Professor Arvind Manilal Shah: Researcher,Teacher and Institution Builder

Introduction

His first sociology teacher at M. S. University, Baroda, was M. N. Srinivas who returned from Oxford University in 1951 to start the Department there. His formative years in proximity with M. N. Srinivas provided Professor AMS a firm grounding in the subject. It sowed the seeds for a bountiful Sociological harvest for generations of his students. His research experience began very early in his student days. In first-year B.A. at M. S. University, Baroda, he accompanied M. N. Srinivas to his study village in Mysore for 2 months. They compared field notes and discussed related issues daily. Srinivas had a profound influence on AMS’ sociological sensibilities. By the end of his M.A. in 1955, Professor AMS already had two papers published in Economic Weekly (now EPW) and Journal of the M. S. University of Baroda, from his independent fieldwork in Gujarat conducted during the vacations. By the time he got his PhD in 1964, he had ten published papers. He authored and edited nearly two dozen books and over a 100 articles in journals, including a book and 10 papers in Gujarati. Many of his journal articles were also published later in his books or those edited by other scholars. This article discusses his contributions in sociological research on many aspects of Indian society, and his commitment to teaching, followed by his institution-building acumen.

I

AMS’ major contributions are the study of the family, the caste system, Hinduism and sects, village communities, urban society and the relationship between sociology and history. He also wrote on higher education, fieldwork, method, ageing, policy, higher education and social science research. His contributions are sound, original and fundamental to the discipline of sociology and social anthropology in India. In the analysis of the family, he clarified that the family in India is understood through its scriptural and legal meanings. Thus, it draws on family values as an ideal, as it ought to be. He stressed on analytical clarity of concepts. In the study of the family, he questioned the rather indiscriminate use of the term family as it was used in different senses. It is worth mentioning that his first book was on family, but the family was not his primary focus in his PhD fieldwork. His primary focus was on historical accounts of land records in Radhvanaj village and its surrounding areas in Panchmahal district in Gujarat, which he published after his retirement. From his in-depth fieldwork and rich data, he incisively analysed the notion of the family, an extraordinary achievement for a young scholar. His analysis culminated in the book, The Household Dimension of the Family in India (Shah, 1973/1974), which was quickly noticed in the academic world. He pointed out that there was a mismatch between the image of the family and its ground reality. In other words, the scriptural and legal view of the family differed from its actual practice found at the household level. It was assumed that in the past, it was common for large family households of married brothers and their families living jointly with parents. Thus, the use of the term family was based on the scriptural view rather than how it existed in the field. To avoid this confusion, he suggested the necessary distinction between the ‘household’ and the ‘family’, for analytical clarity, and provided definitions for both the terms.

Shah clarified several accepted notions regarding the family that: (a) in the past, joint households were commoner than the nuclear ones, (b) the inevitable evolutionary process has been the shift from joint to nuclear households, (c) joint households are characteristic of rural and the nuclear of urban areas and (d) urbanisation encourages formation of nuclear households. Based on historical and ethnographic data, he debunked the notion that Indians commonly lived in large joint households in the past. He gave facts that small and simple households were common, and even among the joint ones, the large majority was composed of parents and one married son. He substantiated his views by using Census of India figures.

To elaborate further, he accepted the idea of the developmental process of the household. If, for example, one analyses the process from the time of a couple’s marriage, the husband–wife unit forms a nuclear household. When their children grow up and a son brings in his wife upon marriage, the household becomes a complex one, and with parents passing away, it again becomes a simple one, etc. But this developmental process is not a cyclical one as seen by Meyer Fortes and his associates (Baviskar & Patel, 2011, p. 2). Phases of developmental process of the household were not exactly cyclical as in the life cycle of a mosquito, for example. Vital life cycle and social events would add or reduce some or other household members to take forward or bring backward the household’s developmental cycle. Thus, he used the terms progression and regression phases of development as household dimensions of the family. He pointed out that division of the household was not a once-for-all event. Household division often began with setting up separate cooking arrangements, while property division occurred after a fairly long time. With more than one married son, the chances of one of the sons setting up a separate chulah within the family compound or nearby was the first sign of separation from the joint household. The family continued to cultivate land jointly or engage in business jointly for a long time, often until the parents were alive. Among those with little family property or house, separation of married sons into nuclear/simple households was initiated earlier. If there was only one son, he rarely separated from his parents, thereby the household remained a joint/complex household. He observed caste and class differences in patterns of phases of household processes. Thus, Shah introduced the processual view of the household as a dimension of the family.

