Tribal world and its transformation

THE CENTRAL theme of the Xth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnológical Sciences was "Anthropology and the Challenges of Development". It marked a departure from the conventional themes to which the social scientists have been accustomed. The further fact that the Congress was held in a Third World country like India, promised a fresh, exciting and challenging experience.

Indeed, the two facts are highly significant. They symbolise shift in focus. They reflect the desideratum that the social sciences should be intensely concerned with social processes in developing societies as much as they have been involved in the industrialised societies. The idiom and content of the social sciences have hitherto been riddled with the mores and ethos of the western society which lived off the resources of their colonies. With prolonged exploitation, the schism between the western elite and the colonial subjects was riven deep. The social sciences were used as tools of the western societies, partly to reinforce their hegemonic designs and partly to satisfy their curiosity. The present day trends tend to call a halt to distortion in the use of these rational sciences. Man has roused. himself to an assertion of his personality. No continent is now dark. There is a tremendous upsurge of the dignity of the individual.