Breaking down the question
The command word here is elaborate, which asks you to explain in detail and demonstrate familiarity with the substance of Srinivas's method — not merely to define structural-functionalism. Two anchors must be held together: the theoretical framework of structural-functionalism inherited from Radcliffe-Brown, and its specific application to Indian society through empirical fieldwork.
The examiner wants you to show how Srinivas broke from the textual, indological reading of India — the book view — and instead built a field view grounded in observation of caste and village life. A strong answer treats structural-functionalism not as an abstract label but as a working orientation that produced concepts like Sanskritisation and dominant caste.
How to approach it
Open by locating Srinivas within the structural-functionalist tradition, acknowledging his training under Radcliffe-Brown at Oxford. Then move to how he adapted this to India, foregrounding the shift from book view to field view. Use his own studies — the Coorgs of South India and the Rampura village — as illustrations.
Sequence your body around his key conceptual contributions, each shown as an outcome of functionalist observation: Sanskritisation as a mechanism of positional mobility that leaves the system intact, and dominant caste as the locus of secular power in the village. Close by noting both the strengths and the criticisms, which signals balance.
Model answer
M.N. Srinivas brought the structural-functionalist perspective, developed by Radcliffe-Brown, to bear on the study of Indian society. This approach views society as a system of interconnected parts, each contributing to the maintenance and integration of the whole. Institutions such as caste, kinship and religion are examined for the functions they perform in sustaining social order.
Srinivas's distinctive contribution was to insist on the field view over the book view. Earlier indological and orientalist scholarship read India through classical texts, producing an idealised, Brahmanical image of the varna order. Srinivas argued that the lived reality of caste — the jati as it actually operates in villages — could only be grasped through participant observation. His study of the Coorgs and his fieldwork in Rampura in Mysore exemplified this empirical commitment.
From this observation emerged the concept of Sanskritisation — the process by which a lower caste emulates the ritual practices, beliefs and lifestyle of a higher, usually twice-born, caste in order to claim a superior position over time. Crucially, Sanskritisation explained mobility while preserving the structure: individual groups rose within the hierarchy without the hierarchy itself being questioned, a characteristically functionalist reading of change as system-maintaining.
Equally influential was the notion of the dominant caste — a caste holding decisive numerical strength, economic control over land and political power in a locality, thereby shaping village life regardless of its ritual rank. This concept captured the secular dimension of power that a purely textual, ritual-ranked model missed.
Srinivas's approach thus integrated theory and observation. It corrected textual distortions, generated middle-range concepts of enduring value, and gave Indian sociology an empirical grounding. It has, however, been criticised for underplaying conflict, exploitation and the material basis of caste — an emphasis on integration that Marxist and later scholars found conservative.
For a fuller treatment of these concepts, see structural-functionalism and Srinivas.
Examiner's perspective
Examiners reward candidates who tie Srinivas's concepts back to his method rather than listing them in isolation. The book view versus field view distinction is the analytical spine of a good answer and should appear early. Naming his actual studies — the Coorgs, Rampura — signals genuine reading. Reserve a line or two for the functionalist bias towards order, since a balanced critique lifts the answer from descriptive to evaluative.