He analysed Census, historical and ethnographic data to show that (a) large complex households were not common in pre-British India, (b) nor were such households breaking down into nuclear households due to the processes of modernisation and urbanisation spread by the British. The breakdown of the large, joint family in India was a fairly common assumption in studies in sociology through the 1950s–1960s. Desai’s and AMS’ views on the sentiment of jointness of the family was a substantial correction to the above assumptions (See Patel 2005).

AMS’ work on the family brought about a major shift in the understanding of the family in India. Cambridge historian Peter Laslett (1977) too reiterated that in the past, the English family was smaller than it was assumed. Shah’s work was widely appreciated by scholars abroad (See Baviskar & Patel, 2011, pp. 2–3). However, in India, his conceptual and analytical contribution to the concept of the household as an integral dimension of the family was valued and taught with clarity only in some regions in India. The study of the family in some other sociology departments remained restricted to the assumed distinction between the nuclear and the joint family/household types. Shah was concerned that the research students in sociology often collected data by asking if the respondents lived in a nuclear or a joint family. The resultant data yielded poor analysis and unclear picture of the family and household institutions and thereby remain short of contributing to society what good social science research could do.

Shah (1998, 2014) continued to work on sociology of the family, especially inter-household family relations. This links with the sentiment of jointness of the family as a value. AMS found that (a) household separation among married brothers is often not without tensions, but it is also seen to enable better inter-household family relations among them. Thus, by staying separately, you stay united is the dictum, (b) though household separation is speeded up with migration, it also works towards bringing dispersed household members of the family together, as the members perform varying roles during important ritual and ceremonial functions, (c) relations and ties between short-distance and long-distance migrants may work out differently. But better communication and transport enable members of the family to get together on important life-cycle events. This applies also to urban professional migrants living far off or abroad and (d) while joint household organisation has weakened among the urban professional class, it need not be assumed that their inter-household ties are weakening and vice versa. Shah (2014) analysed the problems of the elderly and their rising proportion in India’s population. He pointed out (a) some fundamental problems in the ability of the state to deal with the issues of the elderly and stressed on the crucial role of the family in this regard, and (b) the necessity for conceptual precision in the understanding of family and its distinction from the household. For example, the elderly couple may live in a household on their own, but their married sons living in separate households are usually considered as family. Thus, asking if the elderly live in the family might be misleading. (c) Traditional norms require support of family members from joint property, but monetary support by sons living in a separate household may not be sufficient for disabled and isolated elderly. (d) He called for useful analysis of Census data on kinship composition of households available since 1981. While the Census data show joint households are less than 50% of total households, many joint households have more than one married couple. Others may have one married couple and another widowed member. The latter should not be counted as nuclear households. (e) Family assets and property are held by more families today when compared with those before 1947. Also, sanskrisation has increased among the lower castes and tribes, which tends to emphasise on joint living as a Sanskritic value, (f) but joint living does not automatically mean that quality of life is better and the elderly are not isolated. (g) The exception to joint household living is found among the urban educated professional class, and more husband–wife couples or single elderly households create insecurities in metropolises compared with those in villages, small towns or old areas of big cities, where neighbourhood relationships are closer. (h) He suggests careful micro research of sentiments and emotions among household members as well as studies of old-age homes set up by the state, caste, community and the elderly homes in pilgrim centres. He reckoned other solutions such as changes in inheritance laws and daughters coming forward to look after the elderly parents. (i) He said, tax concessions to those living jointly with the elderly and mass communication for individual freedom without the cult of individualism hold the hope for the elderly and a healthy society.

