Marxist perspective: D.P. Mukerji, A.R. Desai, Ramkrishna Mukherjee

1. The perspective

The Marxist approach explains society by its mode of production: the forces of production (technology, labour) and the relations of production (ownership, class). The economic base shapes the superstructure of law, religion, family and ideology. Change comes through class conflict and the dialectic of contradictions. Applied to India, it asks how colonialism, land relations and capitalism produced classes, and treats caste as linked to, though not identical with, class.

It differs from structural-functionalism by stressing conflict over harmony, history over the single village, and exploitation over integration.

2. D.P. Mukerji (1894–1961)

Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji taught at Lucknow University and was one of the three founders of the Lucknow school. His works include Modern Indian Culture (1942), Problems of Indian Youth (1946) and Diversities (1958).

• “Marxologist”, not a Marxist. He used Marxist dialectics as a method but rejected the idea that Indian society could be explained by economics alone. He is often described as a Marxologist.
• Tradition as the starting point. In his 1955 presidential address to the Indian Sociological Conference (“Indian Tradition and Social Change”) he said the first task of an Indian sociologist is to study the social traditions to which he is born. An Indian sociologist must be an Indian first.
• Three principles of change in tradition: shruti (revealed text), smriti (remembered tradition) and anubhava (personal experience); anubhava was the source of change, as in the bhakti saints.
• Dialectic of tradition and modernity. Western modernity, brought by the British, created a new middle class cut off from Indian tradition; the dialectic between the two would produce a new synthesis.
• The Indian middle class was a product of British rule, and its rootlessness was a problem for national culture.

3. A.R. Desai (1915–1994)

Akshay Ramanlal Desai taught at Bombay University (a student of Ghurye) and was the most consistently Marxist of Indian sociologists.

• Social Background of Indian Nationalism (1948): Indian nationalism was a product of the material changes of British rule: a new economy, new classes (industrial bourgeoisie, working class, professional middle class) and modern transport and press. He traced phases of the national movement, each led by a different class coalition.
• Village and peasantry: Rural Sociology in India (ed.) and Peasant Struggles in India (1979) and Agrarian Struggles in India after Independence (1986). Land reform and Community Development had benefited rich peasants and not the poor.
• The post-colonial state: State and Society in India: Essays in Dissent (1975). The Indian state followed a capitalist path of development under the cover of socialist language, and growth increased inequality.
• Critique of modernisation theory: it hid class interests behind neutral terms.

4. Ramkrishna Mukherjee (1919–2015)

Ramkrishna Mukherjee worked at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.

• The Rise and Fall of the East India Company (1955): the Company’s rule was explained by the needs of British mercantile and then industrial capital. It destroyed Indian handicrafts and turned India into a supplier of raw materials and a market for British goods.
• The Dynamics of a Rural Society (1957): a study of Bengal villages showing a class structure of landlords, rich peasants, sharecroppers and labourers. Caste and class overlapped: upper castes were mostly landowners, lower castes mostly labourers, but the fit was not perfect.
• Class over caste: agrarian classes, not caste alone, explain rural conflict and poverty.
• Later work: Sociology of Indian Sociology (1979) and Systemic Sociology (1993). He asked sociologists to move from “what is” and “why it is” to “what will it be”, using inductive and quantitative methods.

5. Evaluation of the Marxist perspective

• Strengths: brings in history, colonialism, land and power; explains peasant movements and inequality.
• Weaknesses: underplays caste, religion and culture as independent forces; class categories drawn from Europe do not fit India neatly (the point of Unit V).

How this is examined

January 2026 (100 marks): “Describe the contribution of R.K. Mukherjee on the Marxist approach”, 16 marks. January 2026 (80 marks): “Marxist perspective of A.R. Desai”, 6-mark note. February 2025: “Contribution of D.P. Mukherjee”, 6-mark note. For any of them, give the perspective, the scholar’s works, three or four arguments and an evaluation.