Verrier Elwin was a British-born Indian anthropologist, ethnologist, and tribal activist. His full name was Harry Verrier Halman Elwin. He was born on 29 August 1902 and expired on 22 February 1964. Place of birth: Dover, England. Place of death: Delhi.
He worked with Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress and then converted to Hinduism in 1935. Verrier Elwin was best known for his early work with the Baigas and Gonds of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh in Central India. He married a 13-year-old tribal girl. Later, he worked with the tribals of North East Indian states, popularly known as the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), and settled in Shillong, the hill capital of Meghalaya. He became identified with the tribals and became the deputy director of the Anthropological Survey of India in 1945, the year of its formation. After independence, Jawaharlal Nehru appointed him as an adviser on tribal affairs. The Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan. His autobiography, “The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin,” won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1965.
For the first time, he visited a remote village in the forest of Mandla District. He spent twenty years in Central India. He was a champion of tribal rights. His studies on the tribes are among the earliest anthropological studies in India. In 1954, he became an Indian citizen.
Verrier Elwin’s comment on Ghotul is very significant. He wrote:
“The message of the Ghotul—that youth must be served, that freedom and happiness are more to try than any material gain, that friendliness and sympathy, hospitality and unity are of the first importance and above all that human love—and its physical expression—beautiful, clean, and precious, is typically Indian.”
Elwin believed in the cultural autonomy of tribal life and value system. It is a unique order of civilization. Elwin’s views on tribal development revolve around the issues of integration, assimilation, and preservation of tribal culture. Elwin believed in preserving their cultural identity. The idea was to create large national parks with tribal associations that had full authority to let the tribals live their own way of life.
Elwin made the forests in India his home and located tribal communities as his own. According to Verrier Elwin, the tradition of courtesy and hospitality is a rare thing in the modern world of competition and rivalry. But in Assam, he felt intoxicated with the grace and choice of the people and witnessed a certain beauty in human relationships.
Verrier Elwin was a Britisher like Jim Corbett, the famous hunter turned conservationist. Both had a liking for Indian tribals. Corbett was unofficially an anthropologist. In his writings, we find evidence everywhere. So, Elwin and Corbett both are praiseworthy for their views and contributions to Indian tribal society. We must salute both of them.
(The views expressed are the writer’s own.)
Radhakanta Seth is an Income tax officer in Sambalpur. He is a Freelance writer and his articles have been published in some Oriya dailies like Sambad, Samaj, Dharitri and English dailies like The Telegraph and in a sociological journal ‘Folklore’ published from Kolkata.