Srinivas, M. N. (1916–1999)

M(ysore) N(arasimhachar) Srinivas was India's best known sociologist, a scholar who helped clarify the links between Hindu ideas and India's social order. He obtained doctorates in sociology (Bombay University) and social anthropology (Oxford) and started his teaching career at Oxford. He returned to India in 1951 to establish a sociology department at Baroda University. Then, 8 years later, he became the first professor of sociology and department head at Delhi University. He became joint director of the Institute of Social and Economic Change in Bangalore in 1972 and initiated the sociology research program there. After retirement, he became a visiting professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore.

Srinivas's first major publication in 1942, a study of family and marriage among Hindu castes of (southern ...