Stephen Fuchs
Stephen Fuchs was an Austrian anthropologist who researched the prehistory and ethnology of India, and spent nearly six decades in doing studies in India with the tribal and dalit peoples of India as the subjects of prime focus of his research works.
Education
Fuchs joined the Society of the Divine Word in 1927, and studied philosophy at St. Augustine in Bonn, Germany and theology at St. Gabriel in Mödling, Austria. Later in Mödling, he took linguistics classes from Wilhelm Schmidt, and it was after coming in contact with Schmidt that he decided to become an anthropologist.In 1948, he moved from India to Austria and began studying at the University of Vienna for a Ph.D. in the sphere of Ethnology and Indology, and was able to complete it in 1950 because of the "mass of field material" carried by him from India to Austria and his formerly published articles on ethnography. For his Ph.D., he did a dissertation on the Bhumias' ritual of "horse sacrifice" and "showed the connection between this ritual and the Ashva Medha horse sacrifice of the Aryans".
In 1950, Fuchs went back to India and assisted in the establishment of the Department of Anthropology at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, and worked as a lecturer in cultural anthropology at the college from 1950 to 1954, but later resigned to dedicate all of his time to execute field researches.
He had learned Hindi, Korku, and the local dialects of Madhya Pradesh.
Research
noted that Fuchs had done immense field study in central India. He initiated his studies by researching the Chamar caste's socio–cultural life, and wrote his first article on the customs, marriage, and festivals of the Chamars. He also researched central India's tribal communities, including Korkus among who he stayed recurrently and garnered data on their customs, festivals, and religious beliefs.During the second world war, along with other missionaries from Germany, he was also designated as an enemy alien by the British government in India and sent to a camp, and due to that, his research work was halted for some time. He was later set free in 1945 after it came to light that he was an Austrian. During his confinement, he worked out the observations and noted he had assembled on the belief and customs of the Nimar Balahis, and later in 1950 in Vienna, he publishing a book titled, The Children of Hari: A Study of the Nimar Balahis in the Central Provinces of India. He had worked among the Balahis of Nimar for nearly ten years. After his release in 1945, he began studing the Gonds and Baigas, and resumed studies among the Korkus and developed interest in the Bhumias of Mandla district in Madhya Pradesh in whose villages he stayed oftentimes for long durations of time. In Madhya Pradesh, he carried out research on the Bhumias, Bhils, Bhilalas, Balahis, Gonds, Korkus, and sweeper castes; and in Uttar Pradesh, he conducted research on Chamars of Varanasi and Ballia districts.
In 1954, after resigning as a lecturer, he co–founded the "Indian Branch of the :de:Anthropos-Institut|Anthropos Institute" at Mumbai in association with Matthias Hermanns that was renamed in 1967 as the "Institute of Indian Culture" which was gained recognition as a centre for postgraduate research in anthropology and sociology from the University of Mumbai in 1997. He was interested in the history of ancient India from the Aryans "back to the Dravidians and even further back to the original inhabitants of India, to the "primitives or aborigines" who according to him were "representatives of the earliest inhabitants of India"," and he delivered lectures on the culture of ancient India at the University of Bombay, and was also a visiting scholar of anthropology and philosophy of India at the University of San Carlos in the Philippines between 1961 and 1962.
He had a "deep fascination" for the cultures of the tribal and dalit peoples of India. S. M. Michael, the director of the Institute of Indian Culture, writes:
Schmidt mentored Fuchs, however, Fuchs dissociated himself from the "rigid culture circle theory of the Vienna School of Ethnology represented by Wilhelm Schmidt in the first half of the 20th century and with that also from the rather rigid understanding of cultural diffusion."
He was also an editorial board member of the Asian Folklore Studies.
Reception
Fritz Bornemann extolled Fuchs for the clear structure in his book, Social Origins , and suggested that the book is a good introductory work to the problems of ethnology.Fuchs' The Origin of Man and His Culture was negatively reviewed by Harumi Befu of the University of Michigan. Befu raised concerns over and questioned Fuchs' knowledge of "modern development in genetics", "paleontology", and "racial classification". Befu further noted that Fuchs proffered "only stages and no mechanism or process of evolution from one stage to another." The book, however, drew some praise from R. K. Mutatkar for Fuchs' unbiased approach towards the "discussion of the theory of anthropology" despite taking in the "Indian material"; though, Mutatkar noted that Fuchs attempted to offer "too much" information in a single book, and as a consequence, several key topics got inadequate coverage. Indiana University's David Bidney had, overall, favorably reviewed Fuchs' co–authored book Essays in Ethnology that comprises of 13 essays, all of which have "historical ethnology" as the common subject matter.
Sudha Gupta of the University of Delhi, Dieter B. Kapp, and C. von Fürer-Haimendorf favorably reviewed Fuchs' The Korkus of the Vindhya Hills . Assessing the book, Gupta stated that though the book has some "minor short comings", it is "invaluable to scholars wanting to take up specific issues for intensive investigation," while C. von Fürer-Haimendorf viewed the book as a "meticulous analysis" of the subject matter.
The Aboriginal Tribes of India (1973)
In The Aboriginal Tribes of India, Fuchs had examined different inward migrations to India including the arrival of Aryans, along with the study of India's "prehistoric races" in apropos of the early, middle and late stone age, the Indus Valley civilization and "post Harappan" era, and also of the contemporary tribes of Bengal and southern, central, northwestern, northern, northeastern, Himalayan and sub–Himalayan regions of India and some tribes of Nepal. Assessing the book, Rudolf Rahmann, stated that Fuchs "handled" the wide–ranging material "in a masterful way on just 300 pages."Fuchs' book was favorably reviewed also by Christine Cottam, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Gabriella Eichinger Ferro–Luzzi, Soumendra Mohan Patnaik, but unfavorably reviewed by Edward J. Jay of California State University.
C. von Fürer-Haimendorf panegyrized Fuchs for his immense fieldwork in central India, and suggested that Fuchs had developed a great cognizance of the subject. Cottam, while assessing Fuchs' work in the book in 1978, wrote,
Ferro–Luzzi termed the book as "a useful tool for anthropologists interested in Indian tribes and for comparative studies in general;" however, Jay suggested that the book is "encyclopedic" in nature and is based largely upon data sources from 19th and early 20th century and cites only a limited number of recent studies, and according to him, it cannot be viewed as "a serious work of scholarship."
At the Bottom of Indian Society: The Harijan and Other Low Castes (1981)
Fuchs' At the Bottom of Indian Society: The Harijan and Other Low Castes is a "companion volume" of his previous book The Aboriginal Tribes of India, and it is an outcome of "library research" on India's all Harijans. In the book, Fuchs investigated the origin of untouchability and opined that it has its origins in the migrations of Dravidians and Aryans to India, and gave a description of "Harijans and other low castes" in the light of his findings. Fuchs propounded that,Fuchs did not view "ritual purity and impurity" as the underlying principles for the social condition of the untouchables and imposition of untouchability on them as suggested by Louis Dumont, rather he suggested that they were artisans and laborers in the "highly–developed complex farming culture" they had, but their social stature got disparaged due to their pecuniary dependence on the cultivators who maintained a higher social standing.
The book was positively reviewed by G. E. Ferro–Luzzi. She suggested that the book "examines all the numerous criteria for lowness" and instability of the Harijans and the people from other lower castes in the Indian social stratum. Yoshio Sugimoto, however, questioned Fuchs' categorization of various tribes, castes, communities, and social classes under the umbrella terms like "Untouchables", "Harijan castes", "Harijan and other low castes", etc. Sugimoto wrote,