Book Review

1) Why Investigate Accidents? 2) Where Do I Start? 3) Tools and Special Equipment for the Investigator 4) Scene Investigation 5) The Vehicle Exterior 6) Vehicle Interiors 7) Restraining Systems 8) Vehicle and Occupant Accident Investigation Forms 9) Occupant Kinematics 10) Accident Reconstruction 11) Severity Indices 12) Motorcycle Accidents 13) Pedestrian Accidents 14) Scale Drawings, Surrogates, Animations, and Computer Simulations in Preparing Exhibits 15) Mathematical Analysis 16) Sources of Information 17) Deposition and Courtroom Appearance

Psychology in modern India is an integrative effort to address contemporary issues in psychology. The current volume revisits the historical and modern roots of doing psychology in India. It strives for doing indigenous psychology, decolonising discipline and establishing its disciplinary identity without being apart from the approaches which were situated in dominant European and American universities and institutions. This volume is based on four themes. These are historical perspectives, disciplinary perspectives, developments in subfields of psychology, and critical appraisal and future perspectives. There is a total of 28 chapters including the introduction and postscript. The forward of the book is presented by Wade Pickren who is an eminent historian of psychology. He forwarded with the hope of trespassing the hegemonies embedded in the institutional culture influenced by the dominant Euro-America-centric approaches.
The historical perspective has a total of eight chapters that ventured into the memories of the emergence of modern psychology in India, the quest for indigenisation, and the attempt to understand the mind and behaviour from the cultural vantage point. It indicated how psychology as a formal discipline was methodologically developed in various departments across India both as basic and applied sciences. Particular emphasis was on the development of psychology at the University of Calcutta and how the department started in a highly motivated research setup with the help of eminent teachers and scholars many of who got their training in the western setting under the eminent psychologist. Scholars like Girindra Sekhar Bose were interested in developing experimental psychology and an indigenous way of understanding the unconscious mind. His work on psychoanalysis was independently developed and his thesis on the concept of 'repression' got appreciation from Sigmund Freud. His work on repression differed from Freud which must be considered as an original contribution to the human unconsciousness from the cultural perspective.
The theme disciplinary perspectives have four chapters that try to advocate the prospects of psychology in India and how it must be reimagined in contemporary times. The very umbrella term 'inadequacies' directly links to the current attempt at the foundation of the psychology of modern India. Department of psychology in pre-independence time conformed to the standards of eurocentrism and also strived and thrived to become out with the research which seems to be at par with the dominant expectation. The attempt to look for roots and bring into attention the grounded data emerging from the cultural context was done systematically. This section seems to position itself into three subthemes such as critically looking into the history of modern psychology through the social constructionist lens, bringing into attention how Indian psychology helps in finding the identity of modern psychology in India and the evolution of methodologies to address the inadequacies identified.
The third theme identified in this volume is 'developments in subfields of psychology'. This theme consists of nine chapters covering individual differences, human development, social psychology in India, organisational behaviour from indigenous perspectives, mental health and healing, clinical psychology in the contemporary Indian context, holistic and Holigrative approach to psychology, educational psychology perspectives, and on understanding human mind and happiness through quantum mechanics and going beyond determinism. This section is a systematic venture into the research, various programmes and policies in clinical and educational psychology, and work psychology, addressing the issues of poverty and national well-being.
The last section deals with the theme of 'critical appraisal and future perspectives'. It consists of five chapters and a postscript. The emphasis is on doing psychology in India grounded within the sociocultural terrains of India. The movement is to highlight the avenues needed for foundation and disciplinary identity, perspectives, and paradigm, looking forward to making it a grounded human science, the culmination of traditional Indian and modern western knowledge systems. Further, it attempts to explore the views of contemporary psychologists working in India and their opinion on making psychology a global and approachable discipline. The postscript indicates the development of psychology in India which situates itself to the Indian ethos and pragmatic to the concern of diversity. Also, if justice and insight towards one's self and collectivity are better understood with the new approaches even if they are borrowed from another land, it matters. Idea if it matters for justice, it has a global reach.
Compared to the past involvement with disciplinary development, this volume ventured into the approaches that institutionalised the discipline. Chapters like the regional history of psychology (Bangladesh, Northeast India, Calcutta, North India) offered a detailed picture of the discipline development in various regions. Since the uncritical description of the discipline development is not new however this volume showed a diversified and cooperative integration of research establishing the history of psychology. The differences in the methodologies as required to the disciplinary demands seem to be cogently taken forwards as a unified format without many digressions from the agenda of culture, identity, and continuity in the scientific progress. This book is for students and researchers interested in the history of psychology in India. There will be a gain of new avenues, such as cultural understanding, critical departure and going beyond the surface level understanding of the social categories. All the chapters seem important and organised, but the reader may have an impression on seeing the book title that it is offering a perspective that does not seem much explicit other than the stand taken in the past while dealing with the similar kind of topics. However, there is an efficient detailing of the history of psychology in India through one's lived experience as a student, teacher, and scholar over the last many decades. This book is descriptive to the core, to some extent analytical and critical. Since this book is about the historical perspectives on psychology in modern India, we should take into our cognisance that history is not just an accumulation of general knowledge but it has a wider implication. History has a theory. Perspectives are not descriptions but descriptions are in the perspective. The agenda of writing this book is clear to the extent that it shows the picture of what was done but becomes unclear when it comes to the resolution of paradoxes and conflicts of identities within the idea of compositeness and sometimes it looks hasty move to write on this topic and missing out the broader picture. In one way we can say that this volume is an attempt to bring the scholars and their diversified thought on a common platform. Some chapters seem to be classic writing and some have a general tone. Overall, this edited volume has the potