11. Understanding Society

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 87 specially his debate with Verrier Elwin of tribal cultures to show that they had which first made him known outside been involved in constant interactions sociology and the academic world. In with Hinduism over a long period. the 1930s and 1940s there was much They were thus simply further behind debate on the place of tribal societies in the same process of assimilation within India and how the state should that all Indian communities had gone respond to them. Many British through. This particular argument — administrator-anthropologists were namely, that Indian tribals were specially interested in the tribes of hardly ever isolated primitive India and believed them to be primitive communities of the type that was peoples with a distinctive culture far written about in the classical from mainstream Hinduism. They also anthropological texts — was not really believed that the innocent and simple disputed. The differences were in how tribals would suffer exploitation and the impact of mainstream culture was cultural degradation through contact evaluated. The ‘protectionists’ believed with Hindu culture and society. For that assimilation would result in the this reason, they felt that the state severe exploitation and cultural had a duty to protect the tribes and extinction of the tribals. Ghurye and to help them sustain their way of life the nationalists, on the other hand, and culture, which were facing argued that these ill-effects were not constant pressure to assimilate with specific to tribal cultures, but were mainstream Hindu culture. However, common to all the backward and nationalist Indians were equally downtrodden sections of Indian passionate about their belief in the society. These were the inevitable unity of India and the need for difficulties on the road to development. modernising Indian society and culture. They believed that attempts Activity 1 to preserve tribal culture were misguided and resulted in maintaining Today we still seem to be involved in tribals in a backward state as similar debates. Discuss the different ‘museums’ of primitive culture. As sides to the question from a with many features of Hinduism itself contemporary perspective. For which they felt to be backward and in example, many tribal movements need of reform, they felt that tribes, assert their distinctive cultural and too, needed to develop. Ghurye political identity — in fact, the states became the best-known exponent of of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh the nationalist view and insisted on were formed in response to characterising the tribes of India as such movements. There is also a ‘backward Hindus’ rather than major controversy around the distinct cultural groups. He cited disproportionate burden that tribal detailed evidence from a wide variety communities have been forced to bear for the sake of developmental 2019-20

88 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY projects like big dams, mines and different caste groups seemed to factories. How many such conflicts belong to distinct racial types. In do you know about? Find out what general, the higher castes the issues are in these conflicts. approximated Indo-Aryan racial traits, What do you and your classmates while the lower castes seemed to feel should be done about these belong to non-Aryan aboriginal, problems? Mongoloid or other racial groups. On the basis of differences between Ghurye on Caste and Race groups in terms of average measurements for length of nose, size G.S. Ghurye’s academic reputation of cranium etc., Risley and others was built on the basis of his doctoral suggested that the lower castes were dissertation at Cambridge, which was the original aboriginal inhabitants of later published as Caste and Race in India. They had been subjugated by India (1932). Ghurye’s work attracted an Aryan people who had come from attention because it addressed the elsewhere and settled in India. major concerns of Indian anthropology at the time. In this book, Ghurye Ghurye did not disagree with the provides a detailed critique of the then basic argument put forward by Risley but dominant theories about the believed it to be only partially correct. relationship between race and caste. He pointed out the problem with using Herbert Risley, a British colonial averages alone without considering the official who was deeply interested in variation in the distribution of a anthropological matters, was the main particular measurement for a given proponent of the dominant view. This community. Ghurye believed that view held that human beings can be Risley’s thesis of the upper castes being divided into distinct and separate Aryan and the lower castes being races on the basis of their physical non-Aryan was broadly true only for characteristics such as the northern India. In other parts of India, circumference of the skull, the length the inter-group differences in the of the nose, or the volume (size) of the anthropometric measurements were cranium or the part of the skull where not very large or systematic. This the brain is located. suggested that, in most of India except the Indo-Gangetic plain, different Risley and others believed that racial groups had been mixing with India was a unique ‘laboratory’ for each other for a very long time. Thus, studying the evolution of racial types ‘racial purity’ had been preserved due because caste strictly prohibits inter- to the prohibition on inter-marriage marriage among different groups, and only in ‘Hindustan proper’ (north had done so for centuries. Risley’s India). In the rest of the country, the main argument was that caste must practice of endogamy (marrying only have originated in race because within a particular caste group) may 2019-20