AMS calls for greater demand by sociologists of Census data on the family and its kinship and household dimensions. Similarly, the concept of head of household needs greater clarity than is presently found in the census. He acknowledged the value of census and National Sample Survey (NSS) data on the household and its sociological usefulness but points out how more information could be extracted through them and stresses the need for a rigorous analysis by sociologists. The household remains a fundamental unit of family life in India even if we strive to achieve better understanding of households with servants living in them, homeless people on footpaths, migrant labour, nomadic groups, etc. Besides, the significance of cultural and ritual dimensions of the households means it is more than the unity of patrikin and their wives.

II

AMS’ keen observation of social reality and its incisive analysis is seen in his contribution to the understanding of caste system. Unlike his study of the family, caste remains a widely interesting topic to many sociologists of Indian society from both India and social anthropologists living outside India. Caste is seen as a critical feature of the Indian civilisation. A great deal of research on Indian society has been the study of caste. Caste studies have mostly been studies on rural society where caste operations are clearly observable to a keen researcher. AMS corrected this lacuna by studying caste in urban areas. The tendency to generalise about caste on studies limited to rural areas does not provide a total picture of caste. He also pleaded for study of urban caste in order to override generalisations about caste system based on studies in rural India and to present the total picture along with the differences between rural and urban society. He stands out in this regard as he not only studied caste in rural areas but also in towns and cities in Gujarat. His understanding of the caste system is equally important and original. AMS with his teacher and colleague, I. P. Desai (1988), observed that division of castes is an important feature of caste in urban areas. In many urban areas, caste division takes place as a separation and difference rather than being higher or lower. The principle of hierarchy, which was given by scholars including Louis Dumont (1970) as central to caste system in Hindu society, was challenged by AMS’ observation. He incisively analysed the empirical data and pointed out that there are some castes where the role of hierarchy has free play such as Rajputs, Kolis and Bhils in Gujarat, while division is rampant among Vanias (Banias). The work on caste division without hierarchy among some castes, while hierarchy among other castes, provide a total view of caste rather than the one-sided view based on hierarchy alone. Very few sociological studies on caste in urban areas are available (see Khare, 1985 as an exception though it deals more with ideology than empirical social reality). AMS continued to engage with the study of caste system in urban areas and published his essays on topics such as caste and census and mirage of a casteless society. He provided information about various sections and categories of urban population and the role of caste in their lives.

III

His interest in kinship was strong. Kinship in India is difficult to separate from caste. The differences between castes, where hierarchy has a greater role than division, have differences in marriage practices, especially in terms of dowry and bride price. For example, Rajputs, Kolis and Bhils practice dowry and bride price. The absence of dowry and bride price is found among Vanias where the principle of division, rather than hierarchy, is dominant. Srinivas stated, ‘Shah rightly pointed out the failure of scholars to take note of urban caste. Shah tried to fill this gap’ Srinivas also appreciated AMS’ account of hypergamy as one of the best he had come across (Srinivas, 1998, pp. xi–xii). AMS (1998) studied the family and its links with marriage, hypergamy, caste and lineage. Reading his essays opens up the picture of the field to the reader as one complex layer after another in which people navigate at different levels. (a)While caste endogamy is critical for maintaining caste boundaries, caste divisions in terms of first, second, thirds orders as separate castes are also endogamous. (b) Each division is usually contained within a gol or ekda, that is, a group of villages and/or towns in Gujarat. (c) Higher-caste orders have practised hypergamy and dowry, but in recent times, there are also marriages against the traditional grain, that is, hypogamous marriages are found as it were. Girls of higher-caste orders, for example, Rajputs marry boys of lower-caste orders, for example, Kolis with large dowries in place of bride price. Interestingly, he observes that one may note a new kind of hierarchy replacing the old one (2014, p. 427). He also provides historical and contemporary contextual factors for such a change among both Rajputs and Kolis: suppression of female infanticide, dissolution of princely states and land tenures, on the one hand, and increasing Sanskritisation and Rajputisation among the Kolis, on the other (Shah, 2014, p. 429).

