at Calcutta University in the beginning of his professional career (Guha 2011:245-265). In fact, T.C. Das’ two articles published in the Sociological Bulletin more than three decades before Béteille’s article in the same journal, dealt with unconventional and new topics of sociological research even by today’s standards. In one article, Das described and analysed his empirical findings on the impact of industrialization on the Hindu and Muslim populations in nine villages in the vicinity of Calcutta city (Das 1960:46-59). The other paper was on the nature and extent of social change among the tribals of eastern India (Das 1962: 221-238). More interestingly, in a recent book, entitled ‘Anthropology in the East’ the editors quoted Béteille’s sentence published in the Sociological Bulletin article as the epigraph of their densely written 63 pages ‘Introduction’

does not contain any article or book authored by T.C.Das in the long bibliography (Uberoi, Sundar & Deshpande 2007:1-63). The book contains the biographies of 12 ‘Founder Figures of Indian Sociology and Social Anthropology’ wherein the name of T.C.Das does not find a place. The two anthropologists who were contemporary to Das and whose biographies have been included in the monograph are Nirmal Kumar Bose and Irawati Karve (Ibid). Much more revealing are the two Directories of Indian Anthropologists, one compiled and edited by Dr.Sachin Roy and published in 1970 from the Indian Anthropological Association and the other edited by A.Basu, M.P.Basu and A.K.Adhikary in 1981 published by the Anthropological Survey of India. In none of the Directories the name of T.C.Das appeared (Roy 1970; Basu, et.al.1981). The Directory entitled ‘Anthropologists in India’ edited by Dr.Sachin Roy contains the names of Nirmal Kumar Bose, Irawati Karve and D.N. Majumdar in pages 11-12, 29-30 and 33 respectively. The other book, the ‘Directory of Anthropologists’ edited by Basu, et.al. contained profiles of 552 anthropologists of India, was prepared on the basis of the responses of the individual scholars to the mailed questionnaires sent by the editors during 1978. So, this Directory had no scope to include the name of T.C. Das who died in the year 1964. The Sachin Roy book contains a ‘Foreword’ by Professor L.P.Vidyarthi who was the President of the Indian Anthropological Association and later wrote a comprehensive history of Indian Anthropology in two volumes to which we will come shortly. In his Foreword, Vidyarthi gave an outline of the history of Anthropology in India and focused the contributions of Indian and foreign scholars towards the development of the discipline. In the second section of his long Foreword (about 12 pages) Vidyarthi mentioned:

 

Anthropology in India definitely witnessed a phenomenal growth when it was recognised in the University curriculum of Calcutta University in 1921.It provided initial stimulation to organize anthropological researches on a more scientific level by conducting field expeditions, writing books and articles and by training researchers for undertaking anthropological researches of various types (Vidyarthi 1970: vi).

 

But nowhere in his Foreword Vidyarthi mentioned the original and pioneering monographs on Purum Kukis and Bengal Famine written by T.C.Das, although he cited the works of Nirmal Kumar Bose, K.P. Chattyopadhya, D.N.Majumdar, Verrier Elwin and C.Von Furer- Haimendorf as important personalities towards the making of Indian Anthropology during its constructive period (1921-1948) (Vidyarthi 1970: vi-viii). L.P.Vidyarthi’s magnum opus Rise of Anthropology in India (1978) includes descriptions of the works of T.C. Das especially in

volume I; the Vol. II of the book has a full chapter (chapter VII) on the biographical ‘Profiles of Indian Anthropologists’ along with the life-sketches and chronological list of publications ofeleven eminent anthropologists of India, including K.P. Chattopadhyay, N.K.Bose, D.N.

Majumdar, Irawati Karve and others but not T.C.Das (Vidyarthi 1978: 308-369).

