Sarat Chandra Roy

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]

Early life

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

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]

Works

Books and monographs

Journal contributions

Recognition

See also

References

  1. ↑ Upadhyay, Vijay S. and Gaya Pandey. Indian Anthropologists - Sarat Chandra Roy: The Father of Indian Ethnography (1871–1942) in History of Anthropological Thought, Concept Publishing Company, 1993, p. 395.
  2. ↑ Upadhyay and Pandey, p. 395-6.
  3. ↑ Upadhyay and Pandey, p. 396.
  4. ↑ Upadhyay and Pandey, p. 398.
  5. ↑ Upadhyay and Pandey, p. 396.
  6. ↑ Upadhyay and Pandey, p. 397-8.
  7. ↑ Upadhyay and Pandey, p. 401.
  8. ↑ Upadhyay and Pandey, p. 397
  9. ↑ 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.
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