D. N. Majumdar, a student of Sarat Chandra Roy from Calcutta University, went to Cambridge to conduct his Ph.D. under Professor T. C. Hodson in 1933. For his fieldwork, he selected a tribe called the Ho in the Kolhan region of Chotanagpur. This study became a basis for the study of society by students in the future. The approach could be shortened to MARC, or Man, Area, Resource and Cooperation. The relationship between these four elements guided the existence of any society. Man, here refers to human beings having certain biological needs and physical properties. Area refers to the spaces which they occupy, the geographical referent which forms the basis of their existence. Resource signifies the materials available in the spaces that they occupy. Finally, cooperation indicates the relationships between the human beings studied. Harmony in all these four elements leads to a functional unity in society. This unity breaks down due to external pressures.
Using this model Majumdar claimed that the Hos were being influenced due to external pressures. He saw that primitive tribes were declining and this was for him a primary concern for anthropologists. An advanced culture impinging on a simple and passive society, according to him, caused such a decline. He did not agree that this could be stopped by creating reserves for tribals so that they may not be influenced, or by including them very closely within the Hindu fold as a backward form of Hinduism, but that they should be integrated into Indian society, a form that he called “creative or generative adaptation.” He believed that dominant groups should give respect to those communities that were backward or downtrodden.
A social change, in his opinion, should not be disruptive but should be in continuity with existing cultural traditions. Thus, his work was on culture contact and acculturation among the Ho. His Ph.D. was awarded in 1935. During this period, he was invited to deliver a course of lectures at Cambridge and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1936.
In spite of his specialization in Social Anthropology, he managed to keep up with trends in Physical Anthropology and Prehistory. He advanced in his training through his teachers Professor G. M. Morant and Gates, who taught him advanced techniques in the field. He also regarded Bronislaw Malinowski as his teacher and was greatly influenced by him.
He was involved in the decennial census operations of 1941, carrying out anthropological and serological surveys in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). P. C. Mahalonobis, the famous statistician, collaborated with him. Majumdar also went on to study polyandrous societies like the Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar in the Himalayas, the Korwas and the Tharus as well as towns and castes in Uttar Pradesh. After Sarat Chandra Roy, he carried on the traditions of fieldwork in India. He extended his work from tribals to urban societies also.
In physical anthropology, he worked on blood groups, anthropometric surveys, health and disease also. Anthropometric and serological data was analysed statistically by him (known as biometrics). In Uttar Pradesh, he tried to find out the biometrical correlates of caste hierarchy. Though using racial factors in his analysis, he was opposed to the concept of race and was not fond of single factor explanations in caste studies. Using physical anthropology, he also studied the school children of Lucknow.
He was also known to be interested in prehistoric archaeology, keeping up with the latest on the topic and occasionally lecturing on it. He became more and more knowledgeable about the castes and tribes of the country and went on to promote a problem-oriented research work based on theory rather than mere
ethnographical ones. He learnt more about the tribes and castes of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (studying the Gonds of Bastar), Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat (studying the Bhils) and West Bengal. Another promoter of this approach was his peer Verrier Elwin.
In 1953 he collaborated with M. E. Opler of Cornell University in a research project on village studies. By 1945-7, he laid the foundation of what became the thriving ‘Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society’ (EFCS) in Lucknow. The society wished to collect ethnographic data on the local cultures of rural Uttar Pradesh. Under this society, the Eastern Anthropologist started out as a premier journal in Anthropology. He contributed greatly to village studies in anthropology in India.
He recommended the kinds of studies that were required for the future and also demarcated the social contours of an industrial city. He also incorporated an evaluation of administratively engineered social change. He was further involved in carrying out excavations of archaeological sites. He wrote many important works like
- Race Elements in Bengal (which he wrote with C. R. Rao),
- Social Contours of an Industrial City (with N. S. Reddy and S. Bahadur),
- A Village on the Fringe, Race and Cultures of India,
- Fortunes of Primitive Tribes
- Himalayan Polyandry (1962).
- A Tribe in Transition.
- An Introduction to Social Anthropology with T. N. Madan
In 1960 -61, at the time of his death, he had promoted Anthropology all over the country in a number of universities and also inculcated anthropology among many generations of students. He had then been the Head of the Department and Dean, Faculty of Arts. He apparently died after a full day’s work on 31 May 1960 after a cerebral haemorrhage. Recently, a full year of celebratory seminars, conferences and lectures were held by EFCS to celebrate the centennial year of D. N. Majumdar’s birth.
1 Study of Tribal culture
Being strongly influenced by Bronislaw Malinowski, Majumdar followed the Functionalist approach to study culture. In his fieldwork research, Majumdar claimed that the Hos were being affected due to external pressures. His work was on culture contact and acculturation among the Ho. He saw that primitive tribes were declining and an advanced culture imposed on a simple society caused such a decline. He did not support that the idea of ‘Tribal Reserve Area’, instead he believed that the tribe should be integrated into Indian society, a process that he called “creative or generative adaptation.” He believed that dominant groups should give respect to backward communities. A social change, in his opinion, should not be disruptive but should be in continuity with existing cultural traditions. His book titled ‘A Tribe in Transition: A study in Culture Pattern’ (1937) is regarded as first scientific study of impact of modern civilization upon Indian tribal people.
He was the first Indian anthropologist to study and write about the impact of non- tribal culture on various institutions of tribal life. His book, The Fortunes of Primitive Tribes (1944) provides an account of social and cultural life of various tribes of Uttar Pradesh. He produced ethnographic accounts of the Ho (Bihar), the Khasa, the Korwa, the Tharu, the Gonds of Bastar (M.P.), the Bhil of Gujarat and the so called criminal tribes of U.P. He conducted fieldwork through local dialects and covered the major aspects of culture – economics, Kinship, marriage, religion etc.
2 Rural Studies
He played important role in encouraging village studies in India. He presented a model of anthropological village study in book titled Caste and Communications in an Indian Village (1958). He stated that the anthropologist and even sociologists can play a decisive role in studying and exploring problems of backward classes and assessing the impact of Community development programs on the life of people at village level. Thus anthropologist can help government and administration to develop suitable strategies for the tribal and backward classes and assess their implementation. His work, Himalayan