Remembering Diwan Bahadur L K Ananthakrishna Iyer: Kerala's Forgotten Anthropological Pioneer
On February 25 this year, the academic world quietly marked the 89th death anniversary of a man whose name resonates in the halls of Oxford and Cambridge, yet remains largely unknown in his home state of Kerala. Diwan Bahadur L K Ananthakrishna Iyer was a pioneering anthropologist who fundamentally reshaped the discipline in India during the height of British imperial rule.
The Colonial Context of Early Anthropology
In an era when ethnographic scholarship was exclusively dominated by Europeans, Iyer's work fundamentally altered how Western institutions perceived south Indian populations. Today, anthropologists study societies on the principle that no culture is superior to another, but a century ago, this was a controversial and radical position.
The dominant anthropological frameworks of the time included:
- Unilineal evolution, which proposed that all societies progress from barbarism to civilization, with Europeans positioned at the apex
- Primitivism, the belief that non-Western peoples were intellectually and biologically inferior
Anthropology had race scholars and phrenologists who indexed the facial features of African and Asian peoples to "prove" lesser intelligence. By classifying non-Western societies as primitive and incapable of self-governance, anthropologists helped reframe oppression as civilizing missions. These racist, prejudiced observations were systematically weaponized by the empire to justify colonialism.
Anthropology as an Instrument of Colonial Governance
In 19th and early 20th century India, colonial anthropology became a vital instrument of governance. The empire's largest and most diverse colony, exceeding 200 million people, posed its greatest administrative challenge. The Indian Rebellion of 1857, a mass uprising that destabilized the Crown's establishment, brought a crucial realization: controlling a population required understanding it first.
Anthropologists were appointed alongside administrators and tasked with producing ethnographic censuses that catalogued, classified, and systematically infantilized Indian communities, reinforcing caste hierarchies in the process. One such initiative was announced in 1901 by Herbert Risley, British India's census commissioner. His project sought to document India's tribes and castes through physical measurement, classifying Indian castes as racial types—a task crucial to both the academic and administrative aims of the Raj.
The Unlikely Anthropologist from Cochin
Superintendents of ethnography were appointed across provinces and princely states. In Cochin, the Maharaja chose Lakshminarayanapuram Krishna Ananthakrishna Iyer, a distinguished professor at Ernakulam College with no formal anthropological training, to represent the state in Risley's survey.
What followed was a decade of groundbreaking fieldwork that would challenge colonial paradigms. Between 1902 and 1912, Iyer documented 50 Malayali communities and produced over a hundred photographs, now archived at the University of Cambridge. His two-part ethnography, "The Cochin Tribes and Castes" (1908 and 1912), detailed the origins, social organization, and customs of Cochin's hill and jungle-dwelling communities with unprecedented depth and nuance.
A Revolutionary Methodology
Unlike his contemporaries, Iyer used his nativeness to gain insider access to each group he studied. He documented what mattered to his subjects, not merely what the Crown's ethnographic brief required. His monographs introduced realities of social injustice, embedding accounts of power disparities and the genuine hardships faced by Malayalis under both caste and colonial rule.
The Cochin series marked a clear departure from prevailing ethnographic practice. Iyer rejected armchair cultural imperialism in favor of emic fieldwork—the process of integrating into a community to understand its customs, mythologies, and struggles from within. He challenged established figures like Risley, who viewed Indians as living fossils in human evolution, and debunked the colonial portrayal of Indian society's social divisions as stagnant.
"Cochin Tribes and Castes" argued persuasively that Malayali lives were rapidly transforming, and that anthropology's true task was to document cultural practices before they became obsolete—a forward-thinking perspective that anticipated modern anthropological approaches.
Establishing Anthropology in India
Following his unexpected international recognition, Iyer established India's first department of Anthropology at the University of Calcutta in 1921—a monumental achievement that institutionalized the discipline in the country. He had earlier helped establish the Thrissur Zoo and State Museum between 1913 and 1914, demonstrating his commitment to both academic and public education.
The Mysore government later commissioned a four-volume ethnography of Mysorean tribes, which Iyer completed between 1928 and 1931. In the 1930s, he presented his findings at Oxford's prestigious Pitt-Rivers Museum and at anthropological institutions across Europe, bringing international visibility to Indian scholarship.
Upon his return, the Government of India awarded him the title of Dewan Bahadur, recognizing his extraordinary contributions to the development of Indian anthropology and the international prestige he brought to Malabar studies.
A Legacy in Ruins
Despite these monumental achievements, Iyer's legacy seems largely invisible today. The Thrissur State Museum's exhibits likely harbor his handwriting, yet the institution remains oblivious to his foundational contributions. Iyer's home in Lakshminarayanapuram lies in ruins—a physical manifestation of the neglect his memory has suffered. Most strikingly, despite his pioneering efforts, anthropology remains alien to Kerala's academic landscape.
Iyer died on February 25, 1937, leaving behind 12 publications, four decades of fieldwork, a museum, and a methodology that modern anthropology now considers foundational. The anthropologist P R G Mathur carried his work forward, founding the Ananthakrishna Iyer International Centre for Anthropological Studies in 1971.
Preserving Visual History
His rare photographs, representing one of the most dignified visual records of early 20th century Kerala in existence, remain digitally accessible through the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. These images stand as a testament to his respectful approach to documentation, contrasting sharply with the dehumanizing photographs produced by colonial ethnographers.
The task of bringing Iyer, and anthropology's relevance, back to public attention in India remains ongoing. His work not only challenged colonial narratives but established a model of ethnographic research that centered the voices and experiences of the communities being studied—a revolutionary approach in his time that continues to influence anthropological practice today.
