She was India’s first woman anthropologist whose career started when disciplines of sociology and anthropology were still developing as university disciplines. She was the founder of anthropology at Pune University. She had been a writer and essayist; a translator of feminist poems and an Indologist. She had worked in times when institutionalisation of the subjects was happening in colonial India as well as during their professionalisation in the post-independence period.
Her abstinence from the shift of approach from diffusion to functionalism was one of the reasons for her no being as famous as her contemporaries. In addition, her preoccupation with classical anthropology with questions of human origin created an imbalance between its relevance in regional centres such as Pune and metropoles such as Delhi and Bombay.
However, recently there has been a revival of interest in her works. That is because of the range and variety of the methods she had used. Her works stretched from mapping kinship and caste to determining the status of women using census data, urbanisation, dam-displacement etc.
Hailing from a Brahmin family, she did not face many struggles in gaining her education. Being a woman did not restrict her from becoming a teacher due to the continuous social reforms on gender-equality in the upper-castes. But it does not necessarily mean that establishing a career in anthropology was easy. She had to face her part of struggles. However, she was married off to a progressive Chemistry professor whose family members were nationalists and reformists in nature. This enabled her to pursue her higher studies abroad and choose the profession of a researcher.
Influence of gurus in her work:
Four major influences can be observed in Karve’s works. Firstly, Indological traditions are evident. This could be traced to her MA supervisor GS. Ghurye. The second was an ethnological tradition which later came to be called as diffusionism. The third was an influence of the German physical anthropology which could have started during the course of her studies in Germany. And the last factor could be attributed to her own curiosity and passion in the field. She took research in new parts of the field such as socio-economic surveys, archaeological explorations etc.
Karve has recommended her readers to look at three Marathi works of Atre, Gole and Chapekar. These authors deal with dynamics in society. Gole looks at the effect of English education in the Brahman society whereas Chapekar deals with the changes in rural life. There is also a great deal of influence on Ghurye’s influence on her works.
Her works evidently give importance to family, kinship, caste and religion. This equation of Indian society to Hindu society can be said to be learnt from Ghurye as well as from the upper-caste social reforms. Being an Indologist, she looked for the influence of Sanskrit texts in contemporary practice. She emphasised on unity-in-diversity aspect – a notion that the cultural and physical differences between castes are united by Sanskrit.
This kind of Indology had affinities with ethnology and diffusionism. In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, ethnological surveys were being conducted in India and Britain. Institutions such as the British Association for the Advancement of Science’s Ethnographic Survey of the British Isles and Anthropological Survey of India were found. Through gazetteers and census, the cultural and physical traits of multiple castes and tribes were recorded.
This ethnological mapping of racial variations supports diffusionism. Evolutionism (an idea that all cultures originated independently and must pass through the same stages) gave birth to diffusionism. But diffusionists believed that cultures originated only under certain favourable conditions and was then spread. They also held that cultural traits were products of biological traits and that those could be transmitted through generations. According to them, cultural diversity occurs due to migration.
Karve was a propagator of this idea. Through her anthropometric and blood group surveys she found that caste was responsible for the variation in behavioural patterns in India. Her MA thesis was based on an ethnic study of her own caste. She had introduced the use of the technique of eye pigmentation for this study through her thesis.
She demonstrates Indian society as a patchwork of castes – physically and culturally differentiated. In the past, it was easier for communities to split and live than unite. In the present, it is the temperament of the communities that holds them from uniting. She also adds that Hindu society with its semi-independent structures such as family, caste and polytheistic religion is similar to a worm in which each segment is semi-independent.
The influence of German ideas arises from her studies in Germany. The physicalist tradition was based on the branch of medicine. Later a geneticist approach was developed through which the idea of racial hygiene was introduced. One of the leading figures in this eugenics movement was Eugen Fischer, German supervisor of Karve. This movement argued for heritability and that both physical and cultural characteristics can be biologically inherited.
She believed that anthropometric data was the basis of mapping social groups. Her works contained ideas of diffusionism, colonial gazetteer style ethnology and German human genetics. Her works primarily contained mapping social and biological variations.
Karve as an academician:
Returning from Germany Karve worked as a registrar in SNDT Women’s University in Bombay. Later, she joined the Deccan College as a reader in Sociology. This has remained to be her intellectual home since then. Being the only sociologist in the college she had the burden of teaching all the papers related to the subject. Her style was presenting the facts and leaving the interpretation to the people. Due to this, she has had difference of opinions with many of her colleagues.
Both her research and teachings were based on old-fashioned anthropology combining the four-field approach – archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistics and cultural anthropology. This is evident in her introduction of courses such as ‘Social Biology’ and ‘Indian Sociology’ rather than basic concept-based courses. Her lectures were filled with anthropometric observations and examples from Hindu epics.
Role of PhD students:
It was very common that the PhD students helped their supervisors with their larger thesis. While few students felt honoured to do it as it served as a platform for learning, others felt as if the authority and power of supervisors were being misused.
Many of Karve’s works have involved the participation of PhD students. She involved students in both the fieldwork and analysis and report-making work.
