New Directions in Human Development and Family Studies: Research, Policy and Programme Interfaces

During recent years, professionals in psychology and allied disciplines in India have been articulating the need and urgency for indigenisation of theory building and methodology (Misra, Jain, & Bhargava, 1990; Pandey, 1988; Saraswathi & Dutta, 1988; Sinha, 1990; Verma, 1979). The plea, however, has been not so much for the development of a parallel psychology as for ecologically valid and socially relevant endeavours. In the words of S.C. Dube (1990, p. 10): “For too long have the social sciences in India been emulative. Currently we are passing through a reactive phase. The call for indigenization of the social sciences is not a battle cry for the rejection of the Western or indeed all alien-models and methods. It is only a plea for their searching examination from the point of view of their relevance and appropriateness for our ethos and emerging compulsions.”