Analytical Problems in Critical Sociology-Lessons of Gujarat and Bihar

Analytical Problems in Critical Sociology Lessons of Gujarat and Bihar Dipankar Gupta THOUGH social movements and collective mobilisations had traditionally attracted and inspired the forebears of modern sociological thought from Montesquieu to Marx and from von Stein to Sombart, academic sociology as it developed both in India and in the West gave the phenomenon the widest possible berth. Social movements were considered to be transient, though no doubt traumatic, phenomena which did not deserve serious intellec- concern, as they disappeared "without leaving any great impression on the historical course of social change".1 A R Desai's famous work, 'The Social Background of Indian Nationalism'', was perhaps the first systematic study of social movements in India. The Indian National movement, the Nuxalbari movement, and more recently the upheavals which preceded the declaration of Emergency in 1975, are the three movements in contemporary India which have attracted the greatest attention, and understandably so. Indian sociology seems to have taken a full circle from its previous indulgence in soporific village studies, to its present near obsession with social movements, mobilisations and unrest ituations. What is even more hearten- ing is that a critical Marxist perspec- ive seems to be gaining ground in the hallowed domain of academic sociology.