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THE INDIAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN DISCIPLINE AND “THE DESTINY OF ONE NATION”, 1905–1947*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2013

ARIA LASKIN
ARIA LASKIN*
Affiliation:
JD candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto E-mail: aria.laskin@gmail.com
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Abstract

In the age of decolonization, Indian psychology engaged with and nationalized itself within global networks of ideas. While psychology was eventually applied by public intellectuals in explicitly political arenas, this essay focuses on the initial mobilization of the discipline's early Indian experts, led by the founder of the Indian Psychological Association, Narendranath Sengupta. Although modern critics have harshly judged early Indian psychologists for blind appropriation of European concepts, an analysis of the networks through which the science of psychology was developed challenges this oversimplification. Early Indian psychologists developed their discipline within a simultaneously transnational and nationalistic context, in which European ideas overlapped with ancient texts, creating a deliberately “Indian” brand of psychology. As the discipline of psychology exploded across the world, Indian psychologists developed a science of swaraj, enabling synergies between modern psychological doctrine, philosophy and ancient texts. This paper explores the networks of ideas within which modern Indian psychology was developed, the institutional and civil environment in which it matured, and the framework through which it engaged with and attempted to claim credence within transnational scientific networks.

Type
Forum: A World of Ideas: New Pathways in Global Intellectual History, c.1880–1930
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , August 2013 , pp. 415 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

The author owes a debt of gratitude to Chris Bayly, who provided crucial feedback and introduced her to the study of intellectual history. She is also deeply grateful to Shruti Kapila, for her continued guidance and insight in supervising the author's MA dissertation, which formed the basis of this essay.

References

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35 Ibid., 118. While this essay is focused more specifically on the doctrinal development of the discipline of psychology, Prakash's book offers useful insight into the broader scientific context; the myriad pressure points between science, politics and nationalism; and the tensions between conceptualizations of Indian sciences and the undertones of entrenched orientalism.

36 Ibid., 3.

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68 “How Psychology Can Help Mankind”, The Statesman, 8 Jan. 1941.

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