 

The recently published Routledge Dictionary of Anthropologists by a French scholar Gerald Gaillard( first published in 1997 in French and translated in English in 2004) in the subsection named India under the chapter Asia mentioned the name of T.C.Das only in passing to narrate the formation of the first Anthropology Department in India at Calcutta University in 1921(Gaillard 2004:272). The nearly 7 page entry on India in the Routledge Dictionary contains short life-sketches and works of 12 eminent Indian anthropologists following the style of the much earlier book by Shyamal Kumar Ray on the eminent Indian anthropologists (this book has also been mentioned in the reference section of the Dictionary) which includes B.S. Guha, K.P. Chattopadhyay, N.K.Bose, D.N. Majumdar, and Irawati Karve and alas, not T.C.Das (Ibid 2004:274:277).

One comprehensive available account of the list of publications of T.C. Das including a short life-sketch was prepared not by an anthropologist or a sociologist but by the Reference Librarian in the Central Library of the Anthropological Survey of India, Shyamal Kumar Ray, in his invaluable book Bibliographies of Eminent Indian Anthropologists (with Life-Sketches) published by the Anthropological Survey of India in July, 1974. The volume contains the list of publications and short life-sketches of 12 eminent Indian anthropologists including Tarak Chandra Das (Ray 1974: 56-60). It begins with L.K. Ananthakrishna Iyer (1861-1937) and S.S. Sarkar(1908-1969) is the last anthropologist covering a span of more than one hundred years if we take the year of birth of Iyer and the year of death of Sarkar at the two ends of the continuum. T.C. Das falls somewhere in the middle of the continuum.

  

Tarak Chandra Das: A Brief Sketch

T.C. Das earned his M.A. degree from Calcutta University in ‘Ancient Indian History and Culture’ and joined the newly founded Department of Anthropology at Calcutta University in 1921 as a research scholar and then he became a lecturer in 1923 and finally retired from the rank of Reader in the Department in 1963. Das conducted extensive field works in Chotanagpur in the then Bihar and in Assam. He also conducted field works to assess the impact of industrialization in Birlapur in West Bengal, wrote thought provoking articles containing anthropological and sociological analyses on Bengal dowry restriction bill of 1940 and Hindu code bill in the years 1940 and 1944 along with articles on the practical suggestions for the improvement of museums in India and an empirical article on the fish-gorge in Bengal in the prestigious journals like Modern Review, Calcutta Review and Ethnos. He was very much interested in the application of Anthropology and had a great reputation as a teacher and trainer in field methods.

The two valuable books written by T C Das bears testimony of his meticulous observation and collection of data through field work. One was his monograph The Purums: an Old Kuki Tribe of Manipur (1945) and the other was Bengal Famine (1949). The Purum monograph was one of the most comprehensive works produced by any anthropologist on the life of a small tribe and it became a major source of data for a number of world renowned social anthropologists of Great Britain and USA in later years. Unfortunately, both the foreign and the Indian anthropologists concentrated more on the academic aspects of Das’ Purum study leaving aside its applied dimensions which was emphasized by him in the concluding chapter of the book (Das 1945: 271- 295). The book on the famine of Bengal which took place in 1943 was a unique and rare firsthand study done by any anthropologist or social scientist on the victims of one of the greatest tragedies of the country under the colonial rule. An earlier version of the book was discussed in the then British Parliament and some of the recommendations advanced by Das were adopted by the Famine Inquiry Commission in 1944 formed by the colonial government for the prevention of future famines in India (Das 1949: iii-iv).

