Revision summary
Anthropology treats development as social process, not as a drawing. Dube showed Community Development hitting faction at Shamirpet. Elwin tied tribal development to land protection. Village monographs trained the rural bureaucracy to see caste. PESA and FRA carry ethnographic ideas of custom and nistar into law.
Model answer
Introduction
The anthropological perspective on development treats a scheme as a social process among real groups, not as a budget drawing. Indian anthropologists put that view into village studies and into the state.
Body
Perspective
- Development is culture change with winners and brokers. S. C. Dube showed this when Community Development met Shamirpet factions.
- Verrier Elwin insisted that tribal development must not mean loss of land. Isolation versus integration is a development debate, not only a museum debate.
- Later applied anthropology added participation: villagers as analysts, which PRA borrowed. The perspective is sceptical of trickle-down and of a single modernisation ladder.
Contributions in rural India
- Monographs by Dube, Srinivas, and Marriott trained administrators to see caste and faction inside the block office.
- Elwin in NEFA and anthropologists in Tribal Research Institutes wrote handbooks that shaped ITDP manners, if not always ITDP outcomes.
- Land and forest ethnography fed PESA and FRA arguments: nistar, shifting plots, and Gram Sabha as living law.
- Evaluation of nutrition, boarding schools, and displacement is now a standard anthropological job in rural programmes.
Limit
- Contribution is diagnosis and some statute language. It has not stopped leakage. The field still meets the contractor.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD A[Anthropological view] --> S[Scheme as social process] S --> D[Dube Shamirpet] S --> E[Elwin land] S --> P[PESA FRA participation]
Conclusion
Anthropology sees development as structured social change. In India it contributed village realism, tribal caution, and the intellectual ground of PESA and FRA, not a magic rural plan.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Relevance of caste in contemporary Indian politics
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q1(c)). View answer →
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Is the anthropological view anti-development?
It is anti-blind development. It asks who gains land and who gains only a meeting.
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Did anthropologists run ITDPs?
Rarely as line bosses. They wrote the critique and some of the protective law.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
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2025 · Q3(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Highlight the significant contributions of B. S. Guha, Irawati Karve and S. R. K. Chopra to Indian Anthropology -
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More from this topic
Q3(c) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Highlight the significant contributions of B. S. Guha, Irawati Karve and S. R. K. Chopra to Indian Anthropology
Emergence, growth and development of Anthropology in India
Guha: 1931 racial types, ASI institution, Harappan osteology; typology is the limit. Karve: kinship organisation, Maharashtra, epics, north–south marriage contrast. Chopra: Siwalik Sivapithecus school at Chandigarh; Ramapithecus later revised. Together they cover living measurement, civilisation-as-kinship, and Miocene fossils. Keep their questions; update their boxes with genetics and ethnography.
Q5(b) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Describe ILO's Convention No. 169 (1989) on Indigenous and Tribal people. Is India a signatory to it?
Emergence, growth and development of Anthropology in India
ILO Convention 169 (1989) covers indigenous and tribal peoples and stresses self-identification, consultation, land and custom. It replaced the integrationist Convention 107 (1957). India ratified 107 and has not ratified 169. Indian hesitation cites the ST list, sovereignty and land law; PESA and FRA already resemble 169 in parts. Never state that India is a signatory to 169.
Q2(c) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Deconstruct the colonial history of Indian Anthropology highlighting the critical role played by the Indian Anthropologists in sustaining its autonomy.
Emergence, growth and development of Anthropology in India
Colonial anthropology served census, forest and criminal-tribe administration. S. C. Roy professionalised ethnography; ASI and university departments Indianised the job. Ghurye versus Elwin was an Indian debate on assimilation and isolation. Srinivas, Karve, Bose, Majumdar and Vidyarthi supplied Indian concepts and village-tribe fields. Autonomy means an Indian agenda and terms, not a refusal of world methods.
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