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Home/Anthropology/Mains PYQ/2025/Paper II/Foundations of Anthropology
UPSC MainsAnthropology Optional Paper II 2025 15 Marks Model Answer Available

Contributions of B. S. Guha, Irawati Karve and S. R. K. Chopra — 2025 Paper II

Question · 2025 · Paper II · 15 Marks

Highlight the significant contributions of B. S. Guha, Irawati Karve and S. R. K. Chopra to Indian Anthropology.

Model Answer

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Introduction

  1. S. Guha, Irawati Karve and S. R. K. Chopra represent three complementary strands in the institutional growth of Indian anthropology: population and tribal studies, kinship-civilisational analysis, and palaeoanthropology. Their historical contributions must be appreciated while critically separating lasting methods from outdated racial terminology.

B. S. Guha: population studies and institution building

  • Guha directed the anthropometric survey associated with the 1931 Census and used Karl Pearson’s Coefficient of Racial Likeness to compare population samples. This was a major biometric advance for its period, although the racial-typological assumptions underlying it are now obsolete.
  • His work on skeletal remains, including material from Mohenjo-daro, connected physical anthropology with archaeology and population history.
  • As the founding Director of the Anthropological Survey of India (1945), he built a national institution for coordinated biological, social and tribal research.
  • He encouraged applied studies of tribes, social tensions and national integration and helped establish anthropology as a policy-relevant discipline.

Irawati Karve: kinship, caste and regional comparison

  • In Kinship Organization in India (1953), Karve fused Indology with ethnography, linguistics and regional comparison to identify broad northern, central, southern and eastern kinship zones.
  • She linked terminology, descent, marriage rules, caste endogamy, family form and linguistic region, showing that Indian kinship cannot be explained through a single pan-Indian model.
  • Her works Hindu Society: An Interpretation and Yuganta brought anthropological analysis to caste, family, texts and historical personalities.
  • She also conducted anthropometric research and developed an interdisciplinary “Pune school.” Her regional generalisations, however, sometimes underplayed internal class, tribal and gender variation.

S. R. K. Chopra: Indian palaeoprimatology

  • Chopra founded the Department of Anthropology at Panjab University in 1960 and created a major centre of Siwalik field research and training.
  • His systematic work at Haritalyangar and other Siwalik localities expanded knowledge of Sivapithecus, “Ramapithecus,” large hominoids, adapids and pliopithecoids.
  • He used dental morphology, stratigraphy and associated fauna to address hominoid taxonomy, palaeoecology and the Ramapithecus-Sivapithecus debate.
  • His papers, including “New Fossil Evidence on the Evolution of Hominoidea in the Sivaliks” (1978), placed Indian palaeoanthropological evidence in global debates. The S. R. K. Chopra Museum of Man further integrated research, teaching and public education.

Conclusion

Guha institutionalised broad population and tribal research; Karve provided a comparative framework for kinship and civilisation; and Chopra placed Siwalik primate evolution on the international research map. Together they demonstrate Indian anthropology’s movement from descriptive classification towards regional, interdisciplinary and evolutionary explanation.

Diagram to draw: Indian Anthropology -> Guha: populations/institutions | Karve: kinship/civilisation | Chopra: Siwalik palaeoanthropology.

Selected authentic sources: B. S. Guha’s Census of India 1931 studies and Anthropological Survey of India records; historical assessments of Guha’s use of the Coefficient of Racial Likeness; Irawati Karve, Kinship Organization in India (1953); S. R. K. Chopra, Journal of Human Evolution (1978) and Panjab University histories of Indian palaeoanthropology.

 

 

2026 Contribution of L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer in Anthropology. 2026 Assess the contribution of colonial scholars in studying the tribal populations of North-East India. 2025 Anthropology provides a multidimensional understanding of human beings by bridging the gap between science and humanities. Elucidate. 2025 "The agenda of biological anthropology became more scientific from the middle of the twentieth century." Justify.

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