Among Indian sociologists one who has consistently advocate and applied dialectical-historical model in his sociological studies is A.R.Desai. Desai closely studied the works of Marx and Engels and the writings of Leon Trotsky by whom he was very much influenced He may be regarded as one of the pioneers introducing the modern Marxist approach to empirical investigations involving bibliographical and field research.

Marx pointed out that different sub-formations within a society could not be understood adequately if seen in the context of the historical level Thus,

• The Marxist approach endeavours to locate, within a specific society, the forces which preserve and forces which prompt it to change, i.e., the forces driving to take a leap into a new or a higher form of social organization, which would unleash the productive power of mankind to a next higher level.
• Further, Desai argues that the methodology adopted by social scientists is apt to understand social reality from the ideology of capitalism. But that is a false finding. He further argues that changes need to be interpreted from the perspective of production relation. And it is precisely the method he has applied.
• The Marxist approach further considers that focusing on the type of property relations prevailing in the Indian society as crucial-axial element for properly understanding the nature will be crudely reducing of every phenomenon to economic factor; it also not denies the autonomy, or prevalence of distinct institutional and normative features peculiar to a particular society. For instance, according to Desai, it does not deny the necessity of understanding institutions like caste system, religions, linguistic or tribal groups or even specific cultural traditions which are characteristics of the Indian society.
• The Marxist approach, in fact, Endeavours to understand the role and the nature of the transformation of these institutions in the larger context of the type of society, which is being evolved. This approach understands these institutions in the matrix of underlying overall property relations and norms implicit therein, which pervasively influence the entire social economic formation.
• Desai feels that adoption of the Marxist approach will be helpful in studying the industrial relations, not merely as management-labour relations, and also in the context of the state wedded to capitalist path of development, shaping these relations.
• The Marxist approach will also assist in understanding why institutions generating higher knowledge-products, sponsored, financed and basically shaped by the state, pursuing a path of capitalist development. This understanding will expose the myth spread about state, as welfare neutral state and reveal it as basically a capitalist state.
• The constitution evolved is bourgeois constitution and the leadership is representing capitalist class and is reshaping the economy and society on capitalist path. The slogan of socialistic pattern is a hoax to create illusion and confuse the masses. The real intentions and practices are geared to the development on capitalist lines.
• According to Desai, the bourgeoisie is the dominant class in India. The Indian society is based on the capitalist economy. The dominant culture in our country is therefore the culture of the dominant capitalist class.
• Indian capitalism was a by- product of imperialist capitalism. Indian capitalism was born during the declining phase of world capitalism when, due to the general crisis of capitalism, even in advanced capitalist countries, the ruling bourgeoisie, not cognizant of the cause of the crisis, have been increasingly abandoning rationalism and materialist philosophies and retrograding to religious-mystical world outlook,
• Desai argues that Indian bourgeoisie built up a fundamentally secular bourgeois democratic state, which has been imparting modern scientific, technological and liberal democratic education.
• This class and its intelligentsia have been, in the cultural field are revivalist and more and more popularizing, supporting and spreading old religious and idealistic philosophic concepts among the people.
• The social role played by this culture is reactionary since it gives myopic picture of the physical universe and the social world, a mis explanation of the fundamental causes of the economic and social crisis, opiates the consciousness of the masses and tries to divert the latter from advancing on the road of specific solution of their problems.