The cover page of Bengal Famine

Turning Point

The year 1941 can be regarded as a major turning point in the academic career of T. C. Das. In 1941, he delivered the presidential address of the Indian Science Congress. The lecture was a 28 page full-length paper entitled ‘Cultural Anthropology in the Service of the Individual and the Nation’. This paper can be regarded as one of the pioneering articles on applied anthropology in India, although neither L.P. Vidyarthi nor Surajit Sinha mentioned about this significant article in their works on the application of anthropology in the Indian context (Sinha 1969; 1971 & 1980 and Vidyarthi 1978). In an earlier article ‘Urgent problems for research in social and cultural anthropology in India: perspective and suggestions’, in a book titled Urgent Research in Social Anthropology, published by the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in 1969, Surajit Sinha seemed to have fully engrossed himself with the contributions of his famous teacher Nirmal Kumar Bose whose five articles were mentioned by him as regards urgent research in social anthropology in India (Sinha 1969:162-169). B.K.Roy Burman, another well known Indian anthropologist, who did his Ph.D. under the supervision of T.C. Das, also remained oblivious about the former’s ideas about making the tribal communities economically self-sufficient (Roy Burman 1969:118-124). T. C. Das’ pioneering Science Congress Address dealing with the urgent problems of the Indian populations could not attract his two most successful pupils--- Sinha and Roy Burman. In the address Das elaborately charted out the future path of Indian anthropology with a rich description of the social dynamics of the tribal and peasant societies in India in the context of the role of anthropologists in nation building.

We would now turn our attention to the lecture of T.C. Das. In this lecture Das’s major objective was to convince his readers about the immense potential of social-cultural anthropology as applied science for the overall development of the Indian population. In the five subsections of the lecture, Das dealt with the application of anthropology in almost all the important sectors of a modern nation, viz. trade, industry, agriculture, legislation, education, social service and administration. With the help of concrete empirical findings either from his own field experiences or from the ethnographic accounts of world renowned social anthropologists(e.g. Lucy Mair, Felix Keesing, Issac Schepera, H.I. Hogbin, B. Malinowski) Das justified the inclusion of anthropologists in policy making bodies and application of anthropological knowledge in every sphere of nation building (Das 1941: 1-29). In order to substantiate his arguments, Das had used rather unconventional sources of data, like Mahatma Gandhi’s 1937 article published in Harijan about the adverse effects of the methods adopted by the Christian missionaries to convert the economically poorer classes of the Hindu population in different parts of India(Ibid : 17-23).

One of the most vital sections in the Presidential Address of Das was on the role of anthropologists in building up a proper type of educational system suitable for the real needs of a particular community in the Indian context. The great anthropologist had the courage to write

strong words regarding the colossal wastage of public money by the then colonial government for the establishment of schools among the tribal people. Let us hear in his words:

 

Education is perhaps rightly claimed as the panacea of all evils that befall mankind. But people differ in its definition, and naturally it has different types. There is one kind of education which uplifts the individual morally and intellectually and makes him fit for the struggle for existence. There is another kind of education which is intended for the exploitation of the so-called educated. There is a third type of education which the enthusiasts in their zeal for ameliorating the condition of the poor and the ill-fated impose upon them without considering their necessity or capacity. We have neither time nor inclination to discuss this point here but suffice it to say that much labour and more public money have been squandered and are still being squandered in imparting education which does neither suit the people nor help them to put a morsel of food into their mouth ( Ibid 1941: 13-14).

 Had he stopped here the above words would at best been regarded as a fine piece of journalistic remark on our educational system. But Das then narrated from hid own rich field experiences in Manipur valley of North eastern India about the adverse social impact of the establishment of a network of primary schools and a few high English schools. I quote Das again:

The two schools I saw used to teach their students how to read and write Methei besides a little arithmetic, which they managed to forget within a few months after their departure from the school. …… it is difficult to understand how high school education will help Manipuri agriculture or textile industry. The employments at the disposal of the State are very limited and the students who pass out of these schools every year will increase the number of unemployed as they no longer think of going back to their fields. During the first few years they will be idolized

by the community but this will soon pass away when they will be looked upon as parasites and it is not impossible that they will be a source of trouble to the State(Ibid 1941:15-16).

Consider this insightful observation of Das in connection with the active participation of the English educated youth in the ethnic and secessionist movements that developed in this region of India after the Independence. Das strongly advocated that in this type of situations the advice of the experienced and trained anthropologists is required in the Herculean task of educating the tribal and other underprivileged communities in a diverse country like India.

