Sarat Chandra Roy (4 November 1871 – 30 April 1942) was an Indian scholar of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

. He is sometimes regarded as the 'father of Indian

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

', the 'first Indian ethnographer', and as the 'first Indian anthropologist'.

Early life

Born on 4 November 1871 to Purna Chandra Roy, a member of the Bengal Judicial Service, in a village in

Khulna District Khulna District () is a district of Bangladesh. It is located in the Khulna Division, bordered in the north by Jashore District and Narail District, in the south by the Bay of Bengal, in the east by Bagerhat District, and the west by Satkhira D ...

(now in Bangladesh), young Sarat came in contact with tribal people after his father was posted in

Purulia Purulia, officially Purulia Sadar, is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Purulia district. It is located on the north of the Kangsabati River. Geography Location Purulia is locate ...

. 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 Scottish Church College is a college affiliated by Calcutta University, India. It offers selective co-educational undergraduate and postgraduate studies and is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in Asia. ...

). He earned a postgraduate degree in English from the same institution, and subsequently studied law at the Ripon College (now

Surendranath College Surendranath College is an undergraduate college affiliated to the University of Calcutta, in Kolkata, India. It was founded in 1884 by the nationalist leader and scholar Surendranath Banerjee. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate level co ...

). 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.

Career in anthropology

His interest into the plight of the "

tribal The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

" people developed in the course of his visits as a lawyer, in the interior areas of the

Chota Nagpur Division The Chota Nagpur Division was one of the administrative divisions established under British rule. Under Act XX of 1854, the South West Frontier Agency was renamed a Commissionary, with the Political Agent becoming the Commissioner and the Assis ...

. He was deeply moved by the plight of the

Munda __NOTOC__ Munda may refer to: Places India * Munda, a village in Hanumangarh district, Rajasthan, India * Munda Majra, a former village in Haryana, India * Munda Pind, a village in Punjab, India Pakistan * Munda, a village near Bilyamin in Kur ...

, 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 Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, t ...

, 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 Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Sci ...

or anthropology, he is regarded the first Indian ethnologist, or

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

or an Indian anthropologist. 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 The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

, and serving as a reader at

Patna University Patna University is a public state university in Patna, Bihar, India. It was established on 1 October 1917 during the British Raj. It is the first university in Bihar and the seventh oldest university in the Indian subcontinent in the modern e ...

Works

Books and monographs

''The Mundas and Their Country'' (1912)''The Oraons of Chota Nagpur'' (1915)''The Birhors'' (1925)''Oraon Religion and Customs'' (1927)''The Hill Bhuiyas of Orissa'' (1935)
*''The Kharias'' vol.1 (1937) *''The Kharias'' vol.2 (1937)

Journal contributions

*'' Man in India'', the first anthropological journal in India was started by him in 1921. * He wrote extensively on

totemism A totem (from or ''doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While the word ''totem'' itself is an ...

among the

Asur Asur may refer to: *Asura, divine beings in Hinduism regarded as evil * ''Asur'' (film), a 2020 Indian Bengali-language drama film * ''Asur'' (TV series), a 2020 Indian Hindi-language web-series * Asur, Thanjavur district, a village in the state o ...

, the Ho people of Singhbhum, the Pahira of Chota Nagpur; on the Lepcha funeral; kinship among

Sikkimese people Sikkimese may refer to: * Relating to the Indian state of Sikkim Sikkim ( ; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in th ...

Khasi people The Khasi people are an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic Ethnicity, ethnic group of Meghalaya in north-eastern India with a significant population in the bordering state of Assam and in certain parts of Bangladesh. Khasi people form the ...

;

Khond Khonds (also spelt Kondha and Kandha) are an indigenous Dravidian tribal community in India. Traditionally , hunter-gatherers, they are divided into the hill-dwelling Khonds and plain-dwelling Khonds for census purposes, but the Khonds the ...

human sacrifice; Korku memorial tablets; black

Bhils Bhil or Bheel refer to the various indigenous groups inhabiting western India, including parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and are also found in distant places such as Bengal and Tripura. Though they now speak the Bhili language, an Indo-Ar ...

of Jaisamand lake in

Rajputana Rājputana (), meaning Land of the Rajputs, was a region in the Indian subcontinent that included mainly the entire present-day States of India, Indian state of Rajasthan, parts of the neighboring states of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and adjo ...

, and on the ethnic groups of Burma.

Recognition

* Kaisar-i-Hind Silver Medal, 1913 * Roy Bahadur, 1919 *Elected as honorary member of the Folklore Society of London, being the only Indian to be awarded thus *Elected as president of the Anthropological Section in the

Indian Science Congress Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) is a premier scientific organisation of India with headquarters at Kolkata, West Bengal. The association started in the year 1914 in Calcutta and it meets annually in the first week of January. It h ...

*Elected as president of the Anthropology section of the All India Oriental Conference, 1932 *Elected as president of the Folklore section of the All India Oriental Conference, 1933 *Elected as member of the Council d'Honour of the International Congress of Ethnological Sciences *Foundation Fellow of National Institute of Sciences *Foundation Fellow of

*The Indian Science Congress awarded him with a commemorative volume of essays in anthropology. *The ''Sarat Chandra Roy Institute of Anthropological Studies'' in Ranchi, established in 1979, commemorates his name.Srivastava, Vinay Kumar and Sukant K. Chaudhury. ''Anthropological Studies of Indian Tribes'' in ''Sociology And Social Anthropology In India'', edited by Yogesh Atal, Indian Council of Social Science Research, 2009, p. 52.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Sarat Chandra 1871 births 1942 deaths Cultural anthropologists Indian anthropologists Scottish Church College alumni Surendranath College alumni University of Calcutta alumni Academic staff of the University of Calcutta Academic staff of Patna University Indian social sciences writers 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers 19th-century Indian non-fiction writers People from Khulna District 19th-century Indian anthropologists 20th-century Indian social scientists Scholars from British India