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WHAT the inhabitants of North Sentinel island in the Bay of Bengal call
themselves is a mystery. Their beliefs, the language they speak and even the
exact number in their community are also unknown. But these questions are closer
to being answered since a team of Indian scientists and government officials
made the first friendly contact with the tribe in 1991. The small hunting and
gathering community is one of the most isolated in the world. On previous
occasions, they have fled from visitors or attacked them with longbows and
arrows. Five years ago, however, they accepted gifts of coconuts straight from
the researchers’ hands.

This attempt to learn more about the Sentinelese was part of a project called
“People of India”, the country’s first nationwide ethnographic study, and
probably the largest anywhere in the world. An army of 500 researchers has spent
more than a decade interviewing almost 25 000 people in 3581 villages and 1011
towns and cities. Their aim is to create a map of the “human surface” of India.
The project will be wound up next month and the final results published by the
Anthropological Survey of India over the next year or so. Information gathered
by survey scientists will fill some 40 000 pages in 43 volumes, 22 of which have
already been published.

The government-funded project, which cost 35 million rupees (£631 000),
mushroomed into a much bigger study than its instigators had envisaged. The
researchers identified 4694 communities and generally interviewed five “key
informants” from each. The term “community”—which is more specific than
“caste”—refers to people, often with the same occupation, who see
themselves as a group. “Everybody has such a strong sense of identity,” says
Kumar Suresh Singh, retired director of the Anthropological Survey of India and
coordinator of the project. Finding out just how each community fits into such a
vast country was a “very powerful experience”, he adds.

The task was also long overdue, says Singh, because India is changing rapidly
and some parts of the country have never before been studied by anthropologists.
In several regions, the Indian researchers picked up where colonial surveyors
left off. In fact, “People of India” was conceived when former Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi asked Singh to recommend a text about the country’s people. Singh
had to admit that there was nothing more comprehensive than the works of British
anthropologist Herbert Risley, which date back to the beginning of the
century.

Risley’s was the first ethnographic survey of India. Compiled between 1905
and 1909, it covered British India and some princely states but left out huge
swaths of the country. Beginning in the 1930s, various teams of colonial and
Indian researchers investigated some areas in more detail, but these studies
included only about a quarter of the communities identified in “People of
India”. People living in states such as Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir,
Rajasthan and parts of Orissa have never been the subject of anthropological
analysis before. Furthermore, says Singh, colonial ethnographers were obsessed
with ranking castes and describing certain occupations including begging, and
ignored important aspects of community life such as links with other groups.

Face lift

There was a massive movement of people from 1947 when the subcontinent was
partitioned into India and Pakistan. This, together with drastic restructuring
of territories within India, changed the face of some of its bigger states and
cities.

When “People of India” started in 1985, information about India’s poorest
people was especially lacking. Despite 164 tribal studies carried out by the
Anthropological Survey since it was established in 1945, fewer than half the
country’s “scheduled” castes and tribes (primarily the people formally called
untouchables) had been studied.

With such an enormous amount of information missing, 11 years was barely long
enough to piece together a picture of the entire country. “It is quite likely
some communities may have slipped through, but I think we have a reasonably
complete work,” says Singh. He acknowledges, however, that the study has one
major shortcoming. Women made up just one-fifth of the principle informants for
the study and 15 per cent of the investigators. “We did not deal with the gender
issue,” says Singh. Even so, the research did reveal a disturbing persistence of
inequalities between the sexes. And it found that the status of women is
particularly low when they leave their own village to live in the home of their
husband. Women who were allowed to marry cousins or local men enjoyed a greater
status.

From its outset, the project was the subject of intense debate among Indian
scholars. Some argued that drawing up a list of communities was a dangerous,
neo-colonial exercise that ran the risk of freezing people’s identities and
perpetuating inequalities and divisions within Indian society. The choice of the
term “community” rather than “caste” raised some eyebrows. However, the
researchers say that caste is too broad a term to describe most groups of people
and that community better represents the sorts of local words individual groups
use to distinguish themselves from others.