She has stated that establishing contacts in the field was important when undertaking anthropological studies. She states that studies on kinship required her to meet and talk with people in different sorts of places – trains, buses etc. – and at times even required her to share about her family. She adds that there was no concrete material tool or scale to measure the work during the field study. However, one aspect that never changed was the travel that was required. Her children record that they used to eagerly wait for her to return back after field work with interesting stories. There were also times when her kids had accompanied her to the field.
In the 1950s the trend of Malinowskian sort of field studies had lost its popularity. Also, being a married woman limited her abilities to conduct long fields studies. Her ageing and health conditions prevented her from caring out field studies in the later years. So she helped in such works as designing questionnaires and analysis.
She is also noted for reviving the genre of personal essays and vivid portraits of culture. The richness in her essay came from her fine intellect. Such writings of her are relevant to contemporary Sociology.
Karve’s stance on celebrating the diversity of India:
Karve’s works in English could be classified into four heads such as Physical anthropology, Cultural anthropology, Socio-economic surveys and Contemporary social comment. Her contributions could be chronologically arranged as follows – paleo-anthropology, Indological studies, physical anthropological investigations, cultural anthropology and building up an infrastructure of trained personnel. Throughout her career, the influence of Indology is quite evident.
Her main concern was with the variations within India which she valued positively. She had been against imposing uniformity and monotheistic religion. She says that the cultural problems of India lie on three entities viz. region, caste and family. To minimize the differences and establish uniformity is a great cultural task. But uniformity brought through such destructions of variation would be not so necessary in an ethical and cultural point of view. She holds that while social systems such as caste and joint families may seem to be oppressive for an individual but they provide security. Thus, she stated that such uniformity is needed in administrative level, not in a cultural one.
Tolerance and awareness of diversity are valuable cultural traits. These are largely seen as Hindu attributes. For example, the Brahmanical culture provides direction and unity. Indian sociology has been unable to free itself from standard Hindu consensus. Its Hindu character is often concealed in the name of nationalism and social universality.
In general, the concept of unity in the Indian context has been that of cultural unity. Literary and religious traditions played an important role in unity. For instance, a Brahmin always learn the same kind of scriptures (classic or Vedic literature) irrespective of where he is from.
This had left Islam and Christianity unassimilated in India. It was represented in anti-colonial terms and fundamentalism that failed to recognise differences. These feelings created resistance against Muslims. It was supported and intensified through Hindu reform movements.
The occurrences of sociological understandings of how Christianity and Islam operate in the Indian context are rare. This is because of the crosscut of religious unity and linguistic regions where Christians and Muslims seem deviant.
Karve explains that Muslims because of having religious centres outside and solidarity with outside Muslims spread across the globe occur differently from the rest of India even though they have been an indigenous element in cultural unity of India. Due to their impossibility for cultural compromise and respect or understanding of others religious, ethical or aesthetic creations, conflicts in adjustments arise. According to her, this later becomes racial conflicts.
Her writings suggest the need for multi-cultural and multi-religious society in India. She persistently equated religion with culture. Yet she never accepted Islam or Christianity as an integral part of India.
She states that it would be foolish to establish uniformity and keep society as it had been through ages in future. She holds that there had been intolerance even before the advent of Muslims and Christians. She adds that humanitarian’s aim cannot be the establishment of one religion but to bring about conditions in which different cultures could co-exist in mutual understanding.
Thus, she insists on the need for governments to investigate riots and be transparent. She advises to acknowledge pluralism in matters regarding language and schooling. For example, her Marathi nationalism is evident in views against Hindi superiority. She promoted education in regional languages and was against English-medium schools.
She also realised the threats for India’s cultural diversity (Example – Christian missionaries, Hindu chauvinists etc.). She stressed the importance of understanding the relationship between present and past. She also concentrated on the problems and importance of nation-building in a multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual state.
Mapping Broad Patterns – Kinship and Caste
In her book ‘Kinship organisation in India’, Karve examined various kinship terminologies and their usages and compared them to the usage and practices found in the Vedas. She has stated that understanding of any cultural phenomenon in India can be based on three factors – configurations of the linguistic regions, the institution of caste and family organisation. These factors are so intimately bound that they give meaning and supply basis for the Indian culture. Though this idea seems to be similar to the functionalist approach of the interrelation between different aspects of culture, her approach in the book is very different.
She had segregated linguistic zones such as 1. Indo-European, 2. Dravidian, 3. Central zone and 4. Mundari in the east. Within these divisions are variations based on castes and sub-castes. The unity in all these diversities was brought about through Vedic literature and epics such as Mahabharata and Ramayana. The North Indian Indo-European kinship has been analysed through etymological analysis of kinship terms in Mahabharata and in contemporary times.
A comparison on the North-Indian patri-clan exogamy has been compared to the Dravidian cross-cousin marriage from a feministic point of view. In the north, the girls were married off at a young age and sent to live with unknown in-laws whereas, in the south, the bride is made to live with known relatives even after marriage. She observes that in the central region there is a transition. A great internal variation is evident with some castes allowing cross-cousin marriage and instances of hypergamy.
