 lecture on Unit 3 Structural Functionalist Perspectives to the Study of the Indian Society from the course Sociology of India. In this unit, we will be covering the following topics. We will begin with a brief overview of the Structural Functionalist Perspective. Then we will discuss about M. N. Srinivas and S. C. Dube along with their respective approaches. There are various sociological perspectives and theories that acts as frameworks for understanding and analyzing the society and social phenomena. Some major perspectives include functionalism that believes that society is a complex whole which is made up of smaller interrelated parts that function together to maintain stability and social order. Conflict perspective, it highlights the role of power and struggle of different groups over dominance upon resources. Symbolic interactionism that emphasizes on how meanings are given to symbols and interactions. Apart from them, other perspectives include feminist perspective that focuses on gender inequalities, structuralism that focuses on larger social structures and institutions, postmodernism that critics the traditional theories and highlights diversity of human experiences and perspectives. However, in this unit, we will retain our focus only on functionalism or structural functionalism. The key thinkers of this school of thought are Radcliffe Brown, Durkheim, R. K. Merton, Davis and Morey, Delkat Parsons, etc. In India, the key advocates of this perspective or approach are Amin Srinivas and S. C. Dube. Amin Srinivas can be regarded as the pioneer of structural functional analysis in sociological and social anthropological research in India. The structural functional approach aims to study the following. It aims to understand the functional unity of different parts of the society. It aims to understand social relationships and social institutions and how they help in maintaining the larger social structure. It aims to analyze how a social phenomena or social event has functional importance within the larger society. It emphasizes fieldwork and relies on empirical understanding. It also consists of comparative understanding of different social situations. With that said, let us now proceed and discuss about the contributions made to develop the structural functionalism to study the Indian society by Amin Srinivas and S. C. Dube. We will begin with Amin Srinivas. Mysore Narasimha Chai Srinivas was a renowned Indian sociologist with a PhD degree from Bombay and D. Phil from Oxford. He was the student of world-renowned sociologist G. S. Kure. Srinivas made significant contribution towards developing the department of sociology in M. S. University Baroda and University of Delhi. He was a professor in both of these universities. Srinivas's work focused on caste, caste system, social stratification, religion, social change, so on and so forth. He developed several important concepts like Sanskritization, dominant caste, etc. His collection of books include religion and society among the quirks of South India, caste in modern India, the remembered village, village caste, gender and method, social change in modern India, the dominant caste and other essays amongst many others. Srinivas's structural functionalism was a mixture of approaches used by Redcliffe Brown and Ivan Sprichard. The theoretical aspect of his study was inspired by Redcliffe Brown and the Phil view was inspired by Ivan Sprichard. He is credited for linking theory to practice or with empirical work. The use of direct observation method while studying the quirks of Mysore also testifies this amalgamation of theoretical structural functionalism and Phil view initiative in his works. Let us now discuss about Srinivas's views on religion and society. Religion and society among the quirks of South India is a work which was influenced by the theoretical framework of structural functionalism proposed by Redcliffe Brown, which was further elaborated and developed by Ivan Sprichard. As said earlier, structural functionalism regards society as an organism. It is a system of parts, all of which serve a function together for the overall effectiveness, efficiency and maintenance of the society. Structural functionalism views that shared norms and values are the basis of society. It focuses on social order based on arrangement between groups and organizations. It sees society as built up an order, interrelation and balance among parts as a means of maintaining the smooth functioning of the whole, whole being the society. However, functionalists acknowledge social dysfunction as well in terms of social change. Srinivas in his book has shown the complex interrelationship of ritual and social solidarity as a part of the social system and discussed the crucial notions of purity and pollution as a basis for organization of social life. Following are the features of caste according to Srinivas. Caste is a segmentary system where each caste is divided into a number of subcasts. The subcasts according to him are endogamous units of social and ritual life. Members of a particular subcast have common occupation, common culture and are being governed by same authoritative body. Other important attributes of caste