Robert Vane Russell
Robert Vane Russell | |
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Born | August 8, 1873 |
Died | December 30, 1915 | (aged 42)
Alma mater | |
Known for | Ethnography and Census Operations of British India |
Parent |
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Robert Vane Russell (8 August 1873 – 30 December 1915) was a British civil servant, known for his role as Superintendent of Ethnography for what was then the
Russell's father, Charles Robert Tilden Russell, was an officer in the Royal Navy. He was educated at Winchester College before attending Trinity College, Cambridge and then, in 1893, joining the Indian Civil Service.[2]
Together with an amateur archaeologist, Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, Russell compiled The Castes and Tribes of the Central Provinces, published in 1916. From this source Russell and Hira Lal reasoned that the tribals could probably be identified as the Rakshasas (or devils) described in the Mahabharata, and were therefore an entirely distinct community, the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas were Aryan invaders, and the Sudras were the original inhabitants of South Asia, reduced by them to a subordinate role. Thus although occupational descriptions were used, particularly in distinguishing the different ranks of Aryans, the hierarchy remained extreme (and definitively racial) in a form that was still probably unrecognisable to most participants in the social system itself at this time. In this way, although Risley's anthropometry had become unfashionable his views persisted.[4]
Russell died when the SS Persia was torpedoed and sank off the coast of Crete on 30 December 1915.[5]
Works
- Russell, Robert Vane (1916). Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India. Vol. 1. Lal, Rai Bahadur Hira. London: Macmillan & Co.
- Russell, Robert Vane (1916). Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India. Vol. 2. Lal, Rai Bahadur Hira. London: Macmillan & Co.
- Russell, Robert Vane (1916). Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India. Vol. 3. Lal, Rai Bahadur Hira. London: Macmillan & Co.
- Russell, Robert Vane (1916). Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India. Vol. 4. Lal, Rai Bahadur Hira. London: Macmillan & Co.
References
- ISBN 9780800212650. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
- ^ "Russell, Robert Vane". Winchester College. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
- JSTOR 1255146.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-563767-0. Retrieved 9 December 2011.
- S2CID 3987749.