 In 1885, Risley was appointed to conduct a project titled the Ethnographic Survey of Bengal, which Augustus Rivers Thompson, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Presidency at the time, believed to be a sensible exercise.The Indian Rebellion of 1857 had come close to overturning British rule in India, and the disruption led the British government to take over administrative control from the British East India Company.Members of the ICS such as Richard Carnac Temple thought that if further discontent were to be avoided, it was necessary to obtain a better understanding of the colonial subjects, particularly those from the rural areas.