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 89 have been introduced into groups that (iii) The institution of caste necessarily were already racially varied. involves restrictions on social interaction, specially the sharing Today, the racial theory of caste is of food. There are elaborate rules no longer believed, but in the first half prescribing what kind of food may of the 20th century it was still be shared between which groups. considered to be true. There are These rules are governed by ideas conflicting opinions among historians of purity and pollution. The same about the Aryans and their arrival in also applies to social interaction, the subcontinent. However, at the most dramatically in the time that Ghurye was writing these institution of untouchability, were among the concerns of the where even the touch of people of discipline, which is why his writings particular castes is thought to be attracted attention. polluting. Ghurye is also known for offering (iv) Following from the principles of a comprehensive definition of hierarchy and restricted social caste. His definition emphasises six interaction, caste also involves features. differential rights and duties for different castes. These rights and (i) Caste is an institution based on duties pertain not only to religious segmental division. This means practices but extend to the secular that caste is divided into a number world. As ethnographic accounts of closed, mutually exclusive of everyday life in caste society segments or compartments. Each have shown, interactions between caste is one such compartment. It people of different castes are is closed because caste is decided governed by these rules. by birth — the children born to parents of a particular caste will (v) Caste restricts the choice of always belong to that caste. On the occupation, which, like caste itself, other hand, there is no way other is decided by birth and is than birth of acquiring caste hereditary. At the level of society, membership. In short, a person’s caste functions as a rigid form of caste is decided by birth at birth; the division of labour with specific it can neither be avoided nor occupations being allocated to changed. specific castes. (ii) Caste is based on hierarchical (vi) Caste involves strict restrictions division. Each caste is strictly on marriage. Caste ‘endogamy’, unequal to every other caste, that or marriage only within the caste, is, every caste is either higher or is often accompanied by rules lower than every other one. In about ‘exogamy’, or whom one theory (though not in practice), no may not marry. This combination two castes are ever equal. 2019-20

90 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY of rules about eligible and non- and Lucknow. Both began as eligible groups helps reproduce combined departments of sociology the caste system. and economics. While the Bombay department in this period was led by Ghurye’s definition helped to G.S. Ghurye, the Lucknow department make the study of caste more had three major figures, the famous systematic. His conceptual definition ‘trinity’ of Radhakamal Mukerjee (the was based on what the classical texts founder), D.P. Mukerji, and D.N. prescribed. In actual practice, many Majumdar. Although all three were of these features of caste were well known and widely respected, D.P. changing, though all of them continue Mukerji was perhaps the most to exist in some form. Ethnographic popular. In fact, D.P. Mukerji — or D.P. fieldwork over the next several as he was generally known — was decades helped to provide valuable among the most influential scholars accounts of what was happening to of his generation not only in sociology caste in independent India. but in intellectual and public life beyond the academy. His influence Between the 1920s and the 1950s, and popularity came not so much from sociology in India was equated with the two major departments at Bombay Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji (1894-1961) D.P. Mukerji was born on 5 October 1894 in a middle class Bengali brahmin family with a long tradition of involvement in higher education. Undergraduate degree in science and postgraduate degrees in History and Economics from Calcutta University. 1924: Appointed Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Sociology at Lucknow University 1938: 41 Served as Director of Information under the first Congress-led government of the United Provinces of British India (present day Uttar Pradesh). 1947: Served as a Member of the U.P. Labour Enquiry Committee. 1949: Appointed Professor (by special order of the Vice Chancellor) at Lucknow University. 1953: Appointed Professor of Economics at Aligarh Muslim University 1955: Presidential Address to the newly formed Indian Sociological Society 1956: Underwent major surgery for throat cancer in Switzerland Died on 5 December 1961. 2019-20

