One often hears of a disconnect in the practice and praxis of anthropology in Indian context. This is a bit paradoxical in the sense that Anthropology in India took shape as a public applied discipline and continued to be an important contributor to nation building in the post-independent era. As elsewhere, in India also accusations are traded between academic and other organizational based anthropologist, with the latter calling the former as drunk with theory with a colonial hangover, living in ivory tower disconnected to the real world. While the former criticizing the latter’s approach as hollow and shallow, a-theoretical, unethical, institutional centric, cosmetic changers using anthropological knowledge as a means to an end, with no compunctions of ‘types of ends’. In between these squabbling are many hundreds of students every year passing out of universities, successfully competing with students from other disciplines and making a mark as anthropologists. With academicians also taking up application oriented assignments and projects, the divide looks apparently quite unclear and fluid. In the recent years, with the emergence of knowledge economy based on production and management of knowledge as a prime mover of economic growth, the anthropological knowledge and skills have come to acquire an added significance. This has led to many others, not trained in anthropology, passing of as anthropologists. All this has added to a very interesting hybridity to anthropological praxis in India. This paper will examine these dynamic interactions which is shaping a new applied and teaching of anthropology in India
