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Ramkrishna Mukherjee

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Ramkrishna Mukherjee
Born(1917-11-14)14 November 1917
Baranagar, Calcutta, India
Died15 November 2015(2015-11-15) (aged 98)
NationalityIndian
EducationM.Sc (Anthropology) and PhD
Alma materPresidency College
University of Calcutta
SpousePrabhati Mukherjee
AwardsSwami Pranavanad Award
Jawaharlal Nehru Award for Social Sciences
Asiatic Society Gold Medal
Lifetime Achievement Award of Indian Sociological Society
Scientific career
FieldsSociology, Anthropology, Statistics
InstitutionsIndian Statistical Institute
Indian Sociological Society

Ramkrishna Mukherjee (14 November 1917 – 15 November 2015) was a scientist at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata,[1] President of the Indian Sociological Society (1973–75) and recipient of the Indian Sociological Society's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.[2]

He is particularly well known for his study Dynamics of a Rural Society and his dialectical method in dealing with the study of Indian society.[3]

Early life and education

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He was born to a middle-class family in Kolkata, India, his father Satindra Nath being an engineer in the Indian Railways. He obtained MSc degree in 1941 from University of Calcutta and a PhD in 1948 from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. From 1941 to 1944 he was an activist in the Peasant movement.[1] Although he specialized in human genetics, he took lessons in statistics from Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, founder of the ISI.[4]

Career

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In 1948 and 1949 he was Chief Research Officer to His Majesty's Social Survey, London and had been Consultant to Government of Turkey in 1949 and Consultant to the London School of Economics in 1952. He began his career as a Professor at the Institute of Indian Studies at Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany from 1953 to 1957. He was adjunct professor at Binghamton University in the United States from 1977 to 1989. He spent most of his professional life with the Indian Statistical Institute from 1944 until his retirement in 1979.[1][5]

Work

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Along with DP Mukerji, he established the All India Sociological Conference (AISC).[6][2] He worked as adviser for social science institutions and journals in India and abroad. With his work the theme of agrarian social structure and change was to re-appear in Indian Sociology only after a gap of nearly two decades in the late 1960s and 1970s. Among Indian sociologists, he stressed the importance of a dialectic model for the study of Indian society and made systematic as well as empirical studies using this model. This is exemplified by his book Rise and Fall of East India Company (1958) which is a contribution to economic and social history of the institutionalization of colonialism in India .[7][8] He tried to develop an inductive methodology for social sciences.[9] His research interests included genetics, studies in classification of families, rural society, historical sociology, problems of acculturation[10] and Social Indicators Research[7] besides which he contributed over subjects like family, caste and class, agrarian relations in West Bengal, nationalism in Bangladesh, urbanization and social change and colonial exploitation by the East India Company and in Uganda, and also contributed towards designing of National Sample Surveys. He had a Marxian and historical perspective with which he studied social institutions such as family and caste.[11]

Awards and honors

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  • Asiatic Society Gold Medal for Anthropology (1981)
  • National Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research from 1992 to 1994
  • Swami Pranavanand Education Award for Sociology by University Grants Commission| New Delhi,(1985)[1]
  • "Pandit Jawaharla Nehru National Award Social Science" (PDF). 1986.by Government of Madhya Pradesh
  • Member-Executive Committee, International Sociological Association| (ISA) (1976)[12]

Personal life

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Mukherjee married Prabhati Mukherjee, an academician, who died in 2008. They had two daughters, both of whom entered the academic field.[1]

