The People of India

This article is about the books titled The People of India.

For the Culture of India, see Culture of India.
The People of India is a title that has been used for at least
three dierent books, all of which focussed primarily on
ethnography.

The People of India (18681875)

A plate from Watson and Kayes The People of India, showing

members of the Coorg community.

ment, which saw that events had come close to overturning British inuence in the country and countered this by
placing India under more direct control than had been the
case when it relied on the capabilities of the British East
India Company to perform such functions. This was the
beginning of the British Raj period.[2]

Lord Canning (18121862), Governor-General of India. He

conceived a photographic study of native Indian people.

G. G. Raheja has remarked that the colonial imagination

had seized upon caste identities as a means of understanding and controlling the Indian population after the blow to
administrative complacency occasioned in 1857.[3] Initial attempts at ethnographic study by the British in India had concentrated on the issues of female infanticide
and sati (widow immolation), which were thought to be
prevalent in the northern and western areas of the country
especially among the Rajputs and which the colonial
rulers wished to eradicate by a process of social engineering.[4] Following the rebellion, ocers then serving in
the Indian Civil Service, such as Richard Carnac Temple,
were of the opinion that if future unrest was to be avoided

John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye compiled an

eight-volume study entitled The People of India between
1868 and 1875. The books contained 468 annotated photographs of the native castes and tribes of India.[1]
The origins of the project lay in the desire of Lord Canning to possess photographs of native Indian people. Photography was then a fairly new process and Canning, who
was Governor-General of India, conceived of the collection of images for the private edication of himself and
his wife.[1] However, the Indian Rebellion of 1857 caused
a shift in mindset of the London-based British govern1

THE PEOPLE OF INDIA (1908)

then it was necessary to obtain a better understanding of

the colonial subjects and in particular those from the rural
areas. Early eorts in the sphere of British ethnography
in India were concentrated on obtaining an understanding of Indian folk-lore,[2] but another early consequence
was that The People of India became an ocial British
government publication.[1]
The photographs compiled by Watson and Kaye were not
the rst to be taken of Indian people but the project was
organised within the framework of attempts by ocials
to document the people in a methodical, statistically and
ethnographically oriented manner,[5] later expressed by
Denzil Ibbetson in his 1883 report on the 1881 census of
the Punjab,
Our ignorance of the customs and beliefs
of the people among whom we dwell is surely
in some respects a reproach to us; for not only
does that ignorance deprive European science
of material which it greatly needs, but it also
involves a distinct loss of administrative power
to ourselves.[6]
The collection was an attempt at a visual documentation of typical physical attributes, dress and other aspects of native life that would complement written studies, although it did itself contain brief notes regarding
what were thought to be the essential characteristics of
each community. Thomas Metcalf has said that, Accurate information about Indias peoples now mattered as
never before ... [although imperfect] for the most part
the work marked out a stage in the transformation of ethnological curiosity ...[5] Educated Indians were unimpressed with the outcome and with the general undertone that their people had been depicted both unfairly and
dispassionately.[7]

H. H. Risley (18511911)

that holds together the myriad units of Indian society.[7]

Risley, who was an English administrator in the Indian
Civil Service, also saw India as an ethnological laboratory, where the continued practice of endogamy had ensured that, in his opinion, there were strict delineations of
the various communities by caste and that consequently
caste could be viewed as identical to race. Whereas othSadhana Naithani has noted that almost all of the British ers saw caste as being based on occupation, he believed
in India at that time
that changes in occupation within a community led to
another instance of endogamy being held by a sort of
unconscious ction to be equivalent to the dierence of
related to the society around [them]
race, which is the true basis of the system.[8][9]
through three conduits: rst, through other English ocers and institutions; second, through
In 1908 Risley published his book, The People of India.
oce clerks, peons, and domestic servants;
By this stage in his career he had been, among other roles,
and third, through the recourse of the inCensus Commissioner for the 1901 Census of India, and
tellectual anthropological and orientalist
he had for many years been a keen ethnographer and proliterature.[2]
ponent of the anthropometric theories of Paul Topinard.
Although Risley had acknowledged the earlier book of
Watson and Kaye as being famous in its day, he did
not refer to it in his 1908 work.[10] Risley had produced
2 The People of India (1908)
earlier works, including the four-volume The Tribes and
ethnographic writings
As time passed after the 1857 rebellion, British ethno- Castes of Bengal, and continued his [11]
and
studies
until
his
death
in
1911.
graphic studies and their resultant categorisations were
embodied in numerous ocial publications and became
an essential part of the British administrative mechanism,
and of those categorisations it was caste that was regarded
to be, in the words of Herbert Hope Risley, the cement

