Breaking down the question
The question asks for the salient features of A. R. Desai's Marxist sociology. It is a short, focused prompt: you must identify what made Desai's approach distinctively Marxist and set out its defining characteristics with evidence from his work.
Salient features signals a structured, point-wise treatment. Marxist sociology directs you to the theoretical method — dialectical historical materialism — and to the substantive concerns Desai brought to the study of Indian society, above all nationalism, the state and the trajectory of Indian development.
How to approach it
Open by placing Desai as the foremost exponent of the Marxist perspective in Indian sociology and by naming his method. Then set out the salient features one by one — his use of dialectical historical materialism, his class analysis of Indian nationalism, his reading of India's capitalist path, his critique of the state, and his commitment to a value-committed, emancipatory sociology. Close with a brief evaluation.
Model answer
A. R. Desai was the leading practitioner of the Marxist perspective in Indian sociology, and his work stands out for applying a rigorous historical-materialist method to Indian conditions rather than borrowing categories wholesale.
The first salient feature is his method — dialectical historical materialism. Trained in the Marxist tradition and influenced by M. N. Roy, Desai insisted that social phenomena be explained through the material conditions of production, the resulting class relations, and the contradictions these generate. Society was to be studied historically and dialectically, as a totality in movement.
Second, his class analysis of Indian nationalism. In Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Desai read the freedom movement not as a purely idealist or spiritual awakening but as the product of the material transformations colonialism wrought — new classes, new economic interests and new contradictions. He traced nationalism through successive phases tied to the rise of the bourgeoisie, arguing that it was substantially a bourgeois-led movement.
Third, his analysis of the path of capitalist development. Desai examined how colonial and post-colonial India followed a distorted capitalist trajectory, producing uneven development, persistent agrarian backwardness and deepening inequality rather than genuine emancipation.
Fourth, his critique of the state. In State and Society in India and his writings on the welfare state, Desai argued that the Indian state, far from being neutral, served dominant propertied classes. He was sharply critical of claims that planning and welfare had delivered social justice, pointing instead to concentration of wealth and the violation of democratic rights.
Fifth, his conception of sociology as a value-committed, emancipatory discipline. Rejecting the pretence of value-neutrality, Desai held that sociology should expose exploitation and serve the cause of the oppressed, aligning knowledge with social transformation.
Desai's approach has been criticised for economic determinism and for underplaying caste, culture and religion as autonomous forces. Yet his insistence on class, contradiction and material history gave Indian sociology a powerful critical edge and a genuinely structural account of nationalism and the state. For fuller treatment, see the note on Desai's Marxist sociology.
Examiner's perspective
Examiners want the salient features named and evidenced, not a general essay on Marxism. The marks lie in specifics — the historical-materialist method, the class reading of nationalism in Social Background of Indian Nationalism, and the critique of the state and welfare in his later work. The strongest scripts also weigh the charge of economic determinism, showing that Desai is understood critically rather than merely admired. Precision, structure and titled references separate the top band.