Kumar Suresh Singh

Kumar Suresh Singh (1935–2006) commonly known as K. S. Singh, was an Indian Administrative Service officer, who served as a Commissioner of Chhotanagpur (1978–80) and Director-General of the Anthropological Survey of India. He is known principally for his oversight and editorship of the People of India survey and for his studies of tribal history.

Quotes

• A press report on a recent anthropological survey led by Kumar Suresh Singh explains: “English anthropologists contended that the upper castes of India belonged to the Caucasian race and the rest drew their origin from Australoid types. The survey has revealed this to be a myth. ‘Biologically and linguistically, we are very mixed’, says Suresh Singh (…) The report says that the people of India have more genes in common, and also share a large number of morphological traits. ‘There is much greater homogenization in terms of morphological and genetic traits at the regional level’, says the report. For example, the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu (esp. Iyengars) share more traits with non-Brahmins in the state than with fellow Brahmins in western or northern India. (…) The sons-of-the-soil theory also stands demolished. The Anthropological Survey of India has found no community in India that can’t remember having migrated from some other part of the country.”
  • N.V. Subramaniam: “The way we are. An ASI project shatters some entrenched myths”, Sunday, 10-4-1994. quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.