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 91 his scholarly writings as from his in socialised persons.” (Mukherji teaching, his speaking at academic 1955:2) events, and his work in the media, including newspaper articles and Given the centrality of society in radio programmes. D.P. came to India, it became the first duty of an sociology via history and economics, Indian sociologist to study and to and retained an active interest in a know the social traditions of India. For wide variety of subjects ranging across D.P. this study of tradition was not literature, music, film, western and oriented only towards the past, but Indian philosophy, Marxism, political also included sensitivity to change. economy, and development planning. Thus, tradition was a living tradition, He was strongly influenced by maintaining its links with the past, but Marxism, though he had more faith also adapting to the present and thus in it as a method of social analysis evolving over time. As he wrote, “...it than as a political programme for is not enough for the Indian sociologist action. D.P. wrote many books in to be a sociologist. He must be an English and Bengali. His Introduction Indian first, that is, he is to share in to Indian Music is a pioneering work, the folk-ways, mores, customs and considered a classic in its genre. traditions, for the purpose of understanding his social system and D.P. Mukerji on Tradition and Change what lies beneath it and beyond it.” In keeping with this view, he believed It was through his dissatisfaction that sociologists should learn and be with Indian history and economics familiar with both ‘high’ and ‘low’ that D.P. turned to sociology. He felt languages and cultures — not only very strongly that the crucial Sanskrit, Persian or Arabic, but also distinctive feature of India was its local dialects. social system, and that, therefore, it was important for each social science D.P. argued that Indian culture to be rooted in this context. The and society are not individualistic in decisive aspect of the Indian context the western sense. The average Indian was the social aspect: history, politics individual’s pattern of desires is more and economics in India were less or less rigidly fixed by his socio- developed in comparison with the cultural group pattern and he hardly west; however, the social dimensions deviates from it. Thus, the Indian were ‘over-developed’. As D.P. wrote , social system is basically oriented “… my conviction grew that India had towards group, sect, or caste-action, had society, and very little else. In not ‘voluntaristic’ individual action. fact, she had too much of it. Her Although ‘voluntarism’ was beginning history, her economics, and even her to influence the urban middle classes, philosophy, I realised, had always its appearance ought to be itself an centred in social groups, and at best, interesting subject of study for the Indian sociologist. D.P. pointed out 2019-20

92 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY that the root meaning of the word challenged by the collective experience tradition is to transmit. Its Sanskrit of groups and sects, as for example in equivalents are either parampara, that the bhakti movement. D.P. emphasised is, succession; or aitihya, which comes that this was true not only of Hindu from the same root as itihas or history. but also of Muslim culture in India. In Traditions are thus strongly rooted in Indian Islam, the Sufis have stressed the past that is kept alive through the love and experience rather than holy repeated recalling and retelling of texts, and have been important in stories and myths. However, this link bringing about change. Thus, for D.P., with the past does not rule out change, the Indian context is not one where but indicates a process of adaptation discursive reason (buddhi-vichar) is the to it. Internal and external sources of dominant force for change; anubhava change are always present in every and prem (experience and love) have society. The most commonly cited been historically superior as agents of internal source of change in western change. societies is the economy, but this source has not been as effective in Conflict and rebellion in the Indian India. Class conflict, D.P. believed, had context have tended to work through been “smoothed and covered by caste collective experiences. But the traditions” in the Indian context, resilience of tradition ensures that the where new class relations had not yet pressure of conflict produces change emerged very sharply. Based on this in the tradition without breaking it. understanding, he concluded that one So we have repeated cycles of of the first tasks for a dynamic Indian dominant orthodoxy being challenged sociology would be to provide an by popular revolts which succeed in account of the internal, non-economic transforming orthodoxy, but are causes of change. eventually reabsorbed into this transformed tradition. This process D.P. believed that there were three of change — of rebellion contained principles of change recognised in within the limits of an overarching Indian traditions, namely; shruti, smriti tradition — is typical of a caste society, and anubhava. Of these, the last — where the formation of classes and anubhava or personal experience — is class consciousness has been the revolutionary principle. However, in inhibited. D.P.’s views on tradition and the Indian context personal experience change led him to criticise all soon flowered into collective experience. instances of unthinking borrowing This meant that the most important from western intellectual traditions, principle of change in Indian society including in such contexts as was generalised anubhava, or the development planning. Tradition was collective experience of groups. The high neither to be worshipped nor ignored, traditions were centred in smriti and just as modernity was needed but not sruti, but they were periodically to be blindly adopted. D.P. was 2019-20