Some academics objected that such a massive project would yield only
superficial knowledge and uneven data. Anthropological studies on this scale are
outdated, according to Veena Das, a sociologist at the University of Delhi. “Is
it going to help us understand fundamental processes like globalisation and
their effects on India?” she asks. “I would have to say no.” Singh and his many
supporters say such criticism is unjustified, pointing out that this is the
first complete anthropological record of India. “Every civil society must have a
list, must account for its people,” he says.

Other critics said that having commissioned and funded the study, the
government would feel at liberty to meddle with its findings. But, says Singh,
India’s politicians have never interfered in “People of India” despite the fact
that some findings could have important political ramifications.

Indeed, the survey has provided empirical evidence to smash some of the
stereotypes of Indian society for good. “India is seen in the context of
other-worldly aestheticism and nonmaterialism,” says Yogendra Singh, professor
of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. This upper-caste,
Brahmin stereotype is far from being the model for most Indians. “We got into
trouble with puritans in this country when we said Indians are largely a
drinking, smoking, meat-eating society,” admits K. S. Singh. “I was treated like
a heretic.”

Meat-eaters

Most Indians still regard vegetarianism as the most spiritual diet, but
eating habits are changing. “We found some communities that were traditionally
vegetarian have begun to eat meat, although there are instances of the reverse
happening,” says K. S. Singh. Meat-eaters consider fish the cleanest source of
animal food followed by mutton, poultry and finally pigs. One of the more
curious findings, he adds, was the large number of vegetarian pastoral
communities herding animals for milk. During the country’s rise to its current
position as the world’s second largest milk producer, consumption has spread to
tribal areas where milk was never drunk in the past. Wheat, too, has become a
widely accepted staple, even in traditional rice-growing regions.

The Anthropological Survey claims that “People of India” generated the first
definitive list of the country’s languages. The researchers did not use fancy
linguistic criteria to distinguish between languages, but simply asked people
what languages they spoke. They identified 322 separate languages and dialects
and 24 scripts. The 1961 census counted 1652 languages but, say the researchers,
the discrepancy has more to do with the way languages and dialects are
classified than with a loss of variety. One surprise was just how many people
speak two or more languages. In the village of Adoni in central India, some
people speak five. “We underestimated the extent of interaction and migration in
this country,” says K. S. Singh. English is still the predominant language of
the middle classes, but 64 per cent of communities use at least two
languages.

One of the most surprising findings is how widespread marriage between
cousins is. Anthropologists previously thought that this was only common in
southern Indian Dravidian culture. “Our data exploded the myth by finding it all
over the north and northeast,” says K. S. Singh. The study also found that child
marriages are on the decline, as is the practice of buying brides. Nationwide,
there are 41 symbols to indicate that a woman is married, the most common being
the wearing of vermilion.

Most communities (80 per cent) allow widowed women to remarry. And the figure
is almost as high in communities that used to follow the tradition of suttee, in
which widows would throw themselves onto the funeral pyre of their husband.

The survey also uncovered changing patterns in work. It toppled the idea that
every caste has its own occupation. Even using the smaller community
classification, groups never had fewer than two different jobs. The survey
identified 349 occupations in total, the commonest being farming, wage labouring
and animal husbandry. The most sought-after occupation is a job with the
government. Many jobs traditionally held by certain communities are rapidly
disappearing. Within the scheduled tribes, for example, activities such as
carrying carcasses, scavenging and snake charming are on the decline. And over a
generation or so, the number of communities that make salt has fallen from 32 to
19, as cheap manufactured salt makes the business unprofitable.

Researchers say the most important conclusion to be drawn from the survey is
the extent of cultural diversity in the country. K. S. Singh was surprised to
find that all India’s 25 states and 7 union territories are multiethnic,
multilingual and have many religions, in spite of what he calls the “drastic
surgery” that has redefined internal borders since independence. The survey
identified 776 cultural, ecological and economic traits. These include various
elements of social organisation such as marriage, death and religion. Many
traits coincide with strong regional identities that cross the religious divide.
“There is an extraordinary range of diversity whether it’s linguistic, cultural
or biological,” says K. S. Singh. “But in spite of so much diversity there is
also an extraordinary network of linkages. Conflicts but also cohabitation come
through clearly.”

