Anthropology in India has failed to evolve its own distinct identity. While the global anthropological enterprise in the past four decades has largely shifted from description of unique, small, isolated groups to analytical, problem-oriented research, useful for cross-cultural comparison, anthropology in India still follows the colonial anthropologists' footsteps of studying marginalised peoples and their process of integration into the 'mainstream'. Poverty of ideas in anthropology will be overcome if Indian practitioners learn to identify plethora of social problems afflicting Indian society, and operationalise and actualise ideas in response to them.
