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Anthropology- A fast dwindling field of study in India - 3-Jul-2012

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With the advent of many lucrative courses, lack of awareness among students and outdated curriculum are cited the major reasons for swiftly dwindling study of Anthropology.

Even overseas educational institutions that are queuing to set their foot in India don’t show interest to promote the study.  Instead, they are keen making quick money through MBA programmes.

Anthropology is science of man. Some institutions slot it under social sciences, some under science stream.

Anthropology curriculum is a space for the creative dialogue between Humanities, Arts and the Sciences.

Students interested in the discipline can either be from humanities or science background. Specialization takes place at post graduation level, after which academic-oriented students take up M.Phil and PhD.

At the introductory level, students are made aware of basic concepts of all branches of the discipline such as biological, socio-cultural, archeological, linguistic anthropology, and are familiarized with Indian Anthropology. Theories, research methodology, field studies are familiarized with. There is also a subject on Indian Anthropology.

In India, some universities that offer Anthropology are Karnatak University Dharward, Hyderabad Central University, Visva Bharathi University, Vidyasagar University, Calcutta University, Utkal University- Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur University Orissa, Delhi University, Panjab University, Ranchi University, Garhwal University

Probable ventures available for students opting Anthropology is to take a shot at civil services exams, NGOs, select ministries, research, teaching, journalism Lack of enough colleges brings in certain complications. Abhilasha Kapoor, who is currently pursuing her PhD from DU, rues that absence of anthropology at college-level translates into scarcity of jobs. For this prospective doctorate, getting a teaching job is a struggle because new faculty positions are hardly created.
 
Setting up laboratories is an expensive affair, which explains why Indian private colleges shy away from introducing the subject. The same reasons make foreign providers wary of investing a big sum, that too in a politically uncertain environment.
 
Reason for students not falling head over heels for the subject is that at a time when students select courses that guarantee them lucrative jobs, anthropology fails to fetch monetary returns. In an era where the interest of students is more towards engineering, not only there are dropouts, but the admissions are also dwindling.
 
Dr. Swarup Dutta, Researcher with Council for Social Development (CSD) reasons on the waning interest. “The subject is hardly popularized or marketed for students to get excited,” he says.
 
In a country that has produced some brilliant anthropologists, the subject cries for a modern course content. Present curriculum is at least 30 years behind what is taught in the US. Leading professors of the field say that the content must get revised every fifth year. 
 
Furthermore, the concept of student exchange programme doesn’t seem to exist. Funding happens to be one of the prime reasons for the lack of interest. At Bachelor’s and Master’s level, there is no facility of grants for fieldwork. But a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) having cleared UGC-NET, obtains Rs. 16,000 per month plus 30% HRA. This amount increases to Rs. 18,000 after two years. A sum of Rs. 20,000 is also allotted for contingencies.

Fellowships are available from other sources such as, UGC, DST, ICSSR, ICHR, CSIR and ICMR, Ministry of Welfare, Ministry of Tribal Affairs. Institutions like TISS, Indian Statistical Institute, Anthropological Survey of India also welcome research students.
 
Anthropology may be going through a beleaguered phase now, but for passionate students, it has a lot to offer.

Scaling in profession requires lot of individual effort as well in this field. That includes learning to write articles that are a balanced mix of theory and empirical data, learning about peer review processes and aiming to get published in international journals for enhanced visibility and raising funds to attend international conferences to share work.