Akshay Ramanlal Desai (26 April 1915 â 12 November 1994) was an Indian sociologist, Marxist and a social activist. He was Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology in University of Bombay in 1967. He is particularly known for his work Social Background of Indian Nationalism in which he offered a Marxist analysis of the genesis of Indian nationalism making use of history, which set a path to build socialism in India.
Desai was born in Nadiad (now in Gujarat). His father Ramanlal Desai was a Gujarati writer, novelist and civil servant of the Baroda State who inspired him to study and explore facts of human society. While still a teenager, Desai took part in the student movements in Surat, Baroda and Bombay. He was active in farmers' and labor movements and became the editor of bulletins and newspapers of the All India Kisan Sabha (1932âÂÂ1937). As a political activist, he joined the Communist Party of India (1934) and Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist Party (1953âÂÂ1981). He graduated in Political Science and Economics from the University of Bombay in 1935 and obtained a law degree and PhD under the guidance of G. S. Ghurye in 1946. In the same year, he joined as a college lecturer in sociology after briefly practicing as a lawyer to help those in movements. In 1951 he joined as a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, University of Bombay, where he taught sociology and guided researchers till his retirement in 1976. He was Senior Fellow (1973âÂÂ74) and National Fellow (1981âÂÂ85) of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). He authored several books in English and Gujarati which are translated into other languages. He wrote pamphlets and booklets in regional languages for common people in addition to books and pamphlets for those in academia. He was president, Gujarat Sociological Society (1988âÂÂ1990) and was President of the 15th All India Sociological Conference held at Meerut in 1980. From 1980 to 1981, he was President of the Indian Sociological Society.
He married Neera Desai in 1947, and they had a son, Mihir Desai, presently a human rights lawyer and an advocate in the Supreme Court of India.
In his attempt to understand Indian society from a Marxian perspective, he consistently applied Marxist methods in his treatment of Indian social structure and processes and adopted a dialectical historical approach for his sociological studies on nationalism, examination of Community Development programmes, urban slums and their demographic problems, peasant movements and interface between state and society. He edited, compiled and authored many volumes on rural sociology, urbanization, labour movements, peasant struggles, modernization, religion, democratic rights and political sociology. His study of the bourgeois class character and inherent contradiction of the Indian National Movement is noteworthy and his edited volume on Rural Sociology showed how change and development was taking place in Indian rural society. While focusing on the relevance of the Marxist approach for Indian society in his presidential address of AISC, he gave notice to the mainstream that Marxism indeed had a place in Sociology and accordingly created a forum for scholars in University of Bombay to broaden their horizons of research. He was one of the concerned members of the Human Rights Commission which selected a tribunal to investigate cases of human rights violations by the state and also extended support to groups seeking justice through demonstrations, meetings and workshops.