Selected publications

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Books

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Felicitation volumes

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Selected journal articles

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  • Mukherjee, Mahalnobis, Ghosh (1946). "A Sample Survey of After-Effects of the Bengal Famine". Sankhya. 7 (4): 337–400. JSTOR 25047881.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1962). "Sociologists and Social Change in India Today". Sociological Bulletin. 11 (1/2): 4–13. doi:10.1177/0038022919620102. JSTOR 23618811. S2CID 157545526.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1968). "Some observations on diachronic and synchronic aspects of social change". Social Science Information. 7: 31–53. doi:10.1177/053901846800700102. S2CID 145794697.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1972). "Social Background of Bangla Desh". Economic and Political Weekly. 7 (5/7): 265–274. JSTOR 4361004.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1969). "Empirical social research on contemperory India". Social Science Information. 8 (6): 69–83. doi:10.1177/053901846900800605. S2CID 145166890.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1981). "Realities of Agrarian Relations in India". Economic and Political Weekly. 16 (4): 109–116. JSTOR 4369463.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1979). "For a Sociology of India-Trends in Indian Sociology". Contributions to Indian Sociology. 13 (2): 319–332. doi:10.1177/006996677901300207. S2CID 143637640.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1981). "On the Use of Social Indicators for Planning". Social Indicators Research. 9 (2): 183–195. doi:10.1007/BF00286196. S2CID 144470812.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1986). "I P Desai and Sociology of India". Economic and Political Weekly. 21 (4): 164–168. JSTOR 4375254.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1991). "Social and Cultural Components of Society and Appraisal of Social Reality". Economic and Political Weekly. 26 (4): PE21–PE36. JSTOR 4397241.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1998). "Social Reality and Culture". Current Sociology. 46 (2): 39–50. doi:10.1177/0011392198046002005. S2CID 143726807.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1974). "The Sociologist and The Social Reality". Sociological Bulletin. 23 (2): 169–192. doi:10.1177/0038022919740202. JSTOR 23618941. S2CID 151484377.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1999). "Caste in Itself, Caste and Class, or Caste in Class". Economic and Political Weekly. 34 (27): 1759–1761. JSTOR 4408152.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1970). "Study of Social Change and Social Development in Developing Societies". Economic and Political Weekly. 5 (29/31): 1159–1170. JSTOR 4360261.
  • Mukherjee; et al. (1970). "Data Inventory on Social Sciences:India:First Phase:1967-68". Sankhya. 32 (1/2): 99–140. JSTOR 25051723.
  • Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1989). "Radha Kamal Mukerjee—A Note". Sociological Bulletin. 38 (2): 261–265. doi:10.1177/0038022919890207. JSTOR 23619815. S2CID 157343186.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Munshi, Surendra (2016). "Life and works of Ramkrishna Mukherjee". Sociological Bulletin. 65 (2): 263. doi:10.1177/0038022920160207. S2CID 151600427.
  2. ^ a b "Office Bearers over the Years". Indian Sociological Society.
  3. ^ DNDhanagre- Practising Sociology through History Economic and Political Weekly August 2007.
  4. ^ Munshi, Surendra (2016). "Social change in India Reconsidering Ramkrishna Mukherjee". Economic and Political Weekly. 51 (39): 40.
  5. ^ "Ramkrishna Mukherjee". Library of Congress Name Authority File.
  6. ^ Patel, S. (2002). "The Profession and Its Association-Five Decades of the Indian Sociological Society". International Sociology. 17 (2): 269–284. doi:10.1177/0268580902017002008. S2CID 143490100.
  7. ^ a b "Contribution of Ramkrishna Mukherjee to Indian Sociology". Your Article Library. 11 April 2014.
  8. ^ In his later works Ramkrishna Mukherjee had changed from dialectical - historical to a probabilistic nomological approach to the study of social reality
  9. ^ Bose, Pradip Kumar (1997). "Problems and Paradoxes of Inductive Social Science- A Critique of Ramkrishna Mukherjee". Sociological Bulletin. 46 (2): 153–171. doi:10.1177/0038022919970201. JSTOR 23619587. S2CID 171179656.
  10. ^ Ramkrishna Mukherjee. The Problem of Uganda. A Study in Acculturation. Abhandlungen der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Klasse für Philosophie, Geschichte, Staats-, Rechts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Jahrgang 1955 Nr. 2. Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1956.
  11. ^ Lindberg, Staffan (2016). "Some Unity in Diversity:Analysing Inequality, Change and Mobility in Rural South India". Lund University.
  12. ^ "ISA Executive Committee Members -1976" (PDF). ISA Bulletin11.

Further reading

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