Surajit Chandra Sinha(1926-2002)

Indian Anthropologist
Social & Cultural Anthropology
Bio…
• Born - 1926 in Durgapur, Bangladesh.

• He was the Deputy Director of

Anthropological Survey of India,
Calcutta.

• According to him Indian anthropology

even after the independence of the
country, largely remained an 'Western
apprentice'.

• His special interest,

1. Tribal Transformation in central India
2. Structure of Indian civilization.
His Work focuses on…
1. Tribe – Caste (Transformation of a tribal
group into a caste group) and Tribe –
peasant continuum.

2. Levels of economic initiatives and

ethnic groups (united by common cultural,
behavioural, linguistic, or religious practices.)

3. Tribal movements (A view to improve

social,cultural,economic & political condition of
Tribal people)

4. Sociology of Religion (study of the

beliefs, practices and organizational forms
of religion)

5. Field study on the people of India.

Tribe - Caste Bhumji community
Sinha examined the tribal-caste interactions and
proposed several useful concepts like
• Tribal-peasant continuum
The contacts of the tribes with the
neighbouring peasantry for livelihood have given
rise to a sort of tribal-peasant continuum

• Bhumij-Ksatriya continuum
In his study of Bhumij, scheduled tribes of
West Bengal and Bihar, Sinha found that how tribals
become integrated with the regional Hindu caste
system.

• Tribal-Rajput continuum Pranjal - Indian professional

footballer who plays for Mumbai
City FC in the Indian Super League.
This provide the model for understanding the process of
transformation in the whole of middle India.
Tribal Absorption
• Sinha sharply pointed out and was not afraid to raise doubts about the theory of
the Hindu method of Tribal absorption propounded or put forward for
consideration to others by his guru Nirmal Kumar Bose.

• This was the area of his strength as regards the tradition of Indian anthropology.

• “Hindu Method of Tribal Absorption”. ... The essence of the theory was the
Tribals who had come into contact with their powerful caste Hindu neighbours
gradually lost their own tribal identity and were given a low-caste status within
the Hindu fold.

Where Prosperity and Poverty are Neighbours

Framework for Research:
• Sinha (1968) suggests a framework for deciding the topics for urgent
research in social anthropology in India.

• To Sinha, the urgent problems in social anthropology of the Indian

population may be approached by,

Primitive groups may be selected (zero or negative population growth, extremely

low level of literacy in comparison with other tribal groups.) - for covering the missing links
in our study of world culture.

• First of all, the primitive tribes cover a very limited (though significant)
dimension of the total complexity of Indian society and culture.
• There are 75 Primitive tribal groups (PTG) located in a host of states and
the Union territory Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Case Studies – Primitive Groups
• Sinha elaborates his conceptual ideas further by taking the examples of
tribal groups.
1. The Hill Maria Gonds
2. The Bhumij of Barabhum

Hill Maria Gonds

• The Hill Maria Gond’s, a tribal group of
Bastar district, Chhattisgarh is the most
isolated segment of the Dravidian Gondi-
speaking people of central India.

• Gondi belongs to the Dravidian family of

languages and is related to Tamil & Kannada.
(Tribe - Caste continuum)

• Their habitat is typically hill and jungle clad.

 Hill Maria Gonds
Crafts & Hobbies
• People are, by and large, self-sufficient in their
subsistence economy.
• They do obtain from outside sources such important
items as cloth, iron implements, earthenware, brass
pots, ornaments, salt etc.
• The most important means of procuring these items
is weekly market.

• Besides attending the weekly market, the people

of Maria also procure some of their materials
from the annual religious fair held at
Narayanpur.
• Thus, the Maria have come into contact with
about four or five artisan groups at the market.
• Although, in theory, the tribe includes the entire Endogamy-Marrying only
Gond (Koitor) people, in reality, the line of within the limits of a local
community
endogamy does not extend beyond the Hill
Maria group