M. N. Srinivas

M. N. Srinivas (1916-1999) was an Indian sociologist and social anthropologist, trained at Oxford under A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and E. E. Evans-Pritchard, whose fieldwork among the Coorgs of southern India and later village studies reshaped the study of caste in independent India. He coined the concept of Sanskritization, describing how lower and middle castes historically raised their social status by adopting the ritual practices, diet and customs of castes above them, and the concept of the dominant caste, identifying local power as resting on land ownership, numerical strength and political influence rather than ritual rank alone. His The Remembered Village (1976), reconstructed from memory after his original fieldnotes were destroyed in a fire, became a landmark of reflexive ethnographic writing.