Naresh Kumar Vaid, Director , Vaids ICS

 Despite being a serious student of Anthropology for almost 50 years, the question makes me uneasy. I must admit that I have not been able to pinpoint what Anthropology is not. That could have made my job easy. Here I start with some historical facts. 1.       When Aristotle defined man as a “featherless biped walker” did he know he was defining the limits of Anthropology? 2.       In Class 9 th or 10 th I had read a poem starting with the couplet: “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man”. Doesn’t Alexander Pope, the poet, sound an Anthropologist? 3.         Again, the same year, we had a poem by Tennyson on Crimean War, The Charge of the Light Brigade which most of us   must have read; I remember a few lines: “Canons to right of them Cannons to left of them Cannons in front of them ………… Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred” N...

 There are always some people in our lives who deeply impact us. Academically, I consider three Indian Anthropologists whom I really admire (other than my own teachers), namely Prof. D. N. Majumdar, Prof. L. P. Vidyarthi and Prof. VKS. At personal level it was just one, Vinay Bhai. On Dec. 23, 2020 when I was thinking about Raymond Dart, who on this day in 1924, had discovered Taung Baby, that changed our Knowledge about human evolution forever, I received a phone call from Prof. Ashok Pradhan of Raipur who, in a chocking voice, informed me about Vinay Bhai leaving for his heavenly abode. There are many things about Vinay Bhai I may not be knowing (as our physical interaction had plenty of pauses in-between due to our different professional trajectories) but there are some I am probably the only witness. I rarely remember days, months and years of events, but a day I profoundly remember, I.e. Dec. 18, 1976, the day I joined Prof. Tiwari in Department of Anthropology at DU for...

Tribes, more often than not, are in the news mainly for the crimes committed against them. Most of us just glance through the news as if they are aliens to us. Unless we are particular about it, most of us even don’t know who amongst us are tribals; or whether tribes exist at all. The exhaustive definition of ‘tribe’ given in ‘merriam-webster.com reads as: Definition of tribe 1a: a social group comprising numerous families, clans, or generations together with slaves, dependents, or adopted strangers b: a political division of the Roman people originally representing one of the three original tribes of ancient Rome c: PHYLE 2: a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest 3: a category of taxonomic classification ranking below a subfamily also: a natural group irrespective of taxonomic rank The synonyms of ‘tribe’ are: blood clan, family, folks, house, kin, kindred, kin(s)folk, line, lineage, people, race, stock. In that sense any social group with a particular c...

Back after a long time because many important issues must be dealt with. Here I begin. Constitution: Long time ago I came to the conclusion that the Constitution has been betrayed every now and then. As regards Lockdown, who empowered the Central Government? Law and Order is a State Subject and the Centre can not enforce it unless an Emergency is declared. Second, every student of polity knows that before taking such a step all other necessary steps must be taken, most important being civil supplies. Third, right to life enshrined in the Constitution was totally ignored resulting in loss of life and employment. There was no proper planning and management strategy to enforce Lockdown and none in the government could visualize the consequences of doing it in haste or none had the guts to pinpoint them to the powers. Yet, all people in ruling dispensation as well as most of the so-called national media has lauded lockdown as timely. Is it? The present government and the political parties ...

Dear Readers! For me the Caption of this article is misleading (though, in the beginning you may not agree). The fact is that results of Anthropology in the last decade (except for one year) have been constantly good — more than 10%. However, after IAS 1996 it is for the first time that three in top then have Anthropology as their Optional. [In IAS 1996 three of our students  — Nilesh (7th), Manish (8th) and Piyush (9th) held this record]. Therefore, it is a special occasion for me but I may be disjointed,  as I have to say a lot on different aspects. I “I love anthropology because I’m insatiably curious. Anthropology uniquely spans the arts, humanities, social science and natural sciences, and touches all fields of human endeavor or inquiry. Human origins? Uh huh. Human rights? Certainly. Ontology and the nature of being? Got it. Genome sequencing? Check. Poetics and aesthetics? You bet. Cross-cultural psychology? Please. Climate change? Down cold. Migration and displa...

वो  जानवर  का बच्चा  है माँ को ढूंढता माँ बन गयी ग्रास शिकारी का बच्चा  भी बनेगा वो इंसान का बच्चा है माँ को  ढूंढता माँ बन गई  ग्रास शिकारी का बच्चा ज़िंदा रहेगा मौत से बदतर ज़िन्दगी किसी अपाहिज  भिगारी की या बंधुआ, आजीवन या  …… क्योंकि वह आदमी का बच्चा है I have just returned from Jharkhand after visiting Korba and Birhor. I could not express myself in better words   

TRIBALS, by all accounts, belong to the lowest rung of the society in terms of poverty, education and health; but the recent caste survey, some observations have been published in some newspapers (IE : 25-6-15 & HH : 26-6-15) shows a different picture. BUT first, we must know who is poor in India and whether the conclusion is tenable. There is no standard definition of poverty in India. Different committies have given different recommendations. The most amusing is the one given by erstwhile Planning Commission according to which the country has only those many poor as can be catered by the government. But, the most interesting are the figures relied upon by GoI, i.e. Rs. 26/- and Rs. 32/- per day for rural and urban people respectively. HERE, I have a point. Creamy layer for OBCs was initially fixed at Rs. 1.00 lakh annually, that was raised to Rs. 2.5 lakhs and then further to Rs. 6.0 lakhs. 9It is being raised further.) Meanwhile BPL limit has remained the same. It means, th...