The 25 illustrations contained in the book were

lithographic prints based largely on the photographs
of Benjamin Simpson that had been used to illustrate
Edward Tuite Dalton's 1875 book, Descriptive Ethnology

3
of Bengal. This meant that the illustrations were predominantly of hill tribes from one area of the country rather
than the broad range that had been shown by Walton and
Kaye.[10][12]

and which laid much emphasis on anthropometry. The

AnSI adopted a cut-o point of 200 members and
preferred blood groups to be the crucial indicator of
physical dierence.[20]

The thoughts of mile Senart are quoted extensively, although at the time of Risleys writing they were not available in English translation.[13] The academic position of
Risley himself has been described by Susan Bayly

Kumar Suresh Singh, a tribal historian and ocer in

the Indian Administrative Service who held posts including that of Director-General of the AnSI, had responsibility for the organisation, compilation and oversight of
the survey and publications. The intent was to produce
an anthropological study of the dierences and linkages
between all of the communities in India. The survey
involved 470 scholars and identied 4694 communities
during its period of eldwork between October 1985 and
1994. Sinha notes a total of 3000 scholars, which gure appears to include those involved at various seminars
and workshops. The full results of the survey comprises
43 published volumes, of which 12 had been produced at
the time of Singhs death.[21][22]

Those like [Sir William] Hunter, as well as

the key gures of H. H. Risley (18511911)
and his protg Edgar Thurston, who were disciples of the French race theorist Topinard and
his European followers, subsumed discussions
of caste into theories of biologically determined race essences, ... Their great rivals were
the material or occupational theorists led by the
ethnographer and folklorist William Crooke
(18481923), author of one of the most widely
read provincial Castes and Tribes surveys, and
such other inuential scholar-ocials as Denzil
Ibbetson and E. A. H. Blunt.[14]
A memorial edition of The People of India was produced
in 1915, edited by William Crooke, who had also served
in the Indian Civil Service and was interested in anthropology. It contained an additional 11 illustrations and an
ethnological map of the country.[15]
Risleys career and works have been interpreted as the
apotheosis of pseudo-scientic racism,[16][17] which was
a theory prevalent for a century from around the 1840s[18]
that race was one of the principal determinants of attitudes, endowments, capabilities and inherent tendencies
among human beings. Race thus seemed to determine
the course of human history.[19] D. F. Pocock describes
The People of India as
... almost the last production of that great
tradition of administrator scholars who had
long and extensive experience in the Indian
Civil Service and had not found their arduous
activity incompatible with scholarship.[13]
The last such work, according to Pocock, was J. H. Huttons Caste in India, published in 1944.[13]

The People of India (1992)

The volumes were produced as two collections, with the

rst eleven comprising the National series and the remainder being known as the State series.
Laura Jenkins has noted that the project has been undertaken
Despite the tainted past of such ethnographies. ... According to its initial circular,
"[t]his will be a project on the People of India by the people of India, a phrase ringing
with nationalism, yet the goal of this national
project is to generate a prole of each community in India, largely dened in terms of caste.
Purportedly a work of apolitical anthropology,
this endeavor is nevertheless sponsored by the
state. ... Although castes are a major unit of
analysis for the People of India projects, both
past and present, the latest project superimposes the new theme of national unity, a politically useful focus for an ethnography sponsored by the central government of India. ...
Although such a study might be used to undermine caste distinctions by providing data to
rene reservation policies, the People of India
projects conclusions have often been used simply to undermine the policies. The People of
India projects, colonial and postcolonial, and
the varied identity claims made about them, in
them, and through them demonstrate the intertwined nature of social identities and state
identications.[23]