On inter-caste marriage, AMS (2014) provides an interesting observation. Traditional structure of caste division and caste mentality is still prevailing. He shows how inter-divisional marriages among caste divisions seem to be inter-caste marriages. For example, a boy form first-order caste division marrying a girl from fourth-order caste division actually belong to the same caste, but each caste order division comes to consider itself as separate, and thus the marriage is only seemingly inter-caste marriage. He takes the cases of actual inter-caste marriages and notes the children of such marriages taking up the father’s caste and marrying into the father’s caste, which nullifies the earlier inter-caste marriage. The exception to the seemingly inter-caste marriage is the small educated, urban professional class who do marry across caste boundaries. But parents in such cases create conditions whereby similarity of life style; culture; likes and dislikes; educational, professional and business backgrounds are borne in mind. Mostly, such marriages are either across caste divisions or within a certain band of castes. This holds true of scheduled castes as well.

AMS studied lineage structure, changes and how lineages work. His study (1998) of lineages in a village in Gujarat is a deep examination of what is a lineage and what parameters keep it sustained. He compared historical records of the village genealogies based on British administrators’ survey of 1825 with his own data from the village in 1955 and discussed the changes over 130 years. Lineages are exogamous groups of members who trace their common ancestor, (a) demographic factors, common tutelary deities and genealogists are significant for sustaining lineages; (b) various castes attempt to raise their status through genealogists’ and mythographers’ records; (c) in the past, political acknowledgements of lineages were maintained for village headmanship, ownership of land, length of stay in the village/town and tutelary deities, which were important for sustaining the lineage; (d) the case of one lineage records one of the members’ conversion to Islam and the two lineage segments became exogamous but continued to have the common tutelary deity and genealogist and acknowledged they had a common ancestor.

Genealogists and mythographers in the village interested AMS, and he made a systematic study of record-keepers, who created myths and legends, historical records of castes and lineages. They belonged to the caste of Vahivancha Barots. The study of Vahivancha Barots and their relations with their clients was published in American Journal of Folklore (Shroff & Shah, 1954) and was widely appreciated for combining thought and practice.

IV

AMS had a sustained interest in historical sociology, a unique position in sociological research. He worked with masterly skills in both history and sociology. We see the historian in AMS in his writings on lineage, marriage, especially hypergamy and Vahivancha Barots, among others. His book, Exploring India’s Rural Past (Shah, 2002) based on historical records about land and life in a village in Gujarat received wide appreciation among historians. Marcia Frost (Frost, 2002, pp. 2137–2138), a leading historian, in her review of the book stated, ‘Exploring India’s Rural Past is a wonderful gem of solid economic and social history’. The book is based on his 1964 PhD thesis, the data from which were earlier analysed and published as, The Household Dimension of Family in India (Shah, 1973). The two books on different topics from the field data by a PhD student speaks of AMS’ unusual, careful and wide-ranging observation and incisive analysis of society and life. Sociology and History: Dialogues Towards Integration (Shah, 2016) powerfully argues and calls for interaction between the two disciplines for empirically strong social science research. For example, the myth carried on in the study of society that the Indian village was unalterable and suffered from lack of historical data, on the one hand, and contemporary data, on the other. AMS questioned the accepted view of the myth of self-sufficiency of the Indian village. The village was perceived as having an unchanging and unaltered existence since time immemorial and had no effect of breaking up and divisions of kingdoms. Such a view assumed the village to be a self-contained republic. But AMS found the above-mentioned view of the village inadequate from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Along with Srinivas, he (1960, pp. 1375–1378) brought forth the pulsating and interconnected village in India using historical and contemporary data. He argued, the Indian village has always been a part of the wider political, economic, social and religious system.