according to him are hierarchical structure, restrictions on commensality, notions of purity and pollution and caste panchayats. Now we are going to discuss about the concept of Sanskritization given by Amon Srinivas. We all know that castes are positioned in hierarchy. Some of them are given superior position on the basis of purity and pollution while others are given inferior position. Sanskritization is a process by which a low Hindu caste or tribal or other group changes its customs, ritual, ideology and way of life in the direction of achieving the status of higher castes. They are frequently turned as twice born caste. Therefore, Sanskritization acts as a mechanism for these communities to climb up the caste ladder which wasn't allowed before that. Now we will discuss about another concept given by Amon Srinivas that is dominant caste. Since village has been the key focus of Srinivas's study, the idea of dominant caste emerged from his study of Rampura village in Mysore. It was documented in his paper, Dominant caste in Rampura published in the American Journal called American Anthropologists. Following are the features of dominant caste, sizable amount of arable land, numerical strength, economic and political power, high place in social hierarchy. With that, we have completed the discussion on Amon Srinivas. Now let us begin with S.C. Dubey and his contributions. We have already mentioned before that S.C. Dubey is one of the key advocates of structural functionalism along with Amon Srinivas. S.C. Dubey was a noted anthropologist and sociologist. He pursued research on the commerce, a tribe of Madhya Pradesh engaged in shifting cultivation. He began his study at Bishop College, Nagpur, Maharashtra followed by Lucknow University where he taught political science and later he joined Osmania University, Hyderabad as a reader in the Department of Sociology. He was also the Deputy Director in Anthropological Survey of India at Nagpur. Further, he was the Vice Chancellor of Jammu University from 1978 to 1980. Apart from that, he held several other significant positions like Director of Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, President of Indian Sociological Society and Chairman of Madhya Pradesh University Grants Commission, so on and so forth. S.C. Dubey's focus was on the changing nature of Indian villages. According to him, Indian villages are changing and evolving rather than being static and changeless. He regarded the Indian villages as semi-autonomous rather than independent and completely autonomous. For him, village is just one unit in a wider social system and is a part of an organized political society. Rather than using one approach that is structural functionalism, Dubey focused on multidisciplinary approaches as Indian society is a mix of different cultures it would enable a holistic understanding of the society. In his work titled Indian Village, he has given a comprehensive description of life in an Indian village named Shamirpeth in Hyderabad. His study reflects the descriptive and exploratory nature of research. To analyze the different units which comprise a village and to acquire an integrated understanding of its different socio-economic dimensions, he collected the field data from various perspectives which included historical, geographical, political and sociological perspectives. This work is a clear testimony of his interdisciplinary as well as structural functional approach where he has depicted the functioning of different institutions in the village and how it contributes to the smooth functioning of the village. His works covered multiple themes like tribes, rural social structure, rural life, community development, modernization, so on and so forth. Following are some of his major works. The Kamar Indian Village, Indian changing villages, institution building for community development, contemporary India and its modernization, tribal heritage of India, understanding society, modernization and development, tradition and development, understanding change and Indian society amongst all. One key difference between methods used by Amin Srinivas and S.C. Dubé for their respective approaches was Amin Srinivas used inductive inferential approach while S.C. Dubé used deductive positivistic approach. Inductive inferential method refers to generalizations based on limited set of observations and extending the observed results to other similar instances occurring elsewhere. Deductive positivistic methods are those which are based on hypothesis based on existing theories and then testing of the hypothesis. With that dear learners, we have come to the end of today's unit. Let us sum up what we have discussed so far. We began with an overview of structural functionalist approach followed by Amin Srinivas' contribution in application of the same approach to Indian society. We discussed his vision on religion, caste, his concept of Sanskritization and his understanding of dominant caste. After that we discussed about S.C. Dubé and his emphasis on multidisciplinary approach. Lastly, we analyzed two different methods used by both Srinivas and Dubé in understanding the Indian society. Thank you all so much for your valuable time.