Revision summary
The Negrito problem asked if Andamanese and some southern foragers were a first Indian race. Risley and Guha framed it with hair and stature. Looks do not prove African Pygmy kinship or an all-India stratum. Andaman history is isolation and colonial shock. Drop the race problem; keep forager ethnography.
Model answer
Introduction
- The Negrito problem was a racial puzzle: whether short, dark, curly-haired groups in India, especially Andamanese and some southern hill people, were a leftover first race. The problem was badly posed.
Body
How it was framed
- Risley, Guha, and earlier travellers used hair and stature to invent a Negrito stratum under Dravidian and Aryan types.
- Andaman Islanders were the type case. Kadar and other southern foragers were sometimes pulled in.
Critique
- Hair and height are not a people. Siwalik apes and later genetics show deep mix, not stacked races.
- Andamanese history is island isolation plus colonial violence, not a museum of all-India origins.
- Linking them to African Pygmies by look is nineteenth-century analogy, not phylogeny.
- Ghurye and later anthropologists already doubted that caste and tribe are frozen races.
What remains
- The useful residue is a research question on Andaman and southern forager diversity, not a ‘problem’ of a missing race.
- Ethno-archaeology of hunt is a better frame than Negrito stock.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD R[Risley Guha types] --> N[Negrito problem] N --> X[Look-alike not phylogeny] A[Andaman foragers] --> D[Diversity not stock]
Conclusion
The Negrito problem was a colonial racial leftover. Assess it as a failed classification. Keep the Andaman and forager file without the race ladder.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Give a detailed appraisal of skeletal remains from Chalcolithic culture of undivided Punjab
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q4(a)). View answer →
-
Did a Negrito race people all of India?
There is no good evidence for a subcontinental Negrito stratum.
-
Should the term be used in answers?
Use it to criticise the old problem, not as a living classification.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2016 · Q1(a) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Significance of Mesolithic findings from Belan Valley -
2016 · Q4(a) · Anthropology GS 2 · 20 marks
Give a detailed appraisal of skeletal remains from Chalcolithic culture of undivided Punjab -
2016 · Q5(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Impact of industrialization on scheduled tribe population of Jharkhand -
2016 · Q5(d) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Tribe as a colonial construct -
2015 · Q1(a) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Relevance of tribal Panchsheel today -
2015 · Q1(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Sacred complex as a dimension of Indian civilization -
2015 · Q1(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
South Indian Paleoliths -
2015 · Q3(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Describe the paleoanthropological fossil finds from Siwalik hills. Examine the contribution of Siwalik fossils to paleoanthropological knowledge
More from this topic
Q6(c) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Trace the history and describe the methods of formulating the lists of OBCs, both at the State and National levels
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
Kalelkar listed; Mandal implemented 27 percent with social-educational-economic tests. Indra Sawhney added creamy layer and a 50 percent ceiling. 102nd Amendment constitutionalised NCBC; 105th restored state lists after the Maratha judgment. Rohini tries to sub-categorise Central OBCs; Ram Singh required data for Jat inclusion. Centre and states maintain separate lists; method is gazette politics under judicial review.
Q6(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 20 marks
"The village was not merely a place where people lived; it had a design in which were reflected the basic values of Indian civilization." Who said this? Elaborate
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
The statement is from the Srinivas village-studies tradition: the village as a designed microcosm of Indian civilisation. Design includes caste ecology, agrarian rank, ritual calendar and factional politics. Values: hierarchy-with-interdependence, local dharma, jati marriage, sacred geography. Marriott, Dube and Bailey showed regional versions of the same idea. Land reform, migration, 73rd Amendment and PESA have rewritten the plan without erasing rank.
Q5(e) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Lothal dockyard and international trade relations.
Evolution of the Indian Culture and Civilization
S. R. Rao identified a burnt-brick tidal basin at Lothal as a dock beside warehouses and bead workshops. Gujarat Harappan coastal sites together support craft export to the Gulf and Mesopotamia (Meluhha). Some archaeologists prefer a reservoir reading; geomorphology of the estuary is still discussed. Even without the word dock, Lothal is a water-edge trade and craft town. International trade here is Bronze Age Gulf networks, not a modern port trust.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.