Sunday Monitor

Son-shine on Elwin legacy

Ashok Elwin, the youngest son of anthropologist Verrier Elwin, was crucial in safeguarding his father’s legacy

When Meghalaya Monitor met Lesitta Marak at her residence a week after the demise of Ashok Elwin, the house was in disarray. “Now that the guests have left, we have got some time to arrange everything,” said Marak as she apologised for the “mess”.

The conversation about Ashok started casually as everyone in the room recalled the person that he was. “For Ashok, preserving the legacy of his father Verrier Elwin was of utmost importance,” said Lesitta. The black-and-white photographs by renowned anthropologist Verrier Elwin that adorned the walls of the living room were proof of Ashok’s dedication to preserving a crucial chapter in Indian history — the tribals of the North East and other parts of the country.

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When Ashok passed away on March 20 after a short period of ailment, he was 68 and was working on preserving the anthropological works and artefacts of Verrier. A sociable yet soft-spoken person, Ashok, who was the youngest of three brothers, rarely spoke about his illustrious father unless asked. But he was the only descendant of the anthropologist who took a keen interest in the latter’s works.

He also took initiative to take the works of Verrier to the masses by organising lectures and exhibitions of the latter’s photographs and artefacts. One of the exhibitions took place in London where several frames were sold.

A family photograph hung on one of the walls of the living room where Verrier was seen with all his sons. “Ashok lost his father at the age of 10,” said Lesitta as she introduced the persons in the photograph.

The house is dotted with rare photographs of various tribes captured by Verrier. A shelf in the living room is stacked with all the books authored by the anthropologist.

Harry Verrier Holman Elwin was born in an Anglo-Saxon family in Dover on August 29, 1902. An Oxford-educated scholar, he came to India in 1927 as a missionary and worked with Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress before dedicating his life to the cause of the many tribes. He lived with the Gond tribe in central India for decades and fought for the rights of these people. He also married a Gond woman, Kosi, and had to face much flak from family and friends. Verrier came to Shillong with his second wife Lila and their three children and made the hill city his home.

Historian Ramchandra Guha, in his book Savaging the Civilized, gives an account of Verrier’s personal life. “What struck the boys (Verrier’s sons Wasant, Nakul and Ashok) most forcibly about their father was his cigar. A drawing by Wasant, pasted in Verrier’s diary, is called ‘Daddy with Cigar’; another by Ashok, more inventive, has the little boy smoking the dreadful thing himself, with Mummy ticking off Daddy for allowing him to have one.”

Ashok did not continue to hold on to ‘Daddy’s’ habit of smoking cigars. Nonetheless, he was a smoker. A visitor to the Elwin house would often spot him smoking a cigarette near the portico and working on woodcraft or taking a stroll by the garden. He had a certain je ne sais quoi that made him appealing even to a first-time visitor who could effortlessly start a conversation with Ashok.

In 2022, Ashok took up the mammoth task of digitising more than 17,000 photographs with the help of the fund that he received from the North East Council. He was also collaborating with the Department of Anthropology at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, for an exhibition. “That task remained unfinished. But we are planning to organise it,” said Lesitta, who met Ashok in Shillong when she was studying at Lady Keane College. They got married in 1978.

Many of Verrier’s collections were sold to the National Museum in Delhi by Ashok’s mother, Lila Elwin, who died in 2013. Yet many artefacts and photographs still remain as a testimony to its vast works with the various tribes of mainland India and the North East.

Lesitta said the family is also planning to open a museum on the premises of the house. “Ashok too was a photographer and he gave many of his photographs to INTAC,” she added.

Ashok was a crucial link between Verrier’s rich legacy and the present generation. He was assiduous in preserving and presenting the works of a man who played a key role in formulating policies for the tribals of India to the common man. Without Ashok’s endeavour, Verrier Elwin and his contributions to independent India would have remained a subject only for the academicians. Sadly, his demise did not receive much of the local media’s attention. But one hopes that his works, and going forward his family’s enthusiasm, will be a valuable treasure of knowledge for generations to come.

~ Team Sunday Monitor

Photos sourced, by MM

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