Village studies hold great significance in the history of Indian sociology. The village as a site of research offered many advantages to Indian sociology. It provided an opportunity to illustrate the importance of ethnographic research methods. It offered eye-witness accounts of the rapid social change that was taking place in the Indian countryside as the newly independent nation began a programme of planned development.

These vivid descriptions of village India were greatly appreciated at the time as urban Indians as well as policy makers were able to form impressions of what was going on in the heartland of India. Village studies thus provided a new role for a discipline like sociology in the context of an independent nation.

M.N. Srinivas played a crucial role in promoting village studies in Indian sociology. The Indian village and village society remained a life-long focus of interest for Srinivas. His experience of fieldwork for a year at a village near Mysore proved to be decisive for his career and intellectual path.

Srinivas helped encourage and coordinate a major collective effort at producing detailed ethnographic accounts of village society during the 1950s and 1960s. Along with other scholars like S.C. Dube and D.N. Majumdar, Srinivas was instrumental in making village studies the dominant field in Indian sociology during this time. His writings on the village included ethnographic accounts of fieldwork and historical and conceptual discussions about the Indian village as a unit of social analysis.