Savaging the Civilized (PB): Verrier Elwin, His Tribals and India

Must read for students and researchers of social sciences. Nicely written with lots of inputs. I would say one of the best work of Ramachandra Guha...

Its fluent in its content n narration kudos to d author for making a wonderful piece f work about d tribal India a true delightful mix f biography n geography f Indian tribesUseful even to d ones who took anthropology as a subject f option in competitive exams

I think he is the prose writer in fiction we have currently. The book is a must for anybody interested in the tribes of india and how their current status came about and should we reconsider their evolution.

It's a well written biography and the subject is immensely interesting. An excellent coverage of the life, work and struggles of Verrier Elwin and gives one a glimpse of the tribal people of India.

A brilliantly written biography -

New, Updated Edition, Allen Lane (Penguin Books), 2014I finished reading Guha's Savaging the Civilized a couple of days back. It is a complete biography of Verrier Elwin, in the sense that it offers the portrait of all the aspects of his life in England and India. Born an Englishman, Elwin completed his education at Oxford and travelled to India to work with the Christ Seva Sangh. Here, he came into contact with the leaders of the Indian National Congress such as Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, and Jawaharlal Nehru who were working towards Independence from the British rule. Gradually, he became disillusioned with and withdrew from the activities of the Sangh as well as the Congress under Mahatma Gandhi. Then, he decided to work with the tribes of India, especially those in central India and Orissa in order to preserve their culture and heritage. Along with his friend and comrade Shamrao Hivale, his attempt was to resist the twin forces that were applying unjust pressure on the tribes- the exploitative colonial rule of the Britishers, and the activities of missionaries as well as the work of some organisations and individuals who sought to impose 'Hindu' social practices on them.After India's Independence in 1947, the Nehru administration sought Elwin's help with regard to the 'integration' of the tribes of the northeast of India with the national 'mainstream'. Elwin's attention was specifically directed towards the NEFA (present day Arunachal Pradesh), the reports about the tribes of which he regularly sent to the Governor as the Adviser to the region. By this time, Elwin had renounced English citizenship and had become a citizen of India. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government. He breathed his last in India- the country which he made his home and workplace, far away from the country of his birth.I must emphasise that Savaging the Civilized is a largely unbiased and critical account of Elwin's life. This can be gauged from the fact that Guha does not flinch from giving details that Elwin himself seems to have deliberately elided in his autobiography entitled The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin: An Autobiography (1964). Some of these details include Elwin's personal trials and tribulations as he moved away first from the Christian fold and then Gandhi, his unsuccessful marriage with his first wife, the tribal woman Kosi, and his brief affair with a woman outside his rather happy marriage with second wife Lila- the last fact, he confessed only to Arthur Koestler. However, even as Guha underlines the several points and incidents that Elwin seems to have suppressed in the account of his own life, he has surely not missed what he rightly recognises as the significance of the life that Elwin led. Elwin's strength, as one can gauge from Guha's account, lied in the fact that he never allowed one fixed ideology or philosophy to determine his moral and intellectual outlook. He straddled the difficult path between faith in Christianity and working with the tribes, between feeling for relative freedom about matters related to sexuality and the strict moral and sexual codes that Gandhi prescribed, and ultimately between 'integration' of the tribes with Indian 'mainstream' and the preservation of their cultural values and ways of life. Needless to state, in spite of this struggle to balance between these extremes, Elwin's commitment to the cause of the tribes was unquestionable- his various monographs on them such as The Agaria, The Baiga, as well as A Philosophy for NEFA are a testimony to this fact.It has been argued that the many anthropological/ethnographic accounts of the tribes of India that Elwin produced do not have the same rigour as one has come to associate with contemporary anthropological studies of tribes. This might be a fair charge but, as Guha argues, this is more than compensated by the fact that Elwin lived most of his life with the tribes he studied. This fact presents a sharp contrast to the practice of those scholars who work in the 'field' for a few weeks or months and then write from the comfortable environs of universities. Guha also remarks that an Elwin book can rarely bore a reader, for the sheer quality of his prose makes his books worth re-reading. It is a different matter of course that the same can be said of Guha's books, this one in particular. This is not to deny that it has taken him commendable and painstaking research to produce Savaging the Civilized- he has gone through the books, articles, and letters of Elwin, of Elwin's contemporaries, and re-visited the places that have played a significant role in Elwin's life.Thus, Guha's biography of Elwin is a very good work, worth emulation by those who want to contribute to this genre in the future. It is not surprising that it is also Guha's favourite among his own books. What gives the study additional credence and relevance is the 'Epilogue' that Guha has expanded and updated for this revised edition. In the 'Epilogue', he highlights the relevance of Elwin's life and times-especially Elwin's approach towards matters related with the tribes- for the contemporary issues that India faces. These include the growth of Maoist 'insurgency' in different states of India, the displacement faced by tribes due to implementation of several 'developmental' projects, environmental degradation etc. In Savaging the Civilized, Guha's suggestion seems to be that it would benefit policy makers, planners, and thinkers if they would seek to deal with these problems in the light of the approach that Elwin maintained towards the tribes of India i.e. their gradual 'integration' with the Indian 'mainstream' without the sacrifice of the cultural ethos dear to them.I have a minor quibble to pick, however, with Guha's book. At times, the writing becomes too anecdotal and the multiple notes and references seem to break the flow of the narrative. But, as I said, this is indeed a minor quibble to be picked with the book that provides a good, solid account of a life lived with, and for the tribes of India.

Refreshing read!

Guha, a staunch Nehruvian, is a colonial holdover opposed to nationalist causes and interests. He tries to present Elwin a colonial agent and unsavoury character who exploited tribal children under the pretext of sociology research as a major historical figure. It is no contribution to history but a colonial hangover in racist anthropology.

Dr Elwin has indeed been very brave in his presentation of the hill tribes of India, and their lifestyle which is completely at odds to our tradtional Western culture. And not only our Western culture, but that of the rest of the world.