The Indian Anthropological Society is one of the premier societies in the world, which grew out of the Anthropological Club in 1921. Sir Asutosh Mukhopadhyay, the then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta, was the founder president of the Club. It continued for several years as a viable academic body. Later on, it was revived as “The Indian Anthropological Society”.

The Society was registered in 1958 under the West Bengal Societies Act. The major objective of the Society is to operate as the forum for periodically defining the role and relevance of anthropology in the contemporary and emerging situation in India and develop inter-culturally tolerant outlook among citizens of India