\n\n<\/span>Marxist Perspective:<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\nIn 50s-60s American structural-functionalism and British functionalism dominated social sciences in general and sociological researches in particular. However Desai continued to write on Indian society and state from the Marxist perspective. He finds that the dominant sociological approaches in India are basically non-Marxist and the Marxist approach has been rejected on the pretext of its being dogmatic, value-loaded and deterministic in nature. The relevant approach according to him is the Marxist approach as it could help to study of govt\u2019s policies, the class entrenched into state apparatus and India\u2019s political economy.The Marxist approach helps to understand the social reality through the means of production, the techno-economic division of labour involved in operating the instruments of production and social relations of production or what was more precisely characterized as property relations. Thus the Marxist approach focuses on understanding the type of property relations which existed on the eve of independence in India. The Marxist approach gives central importance to property structure in analyzing any society. It provides historical location or specification of all social phenomena. It recognizes the dialectics of evolutionary as well as revolutionary changes of the breaks in historical continuity in the transition from one socio-economic formation to another. In this context A R Desai tried to understand the Indian society which also reflects in his work.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>A.R Desai<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\nA.R Desai was born on April 16, 1915 at Nadiadin Gujarat and died in 1994 at Baroda. He consistently advocated and applied dialectical-historical model in his sociological studies. He closely studied the works of Marx and Engels and the writings of Trotsky. He may be regarded as one of the pioneers in introducing the modern Marxist approach to empirical investigations involving bibliographical and field research. He rejects any interpretations of tradition with reference to religion, rituals and festivities. It is essentially a secular phenomenon. He finds it in family, village and other social institutions. He also does not find the origin of tradition in western culture. He considers that the emerging contradictions in the Indian process of social transformation arise mainly from the growing nexus among the capitalist bourgeoisie, the rural petty-bourgeoisie and a state apparatus all drawn from similar social roots.<\/span><\/p>\nAmong Indian sociologists one who has consistently advocate and applied dialectical-historical model in his sociological studies is A.R.Desai.\u00a0<\/strong>Desai closely studied the works of Marx and Engels and the writings of Leon Trotsky by whom he was very much influenced He may be\u00a0regarded as one of the pioneers introducing the modern Marxist approach to empirical investigations involving bibliographical and field research.<\/strong>\u00a0Following facts are worth mentioning about Desai :<\/span><\/p>\n\n- Desai alone among Indian sociologists has consistently applied Marxist methods in his treatment of Indian social structure and its processes. He is a doctrinaire Marxist.<\/span><\/li>\n
- He rejects any interpretations of tradition with reference to religion, rituals and festivities; it is essentially<\/span><\/li>\n
- a secular phenomenon. Its nature is economic and it originates and develops in economic. He finds it in family, village and other social institutions. He also does not find the origin of tradition in western culture.<\/span><\/li>\n
- His studies mainly of nationalism and its social configuration, his examination of community development programmes for economic development in villages, his diagnosis of the interface between state and society in India or the relationship between polity and social structure, his treatment of urban slums and their demographic problems, and finally his study of peasant movements are all based on a Marxist method of historical-dialectical materialism.<\/span><\/li>\n
- He considers that the emerging contradictions in the Indian process of social transformation arise mainly from the growing nexus among the capitalist bourgeoisie, the rural petty-bourgeoisie and a state apparatus, industrial working classes by sheer of its power and of its skilful stratagems. The contradiction, however, is not resolved It only takes new cumulative forms and re-emerges in the form of protests and social movements.The social unrest is rooted in the capitalist path of development followed by India, bequeathed to it as a legacy of the national movement.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Analysis of Indian Society through Marxist Approach:<\/span><\/h3>\nMarx pointed out that different sub-formations within a society could not be understood adequately if seen in the context of the historical level Thus,<\/span><\/p>\n\n- The Marxist approach endeavors to locate, within a specific society, the forces which preserve and forces which prompt it to change, i.e., the forces driving to take a leap into a new or a higher form of social organization, which would unleash the productive power of mankind to a next higher level.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- Further, Desai argues that the methodology adopted by social scientists is apt to understand social reality from the ideology of capitalism<\/strong>. But that is a false finding. He further argues that changes need to be interpreted from the perspective of production relation. And it is precisely the method he has applied.<\/span><\/li>\n