Criticism and appreciations:
This work was regarded by many as a notable advancement in understanding of the structure of Indian society. It was also praised for being a valuable addition as newer literature, for its exploration of relationships in social arrangements and its delineation of the characteristic forms of social behaviour.
However, while analysing kinship terminologies, she had directly jumped from Joint family systems of ancient India to family systems in 20th Century India. Thus, a complete historical analysis is absent. Also, the kinship practices of Muslims and Christians were ignored.
Also, many criticisms regarding insufficient localisation of kinship terms, lack of conceptual precision etc. were put forth. The haphazard clubbing of terms had made structural analysis impossible due to the sterility of valuable information it has created. Once the features are stripped off from their particular sociological context and lumped together within one cultural or linguistic zone, the culturologists may feel at ease but it puts the sociologist at loss.
Feminism in the work:
Karve’s analysis had been based on a women’s perspective. For instance, marriage with strangers and marriage with kin had been aspects of comparison. Not only her writings but also her everyday dealings seem to have a special empathy for female students and subjects. She had taken women’s education and employment as factors and even the basis of certain studies. But she does not seem to have been a radical feminist. She has not even wanted to identify herself as a feminist.
Approaches:
She has used not only anthropometrical data but also other aspects of kinship and family (usage of folk songs to illuminate kinship practices). Though there have been many works relating to caste its origins, structure, effects, characteristics amongst other aspects, Karve has restricted herself in writing about origins of caste and considering it as a unit of analysis. Her works differ from Ghruye’s point of caste being a Brahmanical product of the Indo-Aryan culture that spread through diffusion. She argues that while the varna system might have been an Aryan import, it had been superimposed on the already existing Jati system to create the caste system. She backs this thesis with anthropometric measures and evidence from blood samples, eye colour etc.
Hence, she regards that sub-caste must be treated as castes and that overall caste category must be treated as ‘caste category’. She states that there are not only cultural differences among the sub-castes but also ethnic variations. Her definition of caste as ‘ a group which practices endogamy, has a particular area of spread or dispersion, may have one or more traditional occupations, has a more or less determinate or flexible position in a hierarchical scale and has traditionally defined modes of behaviour towards other castes’ has faced criticisms for being highly Indological and discriminant.
However, the concept of extended kin groups has received support from historians. For Karve, its importance lay its aid in understanding migration. She states sub-castes are the smallest social units of historical entities with exclusive memory of the socio-historical event. Generic terms would be of no value for historical analysis. Therefore, one must investigate endogamous sub-groups separately to get a clear idea of social and cultural hybridization as a historical process of assimilation.
She had used blood groups of sub-castes to determine population movements. Thus, there was a revival of the practice of cultural anthropologists in tracing population through mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome.
Socio-economic Surveys:
Karve’s socio-economic studies are similar to applied anthropology and policy studies of today. Ethnographical studies dominate policymaking than statistical surveys and sociologists should take responsibility for this. Karve’s studies were focused on the ‘why’ of various social phenomena thus falling into the category of ethnography.
Her works on tribes suggest that the primate communities must be helped in advancement and assimilation and must not be imposed outside practices and customs such as sexual codes, dietary practices etc. She suggests that education must start from their mother tongues and then regional scripts must be used. Later, the regional languages can be utilised to ensure future employability and utility. However, due to an evident Marathi nationalism in her, she had failed to acknowledge other regional languages such as Gondi or Bhili.
Study on Phaltan:
In her work ‘Social dynamics of the growing town and its surroundings’ done on the behalf of the Research Programme Committee of the Planning Commission, she had analysed the dynamics of a town, Phaltan. She states that there was a great deal of diversity due to the presence of many artisanal castes. Also, many educated people preferred agriculture as an occupation than the uneducated. This was because of the introduction of cash crops such as Sugar, cotton etc.
Study on Markets and Regions:
Karve has done a study on the weekly markets in Baglan Taluka of Nasik district. In ‘The role of weekly markets in tribal, rural and urban settings’ she highlights the integrative dynamic role of markets. She holds that it is integrative because it brings people of the same and different regions together. The markets are considered dynamic because of the new wants that the traders are able to bring amongst the people. Thus, she stresses the fact that objective boundaries affect subjective understandings. This was a fascinating attempt to provide a spatial basis to social institutions.
Survey on displaced people though Koya Dam:
Even though the displacement of these people were planned it was hurried and left several difficulties for the people. The displaced people were given cash compensations which Karve feels is unjust for the such ignorant and illiterate. She feels that no cash equivalent can be provided for the loss of their tangible belongings. She suggests they must have been helped in aspects of resettlement such as the finding of new houses. Such work was ahead of her time and thus outlived her works on caste and kinship.
Conclusion:
It can be safely said that Karve dedicated herself to science and was completely involved in it. Though her family background had effects in her works, she had been a notable scholar in her times. Her curiosity and enthusiasm are reflected all throughout the career. Also, she had been able to constantly maintain her theoretical approach.
