Aborigines of Chhota Nagpur and the father of Indian Ethnogarphy, Sarat Chandra Roy

Aborigines of Chhota Nagpur and the father of Indian Ethnogarphy, Sarat Chandra Roy
Palash Biswas

I am very happy to translate a very important document on Aborigines of Chhota Nagpur written by Late Sarat Chandra Roy,the Father of Indian Ethnography.

It is very important to know the Ethno History of Segregation of tribal India and the impact of Pune pact which deprived the tribal people of minority rights and enclosed them into excluded or semi excluded areas to subject them to eternal ethnic cleansing and the war waged against the tribes by Indian State never to end.

The Document exposed the impact and implications of Pune pact,the basis of Political reserevation which also divided the Bahujan Samaj namely the segregated tribal people and depressed classes.

Since Pune pact was signed after enactment of Government of India Act,1919 enactment rest of India never did understand Tribal identity,culture,society and psyche which undermined the landed rights of the people on Jal Jangal Jameen.

It is the basic and fundamental root of the great Indian Agrarian crisis crisis and the unabated genocide culture against humanity and nature.

It was very tough to translate because I had to look for exact meaning of ethnic and legal terms in reference to the historical background and colonial governance.I tried my best to avoid Tatsam Hindi to communicate with the Adivasi Bhugol.

I hope ,every one would care to read this very sensitive document in Hindi once published.

At the same time, we have to know Late Sarat Chandra Roy,born in Khulna in east Bengal, who worked for the emancipation and development of tribal India and died in Ranchi.

Sarat Chandra Roy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sarat Chandra Roy

Born 1871

Karapara, Khulna district, East Bengal, British India

Died 1942

Ranchi, Bihar, British india

Nationality Indian

Other names S.C. Roy

Occupation Lawyer, ethnographer, cultural anthropologist, lecturer, reader

Known for Ethnography

Sarat Chandra Roy (1871–1942) was a Bengali speaking Indian scholar of anthropology. He is widely regarded as the father of Indian ethnography, the first Indian ethnographer, and as the first Indian anthropologist.[1]

Contents [hide]

1 Early life

2 Career in anthropology

3 Works

3.1 Books and monographs

3.2 Journal contributions

4 Recognition

5 See also

6 References

Early life[edit]

Born in November 4, 1871 to Purna Chandra Roy, a member of the Bengal Judicial Service, in a village in Khulna district (now in Bangladesh), young Sarat came in contact with tribal people after his father was posted in Purulia. After his father's death in 1885, he was educated at his maternal uncle's home in Calcutta. In 1892, he graduated in English literature from the General Assembly's Institution (now Scottish Church College). He earned a postgraduate degree in English from the same institution, and subsequently studied law at the Ripon College (now Surendranath College). He had worked for some time as a headmaster at the Mymensingh High School, and later as a principal at the GEL Mission High School in Ranchi. In Ranchi, he became aware of the plight of the tribals. He left teaching and started practicing as a lawyer and became a pleader in the district court in the 24 Parganas in Calcutta in 1897. A year later he moved to Ranchi, where he practiced at the court of the judicial commissioner in Ranchi.[2]

Career in anthropology[edit]

His interest into the plight of the "tribal" people developed in the course of his visits as a lawyer, in the interior areas of the Chota Nagpur Division. He was deeply moved by the plight of the Munda, Oraon and other tribal groups, who were subjected to the continued oppression by an apathetic colonial administration, and by a general contempt towards them in courts of law, as "upper-caste" Hindu lawyers had little knowledge of their customs, religions, customary laws and languages. Keeping all this in perspective, he decided to spend years and decades among tribal folks to study their languages, conduct ethnography, and interpret their customs, practices, religion and laws for the benefit of humanity, and also for the established system of colonial civil jurisprudence. In so doing, he wrote pioneering monographs, that would set the ground for broader understanding and future research. Thus although he was not formally trained in either ethnology or anthropology, he is regarded the first Indian ethnologist, or ethnographer or an Indian anthropologist.[3]

In his later years, he spent his time editing Man in India and in other journals, writing and lecturing at the newly established anthropology department at the University of Calcutta, and serving as a reader at Patna University.[4]

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