Conclusion

I would end my discussion on the Presidential Address with three observations.

First, Das probably was the first Indian anthropologist to advocate the indispensable role of social-cultural anthropology in nation building by combining micro-level field observations within a macro framework which is still lacking among the majority of Indian anthropologists. We have a lot to learn from Das even today (Guha 2012: 40-46).

Second, it is true that Das in his endeavour to apply anthropological knowledge to solve practical problems largely adopted a functional view of culture the followers of which believed that society behaves more or less like a biological organism.

Third, N.K. Bose’s paper entitled ‘Hindu Method of Tribal Absorption’ was presented as a lecture in the same Science Congress of 1941 in which T.C. Das delivered the Sectional Presidential Address. Bose’s lecture was later published in the journal Science and Culture and in course of time, became famous in Indian Anthropology while Das’ lecture dealing with the role of anthropology in solving the burning and practical problems of nation building went into oblivion among the anthropologists in India.

TC Das as a president of Anthropology section

Bibliograhy

Basu, A., Basu, M.P., Adhikary, A.K. (1981).Directory of Anthropologists in India. Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India, Calcutta.

Béteille, A. (1997). ‘Newness in Sociological Enquiry’ Vol. 46(1): 97-110.

Béteille, A. (2000). ‘Teaching and research’. Seminar. (Nov.), 495:20-23.

Das, T.C. (1941). ‘Cultural Anthropology in the Service of the Individual and the Nation’.PP.1-29. Presidential Address delivered in the Section of Anthropology in the Twenty-eighth Indian Science Congress. Benares.

Das, T C (1945). The Purums : An Old Kuki Tribe of Manipur. Calcutta University. Calcutta.

Das, T C (1949). Bengal Famine (1943): as revealed in a survey of the destitutes of Calcutta. Calcutta University. Calcutta.

Das, T.C. (1960). ‘Method and approach in a survey on the impact of factory-employment on the life of the workers’. Sociological Bulletin. 9:1, 46-59.

Das, T.C. (1962). ‘Nature and extent of social change in tribal society of eastern India.’ Sociological Bulletin.( 11: 112),221-238.

Gaillard, G. (2004) Routledge Dictionary of Anthropologists. Routledge. London.

Guha, A. (2011). ‘Tarak Chandra Das: A Marginalised Anthropologist’. Sociological Bulletin, 60(2):245-265.

Guha, A. (2012) ‘Tarak Chandra Das (1898-1964): A Forgotten Anthropologist”, Science and Culture. 78(1-2): 40-46.

Ray, S.K. (1974). Bibliographies of Eminent Indian Anthropologists (WITH LIFE-SKETCHES). Anthropological Survey of India. Government of India & Indian Museum: Calcutta. (Please see Chapter 7 entitled Tarak Chandra Das, pp. 56-60).

Roy, S. (1970). Anthropologists in India (Short Biography, Bibliography and Current Projects) Indian Anthropological Association. New Delhi.

Sinha, S. (1971).’Is there an Indian tradition in social/cultural anthropology: retrospect and prospect’? J.Indian anthrop. Soc. 6:1-14.

Sinha, S. (1974). “Foreword”. In Bibliographies of Eminent Indian Anthropologists (WITH LIFESKETCHES).  Shyamal Kumar Ray. Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India, Museum, Calcutta.

Sinha, S. (1980). “India: A Western apprentice”. In Anthropology: Ancestors and Heirs. Ed. Stanley Diamond. The Hague: Mouton.

Uberoi, P., N. Sundar, & S. Deshpande(2007). ‘Introduction: The Professionalisation of Indian Anthropology and Sociology—People, Places and Institutions’, P. Uberoi, N. Sundar & S. Deshpande (ed.), Anthropology in the East: Founders of Indian Sociology and Anthropology Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007,pp. 1-63.

Vidyarthi, L.P. (1978). Rise of Anthropology in India: A Social Science Orientation, vols. I & II. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.

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