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 93 simultaneously a proud but critical A.R. Desai is one of the rare Indian inheritor of tradition, as well as an sociologists who was directly involved admiring critic of the modernity that in politics as a formal member of he acknowledged as having shaped his political parties. Desai was a life-long own intellectual perspective. Marxist and became involved in Marxist politics during his undergraduate days Activity 2 at Baroda, though he later resigned his membership of the Communist Party Discuss what is meant by a ‘living of India. For most of his career he was tradition’. According to D.P. Mukerji, associated with various kinds of non- this is a tradition which maintains mainstream Marxist political groups. links with the past by retaining Desai’s father was a middle level civil something from it, and at the same servant in the Baroda state, but was time incorporates new things. A living also a well-known novelist, with tradition thus includes some old sympathy for both socialism and elements but also some new ones. Indian nationalism of the Gandhian You can get a better and more variety. Having lost his mother early concrete sense of what this means if in life, Desai was brought up by his you try to find out from different father and lived a migratory life generations of people in your because of the frequent transfers of neighbourhood or family about what his father to different posts in the is changed and what is unchanged Baroda state. about specific practices. Here is a list of subjects you can try; you could also After his undergraduate studies in try other subjects of your own choice. Baroda, Desai eventually joined the Bombay department of sociology to Games played by children of study under Ghurye. He wrote his your age group (boys/girls) doctoral dissertation on the social aspects of Indian nationalism and was Ways in which a popular festival awarded the degree in 1946. His is celebrated thesis was published in 1948 as The Social Background of Indian Typical dress/clothing worn by Nationalism, which is probably his women and men best known work. In this book, Desai offered a Marxist analysis of Indian … Plus other such subjects of nationalism, which gave prominence your choice … to economic processes and divisions, while taking account of the specific For each of these, you need to conditions of British colonialism. find out: What aspects have Although it had its critics, this book remained unchanged since as far proved to be very popular and went back as you know or can find out? through numerous reprints. Among What aspects have changed? What was different and same about the practice/event (i) 10 years ago; (ii) 20 years ago; (iii) 40 years ago; (iv) 60 or more years ago Discuss your findings with the whole class. 2019-20

94 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY Akshay Ramanlal Desai (1915-1994) A. R. Desai was born in 1915. Early education in Baroda, then in Surat and Bombay. 1934-39: Member of Communist Party of India; involved with Trotskyite groups. 1946: Ph.D. submitted at Bombay under the supervision of G.S. Ghurye. 1948: Desai’s Ph.D. dissertation is published as the book: Social Background of Indian Nationalism. 1951: Joins the faculty of the Department of Sociology at Bombay University 1953-1981: Member of Revolutionary Socialist Party. 1961: Rural Transition in India is published. 1967: Appointed Professor and Head of Department. 1975: State and Society in India: Essays in Dissent is published. 1976: Retired from Department of Sociology. 1979: Peasant Struggles in India is published. 1986: Agrarian Struggles in India after Independence is published. Died on 12 November 1994. the other themes that Desai worked interested A.R. Desai. As always, his on were peasant movements and rural approach to this issue was from a sociology, modernisation, urban Marxist perspective. In an essay called issues, political sociology, forms of the “The myth of the welfare state”, Desai state and human rights. Because provides a detailed critique of this Marxism was not very prominent or notion and points to it many influential within Indian sociology, shortcomings. After considering the A.R. Desai was perhaps better known prominent definitions available in the outside the discipline than within it. sociological literature, Desai identifies Although he received many honours the following unique features of the and was elected President of the welfare state: Indian Sociological Society, Desai remained a somewhat unusual figure (i) A welfare state is a positive state. in Indian sociology. This means that, unlike the ‘laissez faire’ of classical liberal political A.R. Desai on the State theory, the welfare state does not seek to do only the minimum The modern capitalist state was one necessary to maintain law and of the significant themes that order. The welfare state is an 2019-20

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 95 interventionist state and actively from the rich to the poor, and by uses its considerable powers to preventing the concentration of design and implement social policies wealth? for the betterment of society. (iii) Does the welfare state transform (ii) The welfare state is a democratic the economy in such a way that state. Democracy was considered the capitalist profit motive is made an essential condition for the subservient to the real needs of the emergence of the welfare state. community? Formal democratic institutions, specially multi-party elections, iv) Does the welfare state ensure were thought to be a defining stable development free from the feature of the welfare state. This cycle of economic booms and is why liberal thinkers excluded depressions? socialist and communist states from this definition. (v) Does it provide employment for all? (iii) A welfare state involves a mixed Using these criteria, Desai economy. A ‘mixed economy’ means examines the performance of those an economy where both private states that are most often described as capitalist enterprises and state welfare states, such as Britain, the USA or publicly owned enterprises and much of Europe, and finds their co-exist. A welfare state does not claims to be greatly exaggerated. Thus, seek to eliminate the capitalist most modern capitalist states, even in market, nor does it prevent public the most developed countries, fail to investment in industry and other provide minimum levels of economic fields. By and large, the state and social security to all their citizens. sector concentrates on basic goods They are unable to reduce economic and social infrastructure, while inequality and often seem to encourage private industry dominates the it. The so-called welfare states have also consumer goods sector. been unsuccessful at enabling stable development free from market Desai then goes on to suggest some fluctuations. The presence of excess test criteria against which the economic capacity and high levels of performance of the welfare state can unemployment are yet another failure. be measured. These are: Based on these arguments, Desai concludes that the notion of the welfare (i) Does the welfare state ensure state is something of a myth. freedom from poverty, social discrimination and security for all A.R. Desai also wrote on the its citizens? Marxist theory of the state. In these writings we can see that Desai does (ii) Does the welfare state remove not take a one-sided view but openly inequalities of income through criticises the shortcomings of measures to redistribute income Communist states. He cites many 2019-20

