Irawati Karve was India’s first woman anthropologist at a time when the discipline was developing. She was the founder of sociology in the Poona University, an indologist and an eminent writer. She was born on December 15, 1905 in Burma and educated in Pune. She obtained B.A. degree in Philosophy (1926) from Fergusson College and M.A.degree in Sociology (1928) from Bombay University. She did doctoral work in anthropology from the University Of Berlin, Germany in 1928-30 under the guidance of Eugene Fischer on the Normal Asymmetry of the Human Skull and Bones. Berlin University honoured her with D. Phil, degree
in 1930. She was well versed in both social as well as in physical anthropology. In 1939, Karve became the head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune (University of Pune). In 1947, she presided over the Anthropology section of the Indian Science Congress. Later, she remained the Vice Chancellor of SNDT College for some time. She was invited by the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London in England in 1951-52 where she prepared her first draft of the book on Kinship Organization in India.
Her famous work includes – Kinship Organisation in India (1953), Hindu Society: An Interpretation (1961) Group Relations in Village Community (1963), The Social Dynamics of a Growing Town and Its Surrounding Area (1965) and Yuganta (1967 in Marathi). She wrote many research papers in several renowned journals in both English as well as in Marathi. Her work Yuganta (1967) won the Sahitya Academy Award for that year. Yuganta studies the principal, mythical heroic figures of the Mahabharata from historical, anthropological and secular perspectives. She died in 1970 while she was still in service.
She gave much importance to the racial composition of the Indian population, the kinship organization in India, the origins of caste and sociological studies of rural and urban communities. She has immensely contributed to social- cultural anthropology. Her contribution can be categorised as:
- Study of Kinship system in India
- Dynamics of Group relations in village
- Social Dynamics of a Growing Town
1 Study of Kinship system in India
Her book Kinship Organisation in India, first published in 1953 is considered a renowned work depicting several facets of family structure in India. She basically categorised the country into four different cultural zones in accordance with the marriage practices as: the northern, the central, the southern, and the eastern.
Three concepts namely, linguistic regions, institution of caste and family organization are necessary to understand any cultural phenomenon in India. The kinship organization exhibits the linguistic pattern, but in some aspects, deviations are observed. As , though the Maharashtra region belongs to the area of Sanskritic languages but its kinship organization is related to Dravidian or south Indian kinship system. According to Iravati Karve caste is hereditary endogamous group which is restricted to linguistic region. It is an extended kin group. Caste members share a particular occupation and castes are also ranked in a certain order in social stratification.
Joint family is another important institution to understand cultural phenomenon in India. This family system has been compatible with agrarian background of Indian economy. Joint family is a group of kins of several generations, ruled by a head, in which there is joint residence, hearth and property and whose members are bound with each other by mutual obligations. As stated by Iravati Karve, joint family is a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked in one kitchen, who hold property in common, participate in common family worship and are related to one another as some particular type of kindred. A joint family has vertical as well as horizontal extensions. Its main characteristic feature is the indivisibility and common sharing of property. The eldest male member has the right to manage property and he sees that no member is deprived of its benefits. Karve has followed the classical three or four generation formula but she does not include the generation of the common ancestor, the great grandfather, in the number of generations and does not mention unmarried males at all. This means that formula of the genealogical depth of the joint family is deeper than the classical formula. She stated that every joint family has an ancestral seat or locus which some members may leave for an indefinite period. Thus, the linguistic region, the caste and the family are the three most important aspects of the culture of any group in India. This is applicable to the primitive tribes of India. Certain anthropological problems have been addressed by Karve. The family in the majority of regions in India is an autonomous unit with, its own economic organization while caste is a closed autonomous unit which has certain limited contacts with other similar units. The joint family provided economic and social security The rise of industrial cities and the new opportunities of employment have resulted in disintegration of the bonds of the joint family and of the village community
The kinship organization described in this book presents different cultural zones with different modes of marriages. Karve saw that in the north, the rules of marriage lay down that brides should be brought from families which are not related to blood. Her analysis of southern marriage pattern, based on the chronological division of the kin into older and younger kin, rather than on the principle of generations, is an important contribution to Indian anthropology.
Karve devotes an entire chapter to the comprehensive survey of property, succession and inheritance in the new edition (1965). She explains the differences between the Dayabbaga system of Bihar and Bengal and the Mitakshara system followed by the rest of Hindu India. She also deals with the system in matrilineal Kerala.
2 Dynamics of Group relations in village
Her book Group Relations in Village Community (1963), describes a study conducted by Karve and Damle (1963) in three villages in Maharashtra to examine group relations in village community. They collected both quantitative and qualitative data to test the hypothesis of the structuring of interpersonal and inter-group relations with reference to kinship, caste and locality.
The authors viewed the boundaries of kin and caste that existed in various types of inter-dependence governed by economic relationships. Economic independence did not seem to imply social intercourse. But, the system of social stratification defines and delimits personal and social intercourse. The study reveals that the traditional values about the caste system basically continued to define the status system. Formal education seems to have some impact on behaviour, attitudes and opinions. Help as regards agricultural operations was generally received from people of one’s own caste. There were few occasions of help outside the caste. Also, help during sickness and involving personal attendance was confined mostly to kin and sometimes to caste but medicines were given freely by other than the caste members. Help was given and received at the time of funeral in the traditional pattern. Scheduled Castes (SCs) did not have a place in the rural economy; and it was very difficult to uplift them. Thus, the authors find that most of the intercourse of an individual was confined to kin groups. And, the inter-group intercourse was governed by the social rank. The attitudes and opinions provide ample evidence that behavioural pattern in terms of social distance were governed by the caste system.
3 Social Dynamics of a Growing Town
Karve and Ranadive (1965) conducted a study on the social dynamics of a growing town and its surrounding area in the town of Phaltan of Satara district and 23 villages around the town in Maharashtra. According to one of the authors, the small town in India seemed to play a role between the crowded and sophisticated city and the extremely isolated society of the village. The town with its weekly market was the bridge between the city and the village. To the city inhabitants, a small town is a backward place without economic, social or cultural opportunities. To the village people, it offers excellent economic and social
opportunities. Also, the city with its congestion and distances offers less and less amenities to a certain class, who may be attracted to a small town which might become the future city. The authors tried to examine this small town keeping in light of the above points. The authors attempted to understand the thought and behavioural pattern of the small town and the villages with reference to education, religion and economic activities. The difference in the behavioural pattern of the town and village sometimes seems to be due to education.
The town had not attracted people from places more than a hundred miles away but it was definitely a centre of attraction for the surrounding areas. The town had both the rural and urban character. The difference between town and village was due to accepting new lifestyle that transformed the earlier socio-cultural institutions. This was revealed by the list of goods possessed by the sample families, by modes of dress, by modes using certain things and spending leisure hours. In the second part of the work, the authors, on the basis of their observation in Phaltan and the surrounding villages, suggested a model for building up of communities to which maximum cultural amenities can be provided by the government.