Give a brief bio sketch of Sarat Chandra Roy.

Sarat Chandra Roy was one of the pioneers of anthropological studies in India, although he had no formal degree on anthropology. He was born in the year 1871. He passed Matriculation in 1888 from the City Collegiate School in Calcutta. After this he was graduated with Honours in English from the General Assembly Institute (Scottish Church College) in 1892. He also obtained M.A. degree from the University of Calcutta in 1893. His academic career did not stop at this stage.

He proceeded for B.L. degree which he achieved in 1895 from the Ripon College, Calcutta. Since 1897 he started practice in the District Court of 24-Paraganas (Alipore, Calcutta) but within a year he shifted to Ranchi where he could successfully built up his professional career and earned a good reputation in the bar of the Judicial Commissioner’s Court. For his outstanding literary work and public services the then Government awarded him with a silver medal, ‘Kaiser-I-Hind’ in 1913 and the title ‘Rai Bahadur’ in 1919. Besides, he also owned two other certificates of honour and two more medals.

In 1920, he was elected as an Honorary Member of the Folklore Society of London. He was the only Indian who was crowned with such an honour. In the same year he became the President of the Anthropological Section of the Indian Science Congress. He was also elected the President for the Section of Anthropology and Folklore of the All India Oriental Conference in the years 1932 and 1933.

Besides, Sri Roy was selected as a member of Council d’ honour of the International Congress of the Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. National Institute of Sciences in India and Patna felt proud getting S.C. Roy as a foundation fellow in their institutes. Sri Roy secured his seat in the Legislative Council of Bihar and Orissa for successive terms. His presence as a member of Simon Commission was much appreciated.

Sarat Chandra Roy was the first man of India who delivered a course of lectures on anthropology in any Indian University and first to make an effort to publish a quarterly journal for anthropology. He brought ‘Man-in-India’ as an exclusive journal in anthropology, which is still serving the students and scholars of anthropology.

Sri Roy devoted himself earnestly in the anthropological and related ethnological studies in India. His studies laid the foundation of anthropological knowledge of the tribal population of Bihar and adjacent areas. He started his investigation amongst the Mundas as early as the beginning of twentieth century and his findings began to be published right from the year 1907.

The journal ‘The Modern Review’ took interest in the work of Sri Roy from its very inception in 1907. However, the first book came to the scene in 1912 with the title ‘The Mundas and their Country’. This was followed by a number of voluminous monographs—”The Oraons of Chotonagpur’ (1915), ‘The Birhors’ (1925), ‘Oraon Religion and Customs’ (1928), ‘The Hill Bhuiyas of Orissa’ (1935), and ‘The Kharias’ (1937). Sri Roy kept himself associated with the ‘Bihar and Orissa Research Society’ in Patna since its origin. His articles enriched the journal of this society and the museum of this society was filled with his huge collection—ethnographic and archaeological.

The arena of S.C. Roy’s interest was very wide. He wrote on a variety of topics namely caste, Hindu religion, racial migration, cultural ethnography and so on. A number of articles on the emergence of Marathas in the Indian sub-continent (as Maratha dominated over a vast area extending over northern and southern India) were written before the British came into power. He was able to throw considerable light on the socio-historical perspective of the country.

While dealing with a particular tribe, he tried to cover different aspects of their life like arts and crafts, traditions and customs etc. which were very important for ethnology. Despite lots of information, his monographs were not confined in presenting a rounded picture of the tribes; he aimed at concise information of the life of tribes as “universal categories of culture”.

These works were praised by the eminent anthropologists of that time like J.G. Frazer, W.H.R. Rivers, R.R. Marett and R.B. Dixon. S.C. Roy contributed in strengthening the integrated character of anthropology in India. He proceeded in the same line as followed by the anthropologists of pre-Malinowskian period.

Initially his writings were much influenced by historical facts but soon he started analyzing various factors which enlived the studies. Altogether he had more than a hundred of original papers and seven books in English. In addition, he wrote seventeen articles in Bengali, sixteen of which was published in the Bengali journal ‘Prabasi’.

His bibliography was published twice. First one was compiled by W.G. Archer and published in Man in India (Vol. XXII, No. 4, 1973). The second one was an exhaustive bibliography published in the bulletin of the Anthropological Survey of India (Vol. XVII, No. 2, 1968).

Sarat Chandra Roy is considered as the Father of Indian Ethnography. He not only made valuable contribution in the study of human society and culture; he tried to popularize the subject of anthropology among the general readers.

Anthropology is also indebted to his encyclopedic scholarship and analytic appraisal; otherwise anthropology could not have reached the degree of precision or objectivity to fulfill its demand as a science. Sri Roy also pleaded for the application of anthropology in finding out the causes of sufferings of the people. The great personality passed away in 1942 causing an irrevocable loss.