96 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY Marxist thinkers to emphasise the lights, schools, sanitation, police importance of democracy even under services, hospitals, bus, train and communism, arguing strongly that air transport… Think of others that political liberties and the rule of law are relevant in your context.) must be upheld in all genuinely socialist states. Probably the best known Indian sociologist of the post-independence Activity 3 era, M.N. Srinivas earned two doctoral degrees, one from Bombay University A.R. Desai criticises the welfare state and one from Oxford. Srinivas was a from a Marxist and socialist point of student of Ghurye’s at Bombay. view — that is he would like the state Srinivas’ intellectual orientation was to do more for its citizens than is transformed by the years he spent at being done by western capitalist the department of social anthropology welfare states. There are also very in Oxford. British social anthropology strong opposing viewpoints today was at that time the dominant force which say that the state should do in western anthropology, and Srinivas less — it should leave most things also shared in the excitement of being to the free market. Discuss these at the ‘centre’ of the discipline. viewpoints in class. Be sure to give Srinivas’ doctoral dissertation was a fair hearing to both sides. published as Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India. This Make a list of all the things that book established Srinivas’ international are done by the state or government reputation with its detailed ethnographic in your neighbourhood, starting with application of the structural – functional your school. Ask: people to find out perspective dominant in British social if this list has grown longer or shorter anthropology. Srinivas was appointed in recent years — is the state doing to a newly created lectureship in Indian more things now than before, or less? sociology at Oxford, but resigned in What do you feel would happen if the 1951 to return to India as the head of state were to stop doing these things? a newly created department of Would you and your neighbourhood/ sociology at the Maharaja Sayajirao school be worse off, better off, or University at Baroda. In 1959, he remain unaf fected? Would rich, moved to Delhi to set up another middle class, and poor people have department at the Delhi School of the same opinion, or be affected in Economics, which soon became known the same way, if the state were to as one of the leading centres of stop some of its activities? sociology in India. Make a list of state-provided Srinivas often complained that services and facilities in your most of his energies were taken up in neighbourhood, and see how opinions institution building, leaving him with might differ across class groups on whether these should continue or be stopped. (For example: roads, water supply, electricity supply, street 2019-20

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 97 Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas (1916-1999) M.N. Srinivas was born on 16 November 1916 in an Iyengar brahmin family in Mysore. His father was a landowner and worked for the Mysore power and light department. His early education was at Mysore University, and he later went to Bombay to do an MA under G.S. Ghurye. 1942: M.A. thesis on Marriage and Family Among the Coorgs published as book. 1944: Ph.D. thesis (in 2 volumes) submitted to Bombay University under the supervision of G.S. Ghurye. 1945: Leaves for Oxford; studies first under Radcliffe- Brown and then under Evans-Pritchard. 1947: Awarded D.Phil. degree in Social Anthropology from Oxford; returns to India. 1948: Appointed Lecturer in Indian Sociology at Oxford; fieldwork in Rampura. 1951: Resigns from Oxford to take up Professorship at Maharaja Sayaji Rao University in Baroda to found its sociology department. 1959: Takes up Professorship at the Delhi School of Economics to set up the sociology department there. 1971: Leaves Delhi University to co-found the Institute of Social and Economic Change at Bangalore. Died on 30 November 1999. little time for his own research. Despite University of Chicago, which was then these difficulties, Srinivas produced a a powerful centre in world significant body of work on themes such anthropology. Like G.S. Ghurye and the as caste, modernisation and other Lucknow scholars, Srinivas succeeded processes of social change, village in training a new generation of society, and many other issues. sociologists who were to become Srinivas helped to establish Indian leaders of the discipline in the following sociology on the world map through decades. his international contacts and associations. He had strong M.N. Srinivas on the Village connections in British social anthropology as well as American The Indian village and village society anthropology, particularly at the remained a life-long focus of interest for Srinivas. Although he had made 2019-20

