Write short answers, with a sociological perspective, on the following questions in about 150 words each: (a) Elaborate on M.N…

(a) M.N. Srinivas’s Structural-Functionalist Approach

M.N. Srinivas pioneered the empirical "field-view" in Indian sociology, departing from Indological "book-view" frameworks by utilizing Radcliffe-Brown’s structural-functionalist method. In his ethnography of Rampura (The Remembered Village), Srinivas conceptualized the Indian village not as an isolated, static entity, but as an integrated social ecosystem sustained through functional interdependence, division of labour, and ritual reciprocity.

A central contribution of his approach is the analytical distinction between ritual status and secular power. Through the concept of the "dominant caste," Srinivas demonstrated that a caste holding numerical preponderance, economic landownership, and political muscle often commands local social hegemony irrespective of its traditional varna ranking. His concepts of Sanskritization and Westernization captured horizontal and vertical mobility within this functioning structure. This empirical, dynamic view directly contested Louis Dumont’s structuralist thesis in Homo Hierarchicus, which reduced Indian society to a static, universal binary of pure and impure. Srinivas revealed that ritual hierarchy is perpetually negotiated against material power on the ground.

(b) Changing Agrarian Class Structure

The agrarian class structure in India is undergoing profound structural differentiation, moving beyond Daniel Thorner’s classic triadic division of malik, kisan, and mazdoor. Post-Green Revolution capitalist penetration, commercialization, and state policies have catalyzed significant depeasantisation and rural diversification.

The agrarian structure increasingly features a powerful class of capitalist farmers operating market-oriented enterprises, contrasted with a swelling, fragmented agrarian proletariat. Jan Breman’s empirical studies in Gujarat demonstrate how traditional patron-client ties (such as Halipratha) have dissolved into monetized, exploitative relations characterized by "neo-bondage" and the creation of a "footloose" migrant labour force. Furthermore, the expansion of corporate contract farming—such as potato cultivation in Punjab and sugarcane in Maharashtra—has subordinated smallholders to agribusiness monopolies. Combined with the feminisation of agricultural labour and the diversification into non-farm rural livelihoods, agrarian class positions are no longer solely defined by hereditary land ownership, but by integration into volatile capitalist market circuits and access to institutional credit.

(c) Challenges of Tribal Integration

The integration of tribal communities (Adivasis) remains one of post-independence India’s most complex sociological dilemmas, framed historically by the tension between Verrier Elwin’s isolationist "National Park" approach and G.S. Ghurye’s assimilationist stance. Jawaharlal Nehru formulated the Tribal Panchsheel to balance development with cultural autonomy; however, actual state policy has frequently resulted in forced assimilation and developmental exclusion.

While institutional mechanisms under the Sixth Schedule have fostered self-governance and the preservation of ethnic identity in states like Mizoram, Fifth Schedule areas in central India face severe structural alienation. Large-scale mineral extraction, dam construction, and industrialization have caused massive involuntary displacement from ancestral jal, jungle, and jameen (water, forest, and land) in states like Jharkhand and Odisha. Weak implementation of the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) and Forest Rights Act has led to cultural identity erosion, land alienation, and the reduction of self-sufficient tribal producers into marginalized, informal urban-migrant labour.

(d) Beteille's Harmonic and Disharmonic Social Structures

Andre Beteille introduced the conceptual categories of "harmonic" and "disharmonic" social structures to examine the relationship between the normative order (the realm of values and ideology) and the existential order (the actual distribution of power and resources) in changing societies.

A harmonic structure is one in which the normative system legitimizes existential inequalities. Traditional Indian caste society was harmonic: the ideology of hierarchy sanctioned the cumulative overlap of high ritual status, economic wealth, and political power. Conversely, modern Indian society is fundamentally disharmonic. The Constitution institutionalizes an egalitarian normative framework, yet structural inequalities of caste, class, and gender persist existentially. In Caste, Class and Power, studying Sripuram village, Beteille demonstrated how class and power have decoupled from caste, producing cross-cutting cleavages. In contemporary India, this disharmony manifests in heightened political contestation, where lower castes mobilize democratic power and reservation policies to challenge entrenched socio-economic hierarchies, turning structural disharmony into an engine of continuous social transformation.

(e) Leela Dube’s "Seed and Earth"

Leela Dube’s seminal concept of "Seed and Earth" (Beej aur Dharti) offers a critical feminist analysis of kinship and gender symbolism in patrilineal South Asia. Dube examines how cultural metaphors of human reproduction serve as ideological instruments to naturalize and perpetuate asymmetric gender relations.

In this cultural matrix, the male is conceptualized as the "seed"—the active, generative principle that determines the child's identity, caste, lineage, and clan membership. The female is constructed merely as the "earth" or field—a passive, nurturing receptacle that provides the soil for the seed to grow. Dube deconstructs this biological determinism by showing that the metaphor is a social construct used to legitimize patrilineal property inheritance, justify the absolute control of men over female sexuality, and deny women rights over their offspring. Contrasting North Indian patriliny with matrilineal systems (such as the Lakshadweep islanders), Dube proved that biological reproduction is culturally encoded to sustain distinct structural forms of patriarchal dominance.