Irawati karve biography sample paper
Irawati Karve()
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Abhijit Guha
Anthropos,Bd. 41/44, H. 4./6. (Jul. - Dec., /), pp. ,
India was one of the countries which started an Ethnographical Survey very early, and under the direction of Sir Herbert Risley a large mass of information, although of a preliminary nature, was collected on the customs and institutions of the people as well as their anthropométrie characters. Unfortunately this work was not continued and in spite of the efforts of Dr Nelson Annandale and of Dr R. B. Seymour Sewell, F. R. S., Directors of the Zoological Survey of India, with one excuse or other, the project was shelved. Anthropology had to be content to form only a section of the Zoological Survey of India under one officer, the present writer and a couple of assistants. The importance of the bearing of anthropology on the administration of primitive tribes of which India possesses about 25 millions, the vast amount of prehistoric skeletal materials excavated by the Department of Archaeology, and the help that it can give in the welding of the diverse peoples and cultures of India to form an integrated nation, led the Government at long last to take a more enlightened view of the subject. A scheme for the reorganization of anthropological research was accordingly prepared in by me and Dr Seymour Sewell, who was invited by the Government of India to make proposals for the formation of an independent Anthopo- logical Department, and at the end of that year the nucleus of the Anthropo- logical Survey of India (the name of which has since been changed to Department of Anthropology) was formed. In , the long dreamt-of plan came into being. The Survey was definitely established with a 5-year programme and a budget rising from more than 1% lakhs in the first year to an estimated one of nearly 8 lakhs in the fifth. I was appointed Director, with the additional duty of acting as Anthropological Adviser to the Government. Dr Verrier Elwin was appointed Deputy Director. Offices, laboratories and a library were opened. In India an enormous field of research, both theoretical and practical, lies before the anthropologist. The study of the physical characters of the people is still incomplete. Since the pioneer work of Sir Herbert Risley in , now rendered. somewhat obsolete by great advances in the methods and techniques of the science, very little has been published except the works of Eickstedt, Cipriani and Bowles in some parts of the country and my own investigations on selected tribes and castes during the Census of , leaving a vast field of unexplored territory for survey.
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Vibhuti Patel
Mumbai (Women's Feature Service) - Mumbai has, in many senses, been the birthplace of the Indian women's movement. The last quarter of the 19th century saw the seeds being sown in what was then the Bombay Presidency. Social reformers like Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule fought female infanticide, widow-burning and the segregation of women from the public life, among other concerns. They also organised public functions for widow remarriage and worked for legal reform. Interestingly, as the new century dawned, many women from Bombay's wealthy families turned philanthropists, helping to set up educational institutions, shelter homes and vocational training centres. It was from such institutions that the first generation of women professionals emerged: Teachers, nurses, skilled workers and white collar employees, such as typists, clerks, accountants and secretaries. There is an enormous amount of literature from that time in Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and English that bears witness to these path-breaking efforts. The first generation of English-educated Mumbai women became founders of the nascent women's movement in pre-independence India. Most of them channelised their energies into building pioneering organisations like the All India Women's Conference (AIWC), the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) and the Anjuman-e-Islam. They fought against child marriage, promoted women's education, mobilised public opinion in favour of voting rights for women, and established institutions to impart basic professional and domestic skills. The beginning of the 20th century saw women's wide-scale participation in the national independence movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. During the Quit India Movement of , for instance, even women from conservative families gave up the 'purdah', came out on the streets, courted arrest and faced imprisonment. But it was the post-independence period that saw Mumbai's women coming forward in large numbers to help build the new nation. They contributed to various fields, from politics to films, from music to scholarship. It was their pathbreaking contributions that laid the foundation for the Indian women's movement as we know it today. There are many women who could figure in the list of greats. For this piece, I will focus on three near contemporaries: Mrinal Gore, who was at the forefront of the first initiative of what came to be known as the "new women's movement" - the anti-price rise struggle of ; visionary academic, Dr Neera Desai, who saw the importance of framing women's action and experience in academic and policy terms; and outstanding educationist Madhuri Shah, who went on to institutionalise Women's Studies as a discipline within the university system in India.
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