Nirmal Kumar Bose was born on 22 January 1901 in Kolkata. He received his early education from the Anglo-Sanskrit School, Patna, Sagar Datta Free High School, Kamarhati, 24 parganas and Ranchi Zila School, Ranchi and B.Sc.(H) degree in geology from Presidency College, Calcutta University(1921) and completed his Masters in Anthropology from the same University (1927). He left his research fellow post in Anthropology, Calcutta University to join Salt Satyagraha. His association with nationalistic events and influence of Gandhian principles drew him closer to Anthropology. In postretirement period, he was invited by the Administrator of NEFA to report on educational problems.
He has received Annandale Gold medal (1948) of Asiatic Society of Bengal. He was invited by various renowned international organisations to deliver lectures on social and political changes in India and even on Gandhi ideas and principles. He wrote about 40 books and over 700 articles in English and Bengali on temple architecture, art, prehistoric archaeology, human geography, urban sociology, geology as well as travelogues. He emphasized that Indian anthropology should attempt to develop its own theories and perspectives based on Indian data in order to make a distinct Indian identity to anthropology. His major contribution to field of Anthropology include’- Cultural Anthropology (1929), Canous of Orissan Architecture (1932), Cultural and Society in India(1967) and many others. He received President’s award of Padmashri in 1966.
Bose was influenced by diffusionist approach of Franz Boas, an American diffusionist. He was impressed by Kroeber and Wissler’s trait distribution studies as visible in diffusionist study of Spring Festival Culture Complex (1927) and Elements of Temple Architecture (1949). He even followed Functional approach to define culture as an adaptive tool in Cultural Anthropology (1929). He believed that in any culture there are four categories of culture: Vastu (Material object), Kriya (habitual action), Samhati (Social grouping) and Tattwa (knowledge). But, as an anthropologist, he wrote mostly on society and culture in India, covering the entire range from the simple Juang tribe of Orissa to the complex metropolitan city of Calcutta. He has made incredible contribution to field of anthropology which could be categorised as:
- Study of Indian Caste system
- Study of Indian Civilization
- Tribal study
- Pattern of Unity in Indian Civilization
1 Study of Indian Caste system
Bose developed keen interest in Indian caste system when he was working among the untouchables in the slums of Bolpur town under the Gandhian Reconstruction Programme. He did not support the myth of divine origin and notion of purity and pollution. He proposed that caste as an economic system and indicator of social hierarchy is disintegrating at different rates in different regions of India. Bose proposes that the caste system is based on the economic and cultural security provided by the noncompetitive, hereditary, vocation-based productive organization, which operated in isolated village communities controlled by general norm of inter-ethnic cultural tolerance.
Bose observed that the current developments result in deviations from the non-competitive ascribed traditional system towards a competitive one. In other words, the old structure being used in various combinations in new social meaning. He discusses about various aspect of Indian caste system in his articles like ‘Hindu Method of tribal Absorption’ (1941), Caste in India (1951) and Competing Productive system in India (1968).
2 Study of Indian Civilization
In his book, Hindu Samajer Gadan (Structure of Hindu society, 1949), Bose explained various social processes shaping Indian social structure such as the impact of British rule, social movements in the medieval period in relation to Islam. He observed that Classical Varna Jati system will not be suitable for Modern India but some of its components and ideas may have functional significance. The cultural history of Indian civilization exhibits unity in diversities. Various diversified groups are bound together by Indian system of Jajmani, in which each caste works for other in accordance to heredity positions and occupations. He has thrown light upon characteristic traits of a civilization but not properly distinguished the concept of civilization from that of culture.
3 Tribal study
The brief field work among Juang of Orissa provided him basic knowledge about various aspect of social and economic life of the tribal people. He presented papers which talked about the tribal economy, absorption of tribes into the Hindu caste system and the root of tribal separatist movement. In his book on Tribal Life in India (1970), Bose has observed that there is little difference in economic life of tribes and peasant and artisan communities. The difference between our rural folk and urban classes is undoubtedly greater than that between peasants and the tribal communities so for as their occupations are concerned.
4 Pattern of Unity in Indian Civilization
Bose proposed that the division of Indian population on the basis of with reference to dialect was possible on a different set of cultural divide as evidenced through items of material culture. This proposition was tested on the basis of extensive survey of the distribution of a set of material traits, forms and techniques of potters all over India. Bose showed various regions of India, which are today separated by difference of language, share many elements of material culture in common. In his book Peasant Life in India: A Study of Indian Unity and Diversity, Bose proposed that structure of Indian unity can be compared to a pyramid. There is more differentiation at the material base of life and progressively less as one traverse higher and higher. In another article, ‘The Geographical Background of Indian Culture (1950)’, Bose discusses as to how a kind of uniformity grew up between geographically and even ecologically distinguishable regions of India through the tradition of caste system.
The study of civilization is essentially a study of inner most, i.e., matters of the mind responding to changing life experiences of people. According to Bose, Indian civilization differed from European civilization. As former advocated cultural pluralism, latter was based on war experience leading to a spirit of nationalism. He conducted archaeological excavations in Mayurbhanj and wrote with D. Sen a pioneering work on the Palaeolithic culture of the area. Bose has written on temple architecture. He had interest in the material culture of the tribal people, and wrote with professional skill technology of shifting cultivation, and on various crafts such as oil-pressing, pottery and weaving. He edited almost singlehandedly India’s oldest anthropological journal, Man in India.
Books
- Cultural Anthropology in 1929
- Canons of Orissan Architecture in 1932
- Excavations in Mayurbhanj in 1949 with Dharani Sen
- Peasant Life in India in 1961,
- Calcutta: A Social Survey in 1964,
- Culture and Society in India and Problems of National Integration in 1967,
- Problems of Indian Nationalism in 1969,
- Tribal Life in India in 1971
- Anthropology and Some Indian Problems in 1972.