Violent history

Such findings have prompted K. S. Singh and others to speculate on the
country’s future. India’s history has been marked by regular eruptions of
communal violence, and with each outburst commentators have asked just how long
the country can stay together. “There are always gory stories in the news of
conflict and blood baths. But after every riot people go back and live
together,” says K. S. Singh. He believes that the volatile political climate is
caused in part by a widening of India’s social base. In rural areas the outlawed
notion of untouchables still exists, but caste barriers are breaking down in the
cities and this sometimes leads to violence as communities try to exert their
rights. “Indian culture is far more stable than the impression given by
politics,” he says.

“India does have social segments but linkages are getting stronger,” says
Yogendra Singh. He believes that there is a growing realisation among
communities of their interdependence and that this is the mainstay of stability
in the country. But not everyone shares this optimism. Many political
commentators warn that although caste divisions in some regions may be growing
less important, caste allegiance is increasingly being exploited by politicians
as a divisive tool.

Either way, the country is definitely changing. “India is becoming culturally
homogenised with the forces of liberalisation, globalisation and urbanisation,”
says Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas, a leading social anthropologist, formerly at
the University of Delhi. He laments the loss of tradition and diversity and
calls for more research to document India’s ethnographic heritage before it is
lost forever. “Intensive studies must be launched of some groups in the
Himalayas, the northeast and the central forests as well as various artisan
castes which are undergoing drastic change, demographic growth, migration and
monetarisation,” says Srinivas.

K. S. Singh also hopes that “People of India” will be just a first step in a
continuing anthropological study. But, he adds, new efforts will require younger
scholars with more energy than he has left. After 38 years spent charting the
changing face of India, he is handing over the torch to the next generation of
researchers.

* * *

Gender agenda

(How communities treat women)

• Women have low status: 71 per cent
• Women’s status equal to men’s: 25 per cent
• Sons inherit property: 78 per cent
• All children inherit property: 12 per cent
• Daughters alone inherit property: 0.5 per cent
• Women have a decision-making role within the family: 42 per cent
• Women contribute to family income: 85 per cent
• Population control allowed: 75 per cent
• One or two-child families favoured: 17 per cent
• Three-child families favoured: 50 per cent
• Four-child families favoured: 25 per cent

* * *

Best of the rest

(Other things communities do)

• Listen to radios: 97 per cent
• Watch television: 50 per cent
• Cremate dead: 65 per cent
• Bury dead: 51 per cent
• Have cut down on rituals because of expense: 61 per cent
• Use firewood as main fuel: 91 per cent

* * *

Food for thought

(Community attitudes to food, drink and tobacco)

• Eat meat regularly: 49 per cent
• Strictly vegetarian: 16 per cent
• Drink alcohol occasionally (men): 53 per cent
• Drink alcohol occasionally (women): 22 per cent
• Drink alcohol regularly (men): 24 per cent
• Drink alcohol regularly (women): 5 per cent
• Smoke beedi (rolled cigarettes): 85 per cent
• Chew tobacco: 47 per cent

* * *

You’ve got to believe it

(Community religions)

• Hindu: 75 per cent
• Muslim: 12 per cent
• Tribal/folk religion: 8 per cent
• Christian: 7 per cent
• Sikh: 3 per cent
• Jain: 2 per cent
• Buddhist: 2 per cent

* * *

Getting hitched

(Marriage practices within communities)

• Allow marriages with mother’s brother’s daughter: 50 per cent
• Allow marriages with father’s sister’s daughter: 43 per cent
• Allow uncle-niece marriages: 7 per cent
• Must marry man from another village: 10 per cent
• Arrange marriages: 96 per cent
• Give dowries: 99 per cent
• Newly married couples live with husband’s family: 96 per cent