Shyama Charan Dube

GOOD but not great is the impression one gets of Shyama Charan Dube on reading the obituary written by Andre Beteille (March 30, 1996). Perhaps Dube made a forceful debut in sociology and anthropology as a field worker, writer, scholar and university personality; even as a pace-setter with the first full-length monograph on an Indian village and with the next book, India's Changing Villages, "responded to the changes taking place around him". His notable contributions to the twin disciplines on the administrative side lay in making the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla a "haven" for members of the profession "throughout the country" more or less as an advancement of the earlier experiment at Mussoorie. These were probably the best of the innings he played in his scholarly pursuits; and a person of such talents could have achieved greater heights had he realised his potential in that regard. That is the message Beteille seems to convey.