Breaking down the question

The question asks for a critique — a balanced appraisal, not a demolition — of the structural-functional perspective that M. N. Srinivas brought to the study of Indian society. The examiner expects you to first establish what that perspective is, then weigh its strengths against its limitations.

Srinivas, trained under Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard, replaced the older Indological or book view with an empirical field view grounded in village fieldwork. His concepts — Sanskritisation, the dominant caste, and the distinction between the vertical and horizontal solidarities of caste — describe how the parts of Indian society function to maintain an integrated whole. A critique must show what this functionalist lens illuminates and what it obscures.

For the empirical backdrop, see our note on the idea of the Indian village and village studies.

How to approach it

Open by locating Srinivas within the structural-functional tradition and crediting his shift from text to field. Then organise the body as merits followed by criticisms, closing with a measured verdict.

  • Merits — empirical rigour, indigenous concepts, attention to actual social relations.
  • Limitations — the functionalist bias toward integration and consensus.
  • Neglect of conflict, exploitation and the political economy of caste.
  • Underplaying of history, colonial impact and macro-structural change.

Model answer

M. N. Srinivas transformed Indian sociology by substituting the field view for the book view. Drawing on the structural-functionalism of Radcliffe-Brown, he studied caste and village as living systems of relationships rather than as scriptural ideals, and gave the discipline durable concepts such as Sanskritisation, the dominant caste and the vertical and horizontal solidarities of caste.

The perspective has clear merits. It grounded knowledge of Indian society in patient fieldwork, as in his study of the Coorgs and of Rampura, and produced concepts derived from lived reality rather than imported theory. By showing how ritual, kinship and economy interlock to sustain the village as a functioning whole, Srinivas gave sociology an empirically anchored account of social integration.

Yet the functionalist frame carries characteristic weaknesses. Because it emphasises order, consensus and the contribution of each part to the whole, it tends to underplay conflict. Caste appears as a system of interdependence rather than as a structure of domination and exploitation, and the standpoint of the lower castes is muted. Sanskritisation describes positional mobility within the hierarchy but cannot explain, or endorse, its abolition.

The perspective is also relatively ahistorical. A synchronic, present-centred village study captures structure at a moment but says little about how colonialism, land settlements and the wider political economy shaped that structure. André Béteille, himself sympathetic, argued that caste, class and power must be studied together — a corrective to a purely ritual reading of hierarchy.

Further, the village-centred method risks treating the village as a self-contained isolate, obscuring its links to the market, the state and regional and national forces. Feminist and Dalit scholars later added that a consensus model renders invisible the gendered and caste-based violence on which the functioning order rests.

In sum, Srinivas's structural-functional perspective was a decisive methodological advance that made Indian sociology empirical and self-confident, but its inbuilt bias towards harmony, its neglect of conflict and history, and its village-boundedness limit its explanatory reach. Later Marxist, subaltern and feminist perspectives are best read as necessary complements to, rather than wholesale rejections of, his pioneering work.

Examiner's perspective

A high-scoring script treats critique as evaluation, not attack. It credits Srinivas with the field view and indigenous concepts before turning to the functionalist limitations — the bias toward consensus, the neglect of conflict and exploitation, and the relative absence of history.

Naming Béteille and the Dalit and feminist correctives signals wide reading, while a balanced closing judgement — advance plus limitation — lifts the answer above a one-sided verdict. Precision, British spelling and a clear merits-then-criticisms structure secure the higher band.