Tarak Chandra Das (1898–1964) was an anthropologist of Calcutta University. He did his Masters' from Calcutta University in ‘Ancient Indian History and Culture’ and joined the then newly founded Department of Anthropology at Calcutta University (the first Department of Anthropology in India) [1] in 1921 as a research scholar and then he became lecturer in 1923 and finally retired as a Reader from the Department in 1963. Das conducted extensive fieldworks in Chotanagpur in the then Bihar and in Assam. [2] [3]
Das was interested in the application of anthropology. In 1941, he delivered the Sectional Presidential address in the Anthropology Section of the Indian Science Congress on the ‘Cultural Anthropology in the Service of the Individual and the Nation’. [4] In the address, Das elaborately charted out the future path of Indian anthropology with a description of the social dynamics of the tribal and peasant societies in India in the context of the role of anthropologists in nation building. [5] Two books written by T.C. Das bears testimony of his observation and collection of data through anthropological fieldwork. [6] One is his monograph on the Purum Kuki tribe of north-eastern India. and the other is on the Great Bengal Famine during the Second World War.[Bengal famine (1943):As revealed in a survey of the destitutes of Calcutta, 1949]. [2] Both the books were published by the University of Calcutta. [1] Northeast India provided windows for Das in his applied anthropological approach towards nation building. [7]
The Purum monograph was one of the most comprehensive works produced by an 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. [8] [9] The book on the famine of Bengal which took place in 1943 was a unique and rare first-hand study done by any anthropologist or social scientist on the victims of one of the greatest tragedies of India under the colonial rule. [10] 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. The Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen cited Das’s original work in his famous book Poverty and Famines. [11] [12] [13] [14] Throughout the book, one finds description by Das wherein dry quantitative data, graphs and tables were made alive with human stories of grim struggles between hunger and finer sentiments of love, affection and kindness’ [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] Das had conducted intensive fieldwork among three tribes in eastern India, viz. Ho, Kharia and Bhumij during 1927–31 and had shown how these tribes maintained their sociocultural identities. [21] Apart from his success as an ethnographer, Das was also an armchair anthropologist. His studies on culture around fish in Bengal, museums and dowry restriction law provided examples of his keen interest in dealing with archival materials and written texts in social anthropological and sociological studies. [22]
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis OBE, FNA, FASc, FRS was an Indian scientist and statistician. He is best remembered for the Mahalanobis distance, a statistical measure, and for being one of the members of the first Planning Commission of free India. He made pioneering studies in anthropometry in India. He founded the Indian Statistical Institute, and contributed to the design of large-scale sample surveys. For his contributions, Mahalanobis has been considered the Father of statistics in India.
History of anthropology in this article refers primarily to the 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. The term anthropology itself, innovated as a Neo-Latin scientific word during the Renaissance, has always meant "the study of man". The topics to be included and the terminology have varied historically. At present they are more elaborate than they were during the development of anthropology. For a presentation of modern social and cultural anthropology as they have developed in Britain, France, and North America since approximately 1900, see the relevant sections under Anthropology.
Bengali Brahmos are those who adhere to Brahmoism, the philosophy of Brahmo Samaj which was founded by Raja Rammohan Roy. A recent publication describes the disproportionate influence of Brahmos on India's development post-19th Century as unparalleled in recent times.
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Vidyasagar University was established by an Act of the West Bengal legislature which was notified in the Calcutta Gazette on 24 June 1981. It is an affiliating university in Paschim Medinipur district of southern West Bengal, India. It offers courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels.
Das is a common last name in South Asia, among adherents of Hinduism and Sikhism, as well as those who converted to Islam or Christianity. It is a derived from the Sanskrit word Dasa meaning servant, devotee, or votary. "Das" may be inferred to be one who has surrendered to God. The surname is often used by those in the Vaishnav community.
Taraknath Das was an Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. He was a pioneering immigrant in the west coast of North America and discussed his plans with Tolstoy, while organising the Asian Indian immigrants in favour of the Indian independence movement. He was a professor of political science at Columbia University and a visiting faculty in several other universities.
Mahishya, also spelled Mahisya, is a Bengali Hindu traditionally agrarian caste, and formed the largest caste in undivided Bengal. Mahisyas were, and are, extremely diverse Bengali caste counting among themselves all possible classes in terms of material conditions and ranks.
Biraja Sankar Guha was an Indian physical anthropologist, who classified Indian people into races around the early part of the 20th century and he was also a pioneer to popularize his scientific ideas in the vernacular. He was the first Director of the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI) (1945–1954).
Surajit Chandra Sinha was an Indian anthropologist.
Dr. Panchanan Mitra was the professor of anthropology in India succeeded by Sarat Chandra Mitra(1863-1938) and B.S.Guha(1894-1961). He was among the first Indians to study at Yale University and conducted several anthropological expeditions in India and abroad. He was the head of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Calcutta and is most known for his works Prehistoric India (1923), History of Ameri-can Anthropology (1930) and Indo-Poly-nesian Memories (1933). He was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and today the Asiatic Society awards an annual 'Panchanan Mitra Memorial Lectureship' for outstanding contributions to anthropology.
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Kumar Suresh Singh (1935–2006) commonly known as K. S. Singh, was an Indian Administrative Service officer, who served as a Commissioner of Chhotanagpur (1978–80) and Director-General of the Anthropological Survey of India. He is known principally for his oversight and editorship of the People of India survey and for his studies of tribal history.
Nirmal Kumar Bose was a leading Indian anthropologist, who played a formative role in "building an Indian Tradition in Anthropology". A humanist scholar with a broad range of interests, he was also a leading sociologist, urbanist, Gandhian, and educationist. Also active in the Indian freedom struggle with Mahatma Gandhi, he was imprisoned in 1931 during the Salt Satyagraha.
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Sarat Chandra Roy was an Indian scholar of anthropology. He is sometimes regarded as the 'father of Indian ethnography', the 'first Indian ethnographer', and as the 'first Indian anthropologist'.
Dr Phulrenu Guha was an Indian activist, educationist and politician, belonging to the Indian National Congress. She was a member of the Rajya Sabha the Upper house of Indian Parliament from April 1964 to April 1970 from West Bengal. She was the Minister for Social Welfare in the Indira Gandhi Ministry from 1967 to 1969. She was elected to the Lok Sabha the Lower house of Indian Parliament from Contai constituency, West Bengal in 1984. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1977.
Anil Kumar Gain FRSS FCPS was an Indian mathematician and statistician best known for his works on the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient in the field of applied statistics, with his colleague Ronald Fisher. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Henry Ellis Daniels, who was the then President of the Royal Statistical Society. He was honoured as a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
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