- The Marxist approach further considers that focusing on the type of property relations prevailing in the Indian society as crucial-axial element for properly understanding the nature will be crudely reducing of every phenomenon to economic factor;\u00a0it also not denies the autonomy, or prevalence of distinct institutional and normative features peculiar to a particular society.<\/strong>\u00a0For instance, according to Desai, it does not deny the necessity of understanding institutions like caste system, religions, linguistic or tribal groups or even specific cultural traditions which are characteristics of the Indian society.<\/span><\/li>\n
- The Marxist approach, in fact, Endeavors to understand the role and the nature of the transformation of these institutions in the larger context of the type of society, which is being evolved.\u00a0<\/strong>This approach understands these institutions in the matrix of underlying overall property relations and norms implicit therein, which pervasively influence the entire social economic formation.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Desai feels that adoption of the Marxist approach will be helpful in studying the industrial relations, not merely as management-labour relations, and also in the context of the state wedded to capitalist path of development, shaping these relations.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- The Marxist approach will also assist in understanding why institutions generating higher knowledge-products, sponsored, financed and basically shaped by the state, pursuing a path of capitalist development.<\/strong>\u00a0This understanding will expose the myth spread about state, as welfare neutral state and reveal it as basically a capitalist state.<\/span><\/li>\n
- The constitution evolved is bourgeois constitution and the leadership is representing capitalist class and is reshaping the economy and society on capitalist path.\u00a0<\/strong>The slogan of socialistic pattern is a hoax to create illusion and confuse the masses. The real intentions and practices are geared to the development on capitalist lines.<\/span><\/li>\n
- According to Desai, the bourgeoisie is the dominant class in India.\u00a0<\/strong>The Indian society is based on the capitalist economy. The dominant culture in our country is therefore the culture of the dominant capitalist class.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Indian capitalism was a by- product of imperialist capitalism.<\/strong>\u00a0Indian capitalism was born during the declining phase of world capitalism when, due to the general crisis of capitalism, even in advanced capitalist countries, the ruling bourgeoisie, not cognizant of the cause of the crisis, have been increasingly abandoning rationalism and materialist philosophies and retrograding to religio-mystical world outlook,<\/span><\/li>\n
- Desai argues that Indian bourgeoisie built up a fundamentally secular bourgeois democratic state, which has been imparting modern scientific, technological and liberal democratic education.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- This class and its intelligensia have been, in the cultural field are revivalist and more and more popularizing, supporting and spreading old religious and idealistic philosophic concepts among the people.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
- The social role played by this culture is reactionary since it gives myopic picture of the physical universe and the social world, a misexplanation of the fundamental causes of the economic and social crisis, opiates the consciousness of the masses and tries to divert the latter from advancing on the road of specific solution of their problems.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Important contributions of Desai on major themes are:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n- Village structure<\/span><\/li>\n
- Social background of Indian nationalism<\/span><\/li>\n
- State and society<\/span><\/li>\n
- Transformation of Indian society<\/span><\/li>\n
- Peasant struggles<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Village Structure:<\/span><\/h4>\n\n- It is viewed that Indian village was a self-sufficient unit in pre-British period The village population was mainly composed of peasants. The peasant families enjoyed traditional hereditary right to possess, and cultivate his holding from generation to generation. Therefore, village was based on agriculture carried on with the primitive plough and bullock-power and handicraft by means of the primitive equipment.<\/span><\/li>\n
- The village council was the de facto owner of the village land which represented the village community. All exchange of product produced by the village workers, was limited to the village community. The village did not have any appreciable exchange relations with the outside world Further, the pre-British Indian society almost completely subordinated the individual to the caste, family and the village panchayat. The culture of pre-British India was feudal in nature, which was predominantly mystical in character. This was due to the fact that the society was economically on a low level stationary and socially rigid Whatever changes occurred was quantitative and not qualitative in character.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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