Reading Man in India, Tracing Anthropological Narratives

Abstract

Through a reading of the journal between 1921 and 1942, this paper will explore selected articles written by ethnographers and anthropologists on a variety of themes: gods and spirits, marriage and ritual practices, forms of livelihood, missions and missionaries, migration patterns, anthropometric measurements, depopulation, and so on. An examination of these articles will reveal the ways in which ‘aboriginal tribes’ in the ‘Chota Nagpur Plateau’ and Central India, and those in the ‘Naga Hills’, ‘Khasi Hills’ and Assam, were depicted. On what basis were similarities and differences between communities drawn? How far were anthropologists and ethnographers working in these different regions in dialogue with one another? What brought divergent discussions on different communities within the scope of an unusual journal devoted solely to anthropology? Further, how did representations of communities in Man in India change as the discipline of anthropology evolved in Europe, America and India,? This paper will explore these issues, keeping in mind how anthropology shaped future imaginings of communities, geographies, and the politics of scheduling in the Indian constitution.