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N.K. Bose and field research

Dr. A. C .Bhagwati

The authorities of IGNCA have done me great favour by inviting me to deliver the Memorial Lecture.  I accepted the invitation, considering it as an opportunity to place on record my tribute to the scholar who so deeply impressed me during my formative years as a student of Anthropology at Calcutta University.  Of the two lectures, one is in the nature of a personal narrative, tracing the unfolding to me of a person and a field observer from my masters degree student years (1956-58) to the subsequent years in the context of north-east India, between 1959 and 1970.  The lecture also tries to portray certain extra-ordinary elements of his character and his ways of dealing with people of various categories in different situations.

Bose's formal career as a field anthropologist began as early as 1924-25, when he was a master's degree student of Anthropology at Calcutta University.  His first independent field research was among the Juang tribesmen of Orissa.  This rather brief spell of field research gave him the basic insight into the ways tribes were being absorbed into the fold of Hindu caste-based society.  From those early years, Bose went on to develop his own rather unique approach of studying social phenomena and cultural attributes in specific situational contexts.  He was of the view that there could be no set ways for actual fieldwork.  The nature of task at hand should guide the researcher about what tools of investigation to adopt or, even, fashion depending on the problem of inquiry.  "There can be no general method with which to solve all possible problems," he opined in an article (1950).  He consistently emphasized the importance of careful and meticulous observation.

In many respects, Nirmal Kumar Bose was an unconventional field worker.  Unlike most field researchers in Anthropology, he never "stage-managed" his role.  For the sake of data collection he never compromised his stand or opinion on any matter.  During his field-related tours in north-east India in which I often accompanied him, this trait of his character was evident many a time.  For him opinion was a matter of conviction, not to be shifted or altered depending on the context and the exigencies of field situation.  In terms of "tractics" of fieldwork, one would say that Bose was rather unorthodox.  In the course of the month-long sojourn (in 1967) through various parts of North East frontier Agency (NEFA) (now, the state of Arunachal Pradesh) he would counter check on the interviewee's statement if he felt that it was just not right.  In conventional fieldwork we would rather not upset the rapport by trying to question the opinion of the interviewee.  The one realization that emerged vividly from observing him in fieldwork sessions was the absence of duality in him as a person and as a field worker.

In April-May 1967, Nirmal Kumar Bose undertook an extensive tour of NEFA at the request of the then Governor of Assam.  Bose asked me to accompany him along with a Geographer (Seradindu Bose).  This was going to be a sort of diagnostic field survey on educational problems in the context of rapid social change then coming about in this frontier tribal tract.  I was of course very happy to be pat of his field team and wanted to know from him how he wanted to organize the study tour.  Bose would not come out with a wordy formulation.  He just said that he was going to find out what kind of changes were coming about in the hills, look at schools and school education in particular and see how the youth were shaping up.  There was no elaborate formulation of a research problem; no intricate hypothesis to examine, establish or dismantle and no pre-designed tools of investigation and methodology to adopt. In retrospect, I now see his approach essentially as that of an explorer who was not prepared to load his vision with pre-conceived ideas.  Bose's main approach in field studies was that of a natural historian (Surjit Sinha, 1970).  In his `introduction' to Peasant Life in India (1961) Bose said, "a deep acquaintance with the facts of life is the best introduction to any form of social science."

Bose was 66 years old when he undertook the sojourn through NEFA.  The field trip through the vast, mountainous tract perforce had to be in the nature of rapid appraisal work.  There was too much to cover in too short a time.  Yet through an articulate combination of systematic observation and focused interviews it was possible to achieve the desired results.  At all the village and administrative centres we visited, the organised part of the visit was discussion session with teachers, students and officials, especially of the Education Department.  The group discussion with the students took a fascinating form: He would put a few simple questions on educational aspirations, ask each one what he or she wanted to be in life; make specific enquiries about their difficulties with science and mathematics, try to ascertain youths' involvement in community activities, and so on.  The manner in which the sessions were conducted soon took on a seminar atmosphere with the school children drawn into the conversation and not just remaining passive respondents.  The session would finally be rounded up with a crisp lecture, which was typically un-anthropological in the sense that there would be clear advice to the students about what their role ought to be in the context of their society and the country as a whole.  

I have no recollection from the month-long travels in NEFA of Bose pontificating on attributes of human dignity, justice and generally being good to the down-trodden and the tribals.  But his little actions would bring out his convictions on these matters in a lot more telling fashion than all the words ever could.  Bose eventually prepared a detailed report entitled "Educational Problems in NEFA" which was published in the sixteenth Report of the Commissioner of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (1969-68).  Among other perceptive observations in this report, Bose noted that the power structure of the tribal people was changing faster than their economic life.  The shimmering of a new nationalism being propagated by the educated youth, which cut through the distances in culture between various tribes, as detected by Bose, has come substantially to be true today.

Nirmal Kumar Bose's capacity for transforming field observations into interpretations was truly impressive.  This way, the adage `Research is to see what everybody also has seen and then to think what no one else has thought" fully applied to him.  Professor Bose possessed all the three qualities of good field researcher as outlined by the anthropologist Phyllis Kaberry, namely, "capacity for abosrbing facts, a capacity for stating them, and a point of view."

(Dr.A.C.Bhagwati, the Honry, Coordinator of IGNCA Field Centre for the north-east is an eminent Anthropologist).

PROF. NIRMAL KUMAR BOSE

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