Q.Apart from his writings on caste and race, what part did G.S. Ghurye play in building sociology as an academic discipline in India?

Beyond his own writing, Ghurye built and led one of Indian sociology's only two early departments and personally trained several of the discipline's future leaders.

[!ANSWER] Ghurye led the Bombay department of sociology through its formative decades (1920s-1950s), one of only two such departments in the country. He also personally supervised A.R. Desai's and M.N. Srinivas's doctoral/postgraduate work there -- both went on to found or lead departments themselves -- making Ghurye's institution- and training-building role as significant to the discipline as his own published theory.

The question asks specifically about Ghurye's role beyond his published writing on caste and race, so the answer should focus on his institutional contributions to sociology as a discipline.

Between the 1920s and the 1950s, Indian sociology was concentrated in just two university departments, at Bombay and Lucknow, and Ghurye led the Bombay department throughout this formative period -- itself a significant act of institution-building, since it gave the discipline one of its only two real academic homes in the country at the time.

Ghurye's more lasting contribution came through the students he trained there, several of whom became leading figures in Indian sociology in their own right. A.R. Desai joined the Bombay department specifically to study under Ghurye and completed his doctoral dissertation -- later published as The Social Background of Indian Nationalism -- under Ghurye's supervision. M.N. Srinivas likewise did both his MA and his doctoral work at Bombay under Ghurye before going on to Oxford and eventually founding new sociology departments of his own, first at Baroda and then at the Delhi School of Economics. In other words, two of the other three sociologists profiled in this chapter were themselves trained directly by Ghurye -- a traceable line running from his own department to the discipline's next generation of leading scholars.

[!ANSWER] Ghurye led the Bombay department of sociology through its formative decades (1920s-1950s), one of only two such departments in the country. He also personally supervised A.R. Desai's and M.N. Srinivas's doctoral/postgraduate work there -- both went on to found or lead departments themselves -- making Ghurye's institution- and training-building role as significant to the discipline as his own published theory.