Breaking down the question
The question asks you to highlight the significant features of A.R. Desai's dialectical perspective. The operative word is dialectical — Desai was the foremost exponent of the Marxist method in Indian sociology, and the answer must show what makes his approach distinct from the structural-functional and Indological perspectives that dominated the discipline.
A dialectical perspective studies society through its internal contradictions, its material base, and its historical movement. Your task is to translate these abstract commitments into the concrete features of Desai's actual work on Indian nationalism, the state and agrarian change.
How to approach it
Open by locating Desai within the Marxist tradition and his rejection of both idealist and purely empirical sociology. Then list his significant features as a structured set — historical materialism, primacy of the economic base, class analysis, the dialectical method itself, and a critical, engaged stance. Illustrate each with his substantive studies. Close with a brief evaluative note.
Model answer
A.R. Desai was the leading practitioner of the dialectical-historical method in Indian sociology. Trained in Marxism and influenced by M.N. Roy, he rejected the view — common to Indological and functionalist scholars — that Indian society could be understood through culture, consensus or timeless tradition alone. Society, for Desai, is a historically evolving totality driven by material forces and internal contradictions.
Several significant features define his perspective.
First, historical materialism. Desai insisted that social phenomena be studied in their concrete historical development rather than as static structures. In Social Background of Indian Nationalism, he traced nationalism not to ideas but to the material transformations wrought by British colonial capitalism.
Second, the primacy of the economic base. Changes in the mode of production — the relations between classes over the means of production — shape the political and ideological superstructure. Colonial land settlements, commercialisation of agriculture and the rise of industry created new classes whose interests drove political change.
Third, class analysis and contradiction. Desai read Indian society as a field of competing class interests — landlords and peasants, bourgeoisie and workers. The dialectic works through these contradictions, which generate conflict and, ultimately, transformation.
Fourth, the dialectical method proper — an emphasis on movement, negation and change rather than equilibrium. Where functionalism asked how society maintains order, Desai asked how it changes through struggle.
Fifth, a critical and engaged stance. Desai did not claim value-neutrality; he saw sociology as a means to expose exploitation and to inform emancipatory practice, extending this later to a searching critique of the Indian state and its claims to be a welfare state.
His perspective has been criticised for economic determinism and for underplaying caste, religion and culture as relatively autonomous forces. Yet Desai remains indispensable for introducing a rigorous, historically grounded and conflict-oriented lens into a discipline otherwise dominated by consensus models. For a fuller treatment, see the note on Marxist sociology and A.R. Desai.
Examiner's perspective
Examiners look for candidates who can name the features precisely — historical materialism, the economic base, class contradiction, the dialectical method — and tie each to Desai's own studies rather than to generic Marxism. Citing Social Background of Indian Nationalism signals genuine familiarity. The strongest scripts close with a balanced critique, noting both the charge of economic determinism and Desai's lasting contribution in bringing a conflict perspective to Indian sociology.