The problem with the ethnographic image

An ongoing exhibition at DAG scrutinizes the colonial enterprise to photographically categorize the tribes and communities in India

- Avantika Bhuyan

The link between the rise of photography and anthropological studies in the 1850s is inextricable particularly in India.

The camera became a means to explore, investigate and classify the diversity of the subcontinent. In fact, it was The People of India albums that launched the genre of anthropological photography. It was undertaken by the British government in the 1860s to document the races and tribes of India formally, some of which was to be presented at the International Exhibition in London in 1862. Among the photos that made their way there were those by Lt Willoughby Wallace Hooper of the 7th Madras Light Cavalry, who photographed tribes near “Ruttunpore and the Gonds, Chumars and Cowars”. His images are significant not just for the way they were taken—in a makeshift studio-like setting in the field—but for also giving rise to a trope of the “primitive native scared of the unknown” when the tribes were resistant to being photographed.

These perceptions and purposes continued to drive colonial enterprises to “categorize and describe the plethora of tribes, castes and communities along regional and racial lines”, states Ashish Anand, CEO and MD, DAG in a note. The ongoing exhibition at the Bikaner House in Delhi, and the accompanying book, seeks to bring such tropes under scrutiny and “make the material available for fresh interpretation by new audiences”, he adds. Titled Typecasting: Photographing the People of India 1855-1920, the show [on view till 15 February] has been curated by historian Sudeshna Guha. It features nearly 200 photos and rare material of early Indian photography in the country.