AMS’ essay on Hinduism jointly written with Srinivas (Srinivas & Shah, 1968) is an important contribution on the subject. In 2006, he published a paper, Sects and Hindu Social Structure (2007, pp. 209–248), which is considered a path-breaking work. He observed that exclusive studies on ascetics, monks and mystics and on monasteries, temples and pilgrim centres are inadequate in terms of the study of sects. Despite a thriving culture of sects present all over the country, there is hardly any serious work on sects, especially on lay members of sects whose support is required. A sect has a definite founder, a deity or a set of deities, a set of sacred texts and a social organisation. With time, sect organisations become large and complex and acquire wealth. On the other hand, worldly view of religion and ascetic renunciation, AMS observed that while ascetics renounced their caste and family, this did not automatically mean renouncing the world. With vivid details and examples, he showed founders of sects have followers from various regions other than their native places. Also, founders are usually Brahmins, but the followers who are required for sects to sustain and flourish are largely middle-level non-Brahmins.

V

AMS’ dedication as a teacher is well known. He enjoyed teaching and was particular that he made things clear to the students. The regular frequency of his research publications after his retirement in 1996 speak about his commitment to teaching and the time he dedicated for it. A former student, Professor Supriya Singh, now in Australia, posted the following on the department’s website in his memory, ‘Professor Shah’s delivery was slow but clear. I was receiving pure gold from him. He remained a scholar and a model of a teacher’. On clarity of concepts and thought, AMS was very demanding of his students. Some of his former students recounted his insistence on clarity of argument and use of simple language rather than using fashionable complex terms. Another student and colleague in the Department in Delhi, Professor Anand Chakravarty, recalled the imprint AMS etched on his mind. Anand Chakravarty had just completed his PhD when AMS asked him if he would consider writing a paper based on his research for Sociological Bulletin, which AMS was looking after. Chakravarty took out one of the chapters from the thesis and wrote an introduction and conclusion and handed the paper to Shah. Two days later, Chakravarty got the paper with only one comment from AMS, ‘What is your argument’? The message Chakravarty said he got was, there is a difference between a monograph and a paper. The monograph has a larger argument in the structure of chapters, but an article needs to stand alone in its argument. The second instance relates to AMS’ meticulous editorial finesse. Though Srinivas used to say that Radcliffe-Brown handled words like precious stones, it was AMS’ fine tweaking of a draft with a comma here and a semicolon there, a word here and another word there, which made a big difference to the effect and clarity of expression in any writing. Writing a passable sentence was not enough. Chakravarty learnt the fine-tuning lesson from Shah and said he stuck to this skilful craft and would hold on to it for effective and clear writing. Professor AMS, gentle yet strict with his students, set very lofty academic standards.

An extremely meticulous researcher, teacher and research guide, AMS spent endless hours on sorting out every detail in his writing before presenting for publication. He committed himself in the same way and commented on several drafts he made his students write before he approved of their theses. Known for his uncompromising eye for detail, he has made a mark on the brand of sociology pursued in Delhi University. On the lighter side, people commented that the Department had two sets of teachers: one, empiricists and, second, theoreticians, thereby implying that the latter were superior. AMS was not disturbed by this artificial division. ‘A good description necessarily implies a good analysis’, he used to say. In most seminars, he would raise questions about their facts that called for more informed analysis. He learnt the dictum, ‘Go where your data takes you’ that his teacher, I. P. Desai, held. In his interview to Kamala Ganesh for the Indian Sociological Society (ISS), he reiterated his empiricist stance. He trained research students to collect empirical data through diligent and careful fieldwork. Almost all his PhD students’ theses were published by reputed publishers such as OUP, Sage, Orient Longman (now Orient BlackSwan) and Hindustan Publishing Corporation. He continued the tradition of training sociology students in the way he had been trained. He did not allow his health limitations come in the way of his academic and administrative commitments.