98 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY short visits to villages to conduct wherever they go. For this reason, surveys and interviews, it was not Dumont believed that it would be until he did fieldwork for a year at a misleading to give much importance to village near Mysore that he really the village as a category. As against acquired first-hand knowledge of this view, Srinivas believed that the village society. The experience of village was a relevant social entity. fieldwork proved to be decisive for his Historical evidence showed that villages career and his intellectual path. had served as a unifying identity and Srinivas helped encourage and that village unity was quite significant coordinate a major collective effort at in rural social life. Srinivas also producing detailed ethnographic criticised the British administrator accounts of village society during the anthropologists who had put forward 1950s and 1960s. Along with other a picture of the Indian village as scholars like S.C. Dube and D.N. unchanging, self-sufficient, “little Majumdar, Srinivas was instrumental republics”. Using historical and in making village studies the sociological evidence, Srinivas showed dominant field in Indian sociology that the village had, in fact, experienced during this time. considerable change. Moreover, villages were never self-sufficient, and had been Srinivas’ writings on the village involved in various kinds of economic, were of two broad types. There was social and political relationships at the first of all ethnographic accounts of regional level. fieldwork done in villages or discussions of such accounts. A The village as a site of research second kind of writing included offered many advantages to Indian historical and conceptual discussions sociology. It provided an opportunity about the Indian village as a unit of to illustrate the importance of social analysis. In the latter kind of ethnographic research methods. It writing, Srinivas was involved in a offered eye-witness accounts of the debate about the usefulness of the rapid social change that was taking village as a concept. Arguing against place in the Indian countryside as the village studies, some social newly independent nation began a anthropologists like Louis Dumont programme of planned development. thought that social institutions like These vivid descriptions of village India caste were more important than were greatly appreciated at the time something like a village, which was as urban Indians as well as policy afterall only a collection of people makers were able to form impressions living in a particular place. Villages of what was going on in the heartland may live or die, and people may move of India. Village studies thus provided from one village to another, but their a new role for a discipline like sociology social institutions, like caste or in the context of an independent religion, follow them and go with them nation. Rather than being restricted 2019-20

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 99 to the study of ‘primitive’ peoples, it give for wanting to leave the city and could also be made relevant to a live in the village? If you don’t know modernising society. of any such people, why do you think people don’t want to live in a village? Activity 4 If you know of people living in a village who would like to live in a town or Suppose you had friends from city, what reasons do they give for another planet or civilisation who wanting to leave the village? were visiting the Earth for the first time and had never heard of Conclusion something called a ‘village’. What are the five clues you would give them These four Indian sociologists helped to identify a village if they ever came to give a distinctive character to the across one? discipline in the context of a newly independent modernising country. Do this in small groups and then They are offered here as examples of compare the five clues given by the diverse ways in which sociology different groups. Which features was ‘Indianised’. Thus, Ghurye began appear most often? Do the most with the questions defined by western common features help you to make anthropologists, but brought to them a sort of definition of a village? (To his intimate knowledge of classical check whether your definition is a texts and his sense of educated Indian good one, ask yourself the question: opinion. Coming from a very different Could there be a village where all or background, a thoroughly westernised most features mentioned in your modern intellectual like D.P. Mukerji definition are absent?) rediscovered the importance of Indian tradition without being blind to its Activity 5 shortcomings. Like Mukerji, A.R. Desai was also strongly influenced by In the 1950s, there was great interest Marxism and offered a critical view of among urban Indians in the village the Indian state at a time when such studies that sociologists began doing criticism was rare. Trained in the at that time. Do you feel urban people dominant centres of western social are interested in the village today? anthropology, M.N. Srinivas adapted How often are villages mentioned in his training to the Indian context and the T.V., in newspapers and films? If helped design a new agenda for you live in a city, does your family sociology in the late 20th century. still have contacts with relatives in the village? Did it have such contacts in It is a sign of the health and your parents’ generation or your strength of a discipline when grandparents’ generation? Do you succeeding generations learn from know of anybody from a city who has moved to a village? Do you know of people who would like to go back? If you do, what reasons do these people 2019-20

