The Administrator (as) Anthropologist

This chapter addresses the ways in which early twentieth century anthropological ideas were applied to administrative policy, particularly the traditional leadership of the three circle chiefs in the CHT. It interprets J.P. Mills’s 1926–7 Tour Diary, the first anthropologically oriented study of the CHT. Mills defined tribal ‘authenticity’ through investigating later layers of cultural accretion; in the process, he reinvented aspects of tradition and ceremonial power. His proposals would influence the later 1935 Government of India Act, which further circumscribed the agency of the local chiefs, and would have implications for their subsequent engagement within the Indian nationalist movement and the partition of east Bengal. In particular, his work reveals how CHT chiefs increasingly saw themselves as transregional and global cosmopolitans, linked to an India-wide and world map, that crossed narrow definitions of language, religion, education, travel, gender, social etiquette, and dress.