The multi-volume series of books published from The books use colonial ethnographies extensively and
1992 under the auspices of the government-run note, for example, that
Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) adopted the
... in spite of the investigators best efsame title as the colonial works of 18681875 and
forts to incorporate rsthand information from
1908. The project was more detailed than the ocial
the eld, by direct investigation, it was not
ethnological surveys of the British Raj, which had a
possible to do so with the limited personnel
policy of ignoring communities of less than 2000 people

5
resources made available for such a voluminous project. Nevertheless adequate care has
been taken to update the ethnographic details
of most of the communities, where published
material existed. It was also not possible to incorporate all of the unpublished data ... available with various Anthropology/Sociology departments in the country (despite express instructions to do so under the project, only a few
were incorporated)[24]

See also
Scientic racism

References

Citations
[1] Metcalf (1997), p. 117.
[2] Naithani (2006), p. 6.
[3] Radeja (1996), p. 495.
[4] Bates (1995), p. 227.
[5] Metcalf (1997), pp. 117119.
[6] Ibbetson (1916), p. v. of Original Preface.
[7] Metcalf (1997), p. 119.
[8] Trautmann (2006), p. 199.
[9] Risley (1891), p. 240.
[10] Falconer (2002), p. 52.
[11] ODNB, Risley.
[12] Risley (1908), Title page.
[13] Pocock, (Introduction to Bougl), pp. viiiix.
[14] Bayly (2001), pp. 126127.
[15] Risley (1915), Title page.
[16] Bates (1995), p. 237.
[17] Schwarz (2010), p. 68.
[18] Bates (1995), p. 221.
[19] Curtin (1964), p. 29.
[20] Bates (1995), p. 219.
[21] Frontline, 30 June 2006.
[22] Sinha (2007).
[23] Jenkins (2003), p. 1144.

REFERENCES

[24] Bhanu & Kulkarni (2004), p. lxviii.

Bibliography
Bates, Crispin (1995). Race, Caste and Tribe in
Central India: the early origins of Indian anthropometry. In Robb, Peter. The Concept of Race in
South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN
978-0-19-563767-0.
Bayly, Susan (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in
India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern
Age. The New Cambridge History of India, Volume 4.3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 978-0-521-26434-1.
Bhanu, B. V.; Kulkarni, V. S. (2004). Singh, Kumar Suresh, ed. People of India: Maharashtra,
Part One XXX. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, for
Anthropological Survey of India. ISBN 81-7991100-4. OCLC 58037479.
Bougl, Clestin Charles Alfred (1971). Pocock, D.
F., ed. Essays on the caste system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-08093-4.
Curtin, Philip D. (1964). The Image of Africa:
British Ideas and action, 17801850. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-83576772-9.
Falconer, John (2002). ""A Pure Labor of Love": A
publishing history of The People of India". In Hight,
Eleanor M.; Sampson, Gary David. Colonialist photography: imag(in)ing race and place. London:
Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-27495-1.
Ibbetson, Denzil Charles Jelf (1916). Panjab Castes.
Lahore: Printed by the Superintendent, Government
Printing, Punjab. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
Jenkins, Laura Dudley (November 2003). Another
People of India Project: Colonial and National
Anthropology. The Journal of Asian Studies
(Association for Asian Studies) 62 (4): 1143
1170. JSTOR 3591762. Retrieved 9 December
2011.(subscription required)
Metcalf, Thomas R. (1997). Ideologies of the Raj.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN
978-0-521-58937-6.
Naithani, Sadhana (2006). In quest of Indian folktales: Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube and William
Crooke. Boomington: Indiana University Press.
ISBN 978-0-253-34544-8.
Rajalakshmi, T. K. (30 June 2006). Scholar of society. Frontline 23 (12). Retrieved 9 November
2011.