100 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY and eventually go beyond their to constructive criticism in order to predecessors. This has also been take the discipline further. The signs happening in Indian sociology. of this process of learning and critique Succeeding generations have are visible not only in this book but subjected the work of these pioneers all over Indian sociology. GLOSSARY Administrator–anthropologists: The term refers to British administrative officials who were part of the British Indian government in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and who took great interest in conducting anthropological research, specially surveys and censuses. Some of them became well known anthropologists after retirement. Prominent names include: Edgar Thurston, William Crooke, Herbert Risley and J.H. Hutton. Anthropometry: The branch of anthropology that studied human racial types by measuring the human body, particularly the volume of the cranium (skull), the circumference of the head, and the length of the nose. Assimilation: A process by which one culture (usually the larger or more dominant one) gradually absorbs another; the assimilated culture merges into the assimilating culture, so that it is no longer alive or visible at the end of the process. Endogamy: A social institution that defines the boundary of a social or kin group within which marriage relations are permissible; marriage outside these defined groups are prohibited. The most common example is caste endogamy, where marriage may only take place with a member of the same caste. Exogamy: A social institution that defines the boundary of a social or kin group with which or within which marriage relations are prohibited; marriages must be contracted outside these prohibited groups. Common examples include prohibition of marriage with blood relatives (sapind exogamy), members of the same lineage (sagotra exogamy), or residents of the same village or region (village/region exogamy). Laissez-faire: A French phrase (literally ‘let be’ or ‘leave alone’) that stands for a political and economic doctrine that advocates minimum state intervention in the economy and economic relations; usually associated with belief in the regulative powers and efficiency of the free market. 2019-20

INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS 101 EXERCISES 1. How did Ananthakrishna Iyer and Sarat Chandra Roy come to practice social anthropology? 2. What were the main arguments on either side of the debate about how to relate to tribal communities? 3. Outline the positions of Herbert Risley and G.S. Ghurye on the relationship between race and caste in India. 4. Summarise the social anthropological definition of caste. 5. What does D.P. Mukerji mean by a ‘living tradition’? Why did he insist that Indian sociologists be rooted in this tradition? 6. What are the specificities of Indian culture and society, and how do they affect the pattern of change? 7. What is a welfare state? Why is A.R. Desai critical of the claims made on its behalf? 8. What arguments were given for and against the village as a subject of sociological research by M.N. Srinivas and Louis Dumont? 9. What is the significance of village studies in the history of Indian sociology? What role did M.N. Srinivas play in promoting village studies? REFERENCES DESAI, A.R. 1975. State and Society in India: Essays in Dissent. Popular Prakashan, Bombay. DESHPANDE, SATISH. 2007. ‘Fashioning a Postcolonial Discipline: M.N. Srinivas and Indian Sociology’ in Uberoi, Sundar and Deshpande (eds) (in press). GHURYE, G.S. 1969. Caste and Race in India, Fifth Edition, Popular Prakashan, Bombay. PRAMANICK, S.K. 1994. Sociology of G.S. Ghurye, Rawat Publications, Jaipur, and New Delhi. MUKERJI, D.P. 1946. Views and Counterviews. The Universal Publishers, Lucknow. MUKERJI, D.P. 1955. ‘Indian Tradition and Social Change’, Presidential Address to the All India Sociological Conference at Dehradun, 2019-20

102 UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY Reproduced in T.K. Oommen and Partha N. Mukherji (eds) 1986. Indian Sociology: Reflections and Introspections, Popular Prakashan, Bombay. MADAN, T.N. 1994. Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. PATEL, SUJATA. ‘Towards a Praxiological Understanding of Indian Society: The Sociology of A.R. Desai’, in Uberoi, Sundar and Deshpande (eds) (in press). SRINIVAS, M.N. 1955. India’s Villages. Development Department, Government of West Bengal. West Bengal Government Press, Calcutta. SRINIVAS, M.N. 1987. ‘The Indian Village: Myth and Reality’ in the Dominant Caste and other Essays. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. UBEROI, PATRICIA, NANDINI SUNDAR AND SATISH DESHPANDE (eds) (in press). Disciplinary Biographies: Essays in the History of Indian Sociology and Social Anthropology. Permanent Black, New Delhi. UPADHYA, CAROL. ‘The Idea of Indian Society: G.S. Ghurye and the Making of Indian Sociology’, in Uberoi, Sundar and Deshpande (eds) (in press). 2019-20