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A discussion on colonial and post-colonial Anthropology and Adivasis
BABUL ROY
<babul_roy@hotmail.com>
Anthropology in post-colonial India 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 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.
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 ASI’s 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
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. Morgan’s (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
Pensée 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 civilization’…etc. 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
1831-1838, 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
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 1960’s, various terms like ‘primary’, ‘pre-literate’, ‘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 India India India
It is
claimed that Ghurye’s 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 socio-political 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 India
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 state-patronized 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
“After Independence India
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
In 1926, the
American Association of Physical Anthropology and the National Research Council
constituted a committee on the Negro. Aleš 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 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 1940’s 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 1960’s, 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 Thurston’s 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
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 1950’s with the
realization that no Indian population group is homogeneous to be grouped into
any definite race. The People of India
Project has produced a series of
books on India’s 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 communities…Therefore, 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 India
Bhangya
Bhukya’s treatment of colonial and post-colonial anthropology, however, is a
truth other-side. A large section of non-anthropological thinkers and policy
makers in post-independent India
Notes:
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