Andre Beteille : An Anthropologist
Fellowship of the British Academy popularly known as FBA is an award
granted by British Academy to leading academics towards their contributions in
the humanities and social sciences. Andre Beteille is one of them. Andre
Beteille is an Indian sociologist and writer and known about his studies in
cast system in south India. There are so many books in his names. According the
historian Ramchandra Guha, Andre Beteille has considered major issues of
Today’s India. He has written on contest between religion and secularism,
relationship between caste and class , the links between poverty and
inequality, role and responsibilities of Intellectuals. In 1985 , he
worked for backward classes and their position in Indian society .
From Yogesh Gogwekar
Andre Beteille was born on 30th September 1934 in the town of
Chandannagore which was under French rule. His father was French and mother was
Bengali. His mother and grandmother left deep impress on him. He grown up and
studied in Bengal and is having good command over English and Bengali. He was
very good singer of songs written by Ravindranath Tagore. He did his gradual in
anthropology and also completed his MSc from Kolkatta University . He started
teaching in Indian statistical institution and slowly moved to the department
of Sociology in Delhi and did his Ph.D. under M N Srinivas who was leading the
same department. From 1990 , he started taking deep interest in philosophy and
issues arising from poverty and social injustice.
The reason for remembering Andre Beteille is getting together to read
the ideas and the writing of Andre Beteille and 19 essays through a single book
Anti-Utopia: Essential Writing of Andre Beteille. This book is edited by
Dipankar Gupta. This book has been divided in five sections. It starts from
ideas of equality and inequality and end up with issues regarding civil society
and institutions. This book shows the ability of Beteille to provide
intellectual political analysis in Indian context and the reasons for not
unappealing Utopian vision.
By reading this book, we come to know the impact of Beteille’s works
draw upon universal categories and concepts which has been placed by him in the
contest of empirical ground realities. It is a great book read .
In 2007, Government of India appointed him National Research professor
and also honoured his with civilian award Padma Bhushan
Mumbai
24/10/2019
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