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Sir AsutoshMukhopadhaya, the then vice-chancellor of Calcutta University invited L.K.
AnanthakrishnaIyer and R.P. Chanda to take the charge of the newly opened
Shrichakradhar.com
department of anthropology. As an academic discipline anthropology got its foothold in
India.
Iyer had in his credit the ethnography of Travancore and Cochin (Kerala). He became
the first Head in the Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University. There were also
other professional anthropologists who received their academic training in the discipline
from abroad. Among the first generation of the anthropologists in the University of
Calcutta we find N.K. Bose, D.N. Majumdar, B.S. Guha, P.C. Biswas, T.C. Das, S.S.
Sarkar, Dharani Sen and Andre Beteille who made their names in the anthropological
world.
Department of anthropology in the Universities of Delhi, Lucknow and Guwahati were
built up in 1947, 1950 and 1952 respectively Thereafter, a series of Universities namely
Saugarh, Madras, Pune, Ranchi, Dibmgarh, Utkal, Ravi Shankar, Karnataka, North
Bengal, North-East Hills, etc. started to include the wing of anthropology in their
academic setup. But it is a matter of disgrace that although India advanced highly in the
researches of anthropology, the academic circle did not flourish with the same pace. The
number of Universities that teach this subject is relatively insignificant in comparison to
the number of the total universities in India.
The year 1938 stood as a landmark because a joint session of the Indian Science
Congress Association and the British Association was held where eminent
anthropologists from abroad discussed their plans for future anthropological researches
in India. 9958947060
Moreover, this was the period when some Indian anthropologists presented very
remarkable outstanding work. D.N. Majumdar conducted a number of racial or ethnic
surveys in Bengal, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. He made notable contribution both in
physical and social anthropology K.P. Chattopadhay’s attention was on kinship. T C
Das’s work on PurumKukis was internationally appreciated. Srinivas’s publication on
marriage and family in Mysore also achieved a great fame.
N.K. Bose was interested in the temple-art and architecture. So, he had conducted some
excavations on prehistoric sites in Orissa. Besides, his ideas on caste dynamics as that
reflected in the article ‘Hindu Methods of Tribal Absorption’ stood un-parallel in Indian
anthropological literature. IravatiKarve contributed both in socio-cultural anthropology
and prehistory. Writings of these scholars brought anthropology to the attention of
public, extending beyond the circle of professional anthropology.
In 1945, a full-fledged research institution, the ‘Anthropological Survey of India’ was
established by the effort of B S Guha. Dr. Guha was an Indian anthropologist who
received his professional training from the University of Harvard. In 1924 he joined the
Zoological Survey of India as an anthropologist but felt the need of a separate
department for anthropology under the Government of India He conducted

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