After his retirement from Delhi University in 1996, he settled down in Baroda and actively continued his academic pursuits. He was honoured as National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, from 1996–1998. His publications post-retirement are Exploring India’s Rural Past (Shah, 2002). He edited The Grassroots of Democracy (Shah, 2007) based on 1971 elections data collected by Department students and faculty in different parts of the country, The Writings of A. M. Shah: The Household and Family in India (Shah, 2014) and Sociology and History (Shah, 2016), The Structure of Indian Society: Then and Now (Shah, 2010, 2019) with an extensive introduction and The Legacy of M. N. Srinivas (Shah, 2020). The book has five chapters on Srinivas, an interview with AMS and a comprehensive introduction. AMS deals with some of the critiques and perceptions about Srinivas’ theoretical ideas, especially functionalism, Sanskritisation and its contemporary relevance comparing Weber’s ideas. In the interview, Srinivas responds to questions on his style of writing, method and dynamics of politics. AMS published numerous journal articles of contemporary concern, including ten in Gujarati.

AMS was a relentless scholar; he worked until the end. He was coediting a number of books with Lancy Lobo based on the Journal of Anthropological Society of Bombay (1886–1936), which he chanced upon. He left no stone unturned to obtain copies of this journal from several institutions and libraries in India and abroad and completed the set. The first co-edited volume is Essays on Suicide and Self-immolation (with Lobo, 2018). This book analyses the suicide statistics of Bombay from 1886 to 1907 by age, gender, religion, month, date, cause and means of suicide. This is carried out first by Edward Rehatsek, a Hungarian scholar who made Bombay his home and by Bomanjee Byramjee Patel, a Parsee scholar. Emile Durkheim’s book on suicide came decades later but did not consider data on suicide from outside the West. Another jointly edited book (2020) about to come out of press is, Anthropological Explorations in East and South-East Asia. This volume suggests that the history of anthropological writings in India is much older than it is believed to be. In addition, it also portrays glimpses of non-tribal societies studied by indigenous scholars beyond India. Another book on Parsee rituals is under publication, and others are in the process. This archival work seeks re-examination of the view that anthropology grew in India only as a product of British colonialism. It also highlighted the much ignored discourse on Anthropology in Bombay as compared to that of Calcutta. The journal provided a vision broader than the one focused at that time on ‘primitive’ tribes.

AMS repaid the guru rin through training his students in rigorous scholarship. He willingly read the drafts of his former students and colleagues with care and commented on them. He also sought comments from them on his own papers before publishing, and he acknowledged them. He held the conviction that scholarship is enriched with comments and criticism. His field notes are worth reading as a sample in fieldwork. They are filled with every little detail he observed, talked about and read in various daily records in the field. He showed his handwritten field notes to students in the Department to encourage them in taking detailed field notes. His keen desire was to establish an archive for field notes at the Centre for Culture and Development (CCD), Vadodara. To this end, a project proposal was also prepared months back and he gave some of his precious field notes and photographs. His Gandhian simplicity and integrity will continue to inspire future generations of students and professional colleagues.

VI

Whenever he held administrative positions, he selflessly devoted to building strong institutional practices. Professor E. A. Ramaswamy, a former student and colleague, stated the following at the memorial meeting on 9 October 2020, ‘Shah was the steel frame of the department (of Sociology); he did whatever he could for the department’. His commitment to the department continued even after his retirement and his shifting to Vadodara. He spoke to the teachers (many his former students) in the department regarding issues that were of academic and social concern and provided moral support to keep the academic tradition of the Department.

He helped his former PhD student, Dr. Lancy Lobo, in setting up the CCD in Vadodara. Initially, he offered his house in Vadodara to Dr Lobo, the Director of CCD, to start the institution, He was on the Board of Trustees of CCD and gave all his books and journal collections to CCD; the library is named after AMS. CCD publishes its annual report regularly and is engaged in researching and publishing on contemporary social and cultural issues and problems. The series of co-edited books with Dr Lobo mentioned earlier are part of CCD activities. AMS’ academic and administrative contributions to the Centre for Social Studies in Surat during his membership of Board of Governors and later his Chairmanship from 2002 to 2008 are appreciatively recalled by the scholars who were in Surat during that period.

