Surajit Chandra Sinha

Surajit Chandra Sinha was an Indian anthropologist and administrator who distinguished himself in the field of social and cultural anthropology. He was born on 1 August 1926 in Durgapur, Bengal Presidency, British India, to a zamindar family. He was the eldest son of Maharaja Bhupendra Chandra Sinha of Susang, who was a student of Presidency College, Calcutta and a well-known landscape painter. His mother was a daughter of Jogendranath Moitra, the zamindar of Sithlai in Pabna District. His family members traced their origins to the reign of Emperor Jahangir. Sinha's youngest sister is Purba Dam, the eminent exponent of Rabindrasangeet. A close paternal uncle, Maharajkumar Mani Singh was a well-known Communist Party leader who wrote Jiban Sangram and was later elected head of the communist party of East Pakistan. His maternal uncle was Kumar Jyotirindra Moitra (popularly called "Botukda"), of the Sithlai family, who distinguished himself as an eminent Rabindrasangeet singer, and who later wrote the school anthem, 'Amader Patha Bhavan', for Patha Bhavan, Kolkata. Sinha started his college education in physics at Presidency College, Calcutta, but then changed to geology and then finally to anthropology. Nirmal Kumar Bose, the eminent anthropologist, became his mentor soon after they met in the viva examination for the master's degree, where Bose was one of the examiners. Later, Sinha completed his Ph.D. in anthropology from Northwestern University in Illinois, United States on a Fulbright Scholarship. He was trained in social anthropological fieldwork at Calcutta University by Tarak Chandra Das and it was Das who first introduced Sinha to take up the Bhumij community of the then Bihar state for his doctoral work. He held a number of academic and administrative posts such as deputy director and director of the Anthropological Survey of India in Calcutta. At this time he was considered to be an advisor of the then Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi. He was the professor of anthropology at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He became the upacharya (vice-chancellor) of Visva Bharati, Santiniketan. After retirement he became the second director of the Indian Council of Social science Research sponsored Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Sinha's main area of interest were Indian tribes, especially the Bhumij tribe in central India. He also did a unique field study in an American village on religion. He developed a theoretical framework for understanding Indian civilization based on the concepts of cultural core and cultural periphery. He argued that Indian civilization is characterized by a dynamic interaction between its core values and its peripheral variations. He also emphasized the role of historical processes and cultural creativity in shaping Indian society and culture. Sinha was awarded the Padma Shri in 1972 and the Padma Bhushan in 1989 for his services to the nation. He was also a recipient of several national and international honors and fellowships such as S.C. Roy Medal (1965), Distinguished Fulbright Award (1977), Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1978), UGC National Lecturer (1980), S.K. Chatterjee Memorial Lecture (1983), Radhakamal Mukherjee Memorial Lecture (1984), and Distinguished Alumnus Award of Northwestern University (1991). He was also a member of various academic bodies and committees such as Indian Council of Historical Research, Indian Council of Social Science Research, Indian National Science Academy, Indian Statistical Institute, Asiatic Society, and Anthropological Association. Sinha was married to Dr. Purnima Sinha, a physicist, author and music scholar, who was the daughter of the eminent legal scholar and Bengali novelist, Naresh Chandra Sen Gupta. They had two daughters, Supurna and Sukanya, who are both physicists. Sinha was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1993 and died after a prolonged illness in 2002 at Santiniketan, West Bengal, India. He is remembered as one of the most influential and respected anthropologists of India who made significant contributions to the study of Indian tribes and civilization.