Includes bibliographical references and index.

Anthropologist and Imperialist: H. H. Risley and British India, 1873–1911 brings out how imperative the role of Sir Herbert Hope Risley was to India’s colonial past. A member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) from 1873 to 1910, Risley served in Bengal and became a senior administrator and policymaker in the colonial government. He was also the pre-eminent anthropologist in British India. An imperialist, Risley was convinced about the rightness of ‘civilising’ British rule and its benefits for both India and Britain. One of this book’s objectives is to render his simultaneous commitment to anthropology and imperialism intelligible to present-day readers. More specifically, Anthropologist and Imperialist draws attention to the two sides of Risley’s career, which is used as a case-study to investigate, first, the production and circulation of colonial knowledge, specifically anthropological knowledge, and secondly, its often loose and inconsistent connection with administration and policymaking, and with the government and state overall.