Professor AMS along with a few others provided enormous inputs into making the Indian Sociological Society (ISS) a respectable academic association. He was appointed secretary of ISS in 1967, and its office was shifted from Department of Sociology at Bombay University to Delhi University on the initiative of Professor M. N. Srinivas after successfully uniting the two associations of sociologists in India until then. As a young lecturer, Professor AMS took the responsibility of streamlining the ISS on two fronts: (a)To update office records and straighten the account,. he traced the taxation records, lost FD (fixed deposit) receipts and the Society’s registration documents apart from sorting out the accounts through various resources at his command. Soon, ISS turned from a loss-making to a surplus-making institution, b. To rejuvenate the ISS journal, Sociological Bulletin—for 10 years between 1967 and 1993 Professor AMS was on the editorial board of Sociological Bulletin. He worked very hard for the journal’s regularity, timely production and enriched its quality, content and readership. He devoted a great deal of attention to any administrative job he undertook, including the office of the Director, Delhi School of Economics, during the period from 1973 to 1975. The institution to him mattered the most for which he worked selflessly without bothering about what others thought of his institution-building dedication. He was also the President of ISS for 2 years during the period from 1991 to 1992. He was widely appreciated for handling various affairs of ISS in a straightforward and transparent manner. His interest was in keeping the ISS as a fine professional association rather than an academic union. He was always generous with his time and advice to the ISS presidents and executive members as some of them mentioned this to me.

He was instrumental in instituting the M. N. Srinivas memorial lecture and essay prize at ISS. The funding for it came from the royalty of the five Srinivas’ Festschrift volumes he co-edited along with Professors B. S. Baviskar and E. A. Ramaswamy (1996a, b, c; 1997; 1998). He was keen to encourage young sociology students to publish their research and submit the essays to compete for the essay prize given away during the All India Sociological Conference (AISC). This effort is a token of appreciation for the prize winners and symbolic of his regard for his teacher—M. N. Srinivas.

He was concerned about his students and also kept in touch with their families. For many of his simple, upright, humane and ethically stunning qualities like reading the penultimate draft of Mohini Anjum’s PhD thesis within 2 months of his only eye surgery and giving final touches to late Veena Dua’s PhD thesis draft and publishing it as a book in her name, see Baviskar and Patel (2011, pp. 7–14). Here, I mention only one instance related by Professor Tiplut Nongbri from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) during the online condolence meeting on 9 October 2020. Her research supervisor was in Sussex for a few months, and it was the time of no emails and computers. She had written a few chapters but wanted to know if she was moving in the right direction. AMS once asked her how she was doing, and when she expressed the need to have her chapters looked at, Shah willingly read the chapters and gave his comments. Since then, he would inquire about her research progress. This concern touched Professor Nongbri deeply, having come to Delhi from the Khasi community of Meghalaya. They continued to be in touch even after both had retired from their respective university teaching jobs.

He was a member of Seva Dal in his school days, and his idea of India remained firmly on the lines of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ambedkar and Sardar Patel. The disintegration of this idea of India pained him greatly. In all his conversations, he would touch upon this topic and repeatedly say, ‘What is happening is terrible’.

Conferred with Malcolm Adiseshiah Award (2020) for lifetime contribution, he was to receive this award in November 2020, National Fellow (1996–1998) by ICSSR. Felicitated with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Sociological Society in 2009, he had also been the recipient of the Swami Pranavananda Award from the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Delhi. He had held fellowships at the University of Chicago; the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences, Stanford; the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK; and the University of New England, Australia. For me, it was an honour to work on AMS’ Festschrift, Understanding Indian Society: Past and Present (2010), co-edited with B. S. Baviskar. Professor AMS, the walking encyclopedia of Gujarat, knew all historical and latest updates on the state. He was also rightly called the family man.