5
Risley, Sir Herbert Hope. Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University
Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35760. (Subscription
or UK public library membership required.)

London (India Museum): India Oce (W. H.

Allen & Co.). Retrieved 12 December 2011.

Caste, Colonialism, and the Speech of the Colonized: Entextualization and Disciplinary Control
in India. American Ethnologist 23 (3): 494513.
doi:10.1525/ae.1996.23.3.02a00030.

Watson, John Forbes; Kaye, John William,

eds. (1872). The people of India : a series of
photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan 5.
London (India Museum): India Oce (W. H.
Allen & Co.). Retrieved 12 December 2011.

Risley, Herbert Hope (1891). The Study of Ethnology in India. The Journal of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) 20.
JSTOR 2842267.(subscription required)

Watson, John Forbes; Kaye, John William,

eds. (1872). The people of India : a series of
photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan 6.
London (India Museum): India Oce (W. H.
Allen & Co.). Retrieved 12 December 2011.

Risley, Herbert Hope (1908). The People of India

(1st ed.). Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.; London:
W. Thacker & Co.
Risley, Herbert Hope (1915). Crooke, William, ed.
The People of India (2nd ed.). Calcutta & Simla:
Thacker, Spink & Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co.
Schwarz, Henry (2010). Constructing the Criminal
Tribe in Colonial India: Acting Like a Thief. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781-4443-1734-3. Retrieved 21 November 2011.
Sinha, A. K. (January 2007). Obituary: Kumar
Suresh Singh (19352006)". Indian Historical Review 34 (1): 365368.(subscription required)
Trautmann, Thomas R. (2006) [1997]. Aryans and
British India (2nd Indian ed.). New Delhi: YODA
Press. ISBN 81-902272-1-1.
Watson and Kayes The People of India
Watson, John Forbes; Kaye, John William,
eds. (1868). The people of India : a series of
photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan 1.
London (India Museum): India Oce (W. H.
Allen & Co.). Retrieved 12 December 2011.
Watson, John Forbes; Kaye, John William,
eds. (1868). The people of India : a series of
photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan 2.
London (India Museum): India Oce (W. H.
Allen & Co.). Retrieved 12 December 2011.
Watson, John Forbes; Kaye, John William,
eds. (1868). The people of India : a series of
photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan 3.
London (India Museum): India Oce (W. H.
Allen & Co.). Retrieved 12 December 2011.
Watson, John Forbes; Kaye, John William,
eds. (1869). The people of India : a series of
photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan 4.

Watson, John Forbes; Kaye, John William,

eds. (1875). The people of India : a series of
photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan 8.
London (India Museum): India Oce (W. H.
Allen & Co.). Retrieved 12 December 2011.

6 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

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The People of India Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_India?oldid=671563473 Contributors: Rjwilmsi, Chris the

speller, Ohconfucius, Sitush, SchreiberBike, MatthewVanitas, Fluernutter, Tom.Reding, RjwilmsiBot, John of Reading, ClueBot NG,
Khani100, Helpful Pixie Bot, ChrisGualtieri, Universe og and Anonymous: 2

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File:H_H_Risley.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/H_H_Risley.png License: Public domain Contributors: The People of India (2nd edition, 1915) London: Thacker, Spink & Co. Original artist: Unknown
File:Kodavas.jpeg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Kodavas.jpeg License: Public domain Contributors:
The people of India : A series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan, originally
prepared under the authority of the government of India, and reproduced ... / ed. by J. Forbes Watson and John William Kaye. (published
1868-75) Original artist: J Forbes Watson
File:Lord_Viscount_Canning.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Lord_Viscount_Canning.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Robert Montgomery Martin (1858). The Indian Empire. Volume 2. Original artist: Engraved by
D. J. Pound from a photograph by Mayall

6.3

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