Academic psychology in India

Indian psychology did not begin with independence: it grew through a colonial encounter, a post-independence nation-building phase, a 1970s turn toward social problems, a 1980s indigenization movement, and a 1990s crisis of identity that still shapes the discipline. For example, the 1970s shift meant psychologists began studying poverty and deprivation rather than importing Western laboratory problems wholesale. This chapter traces that arc and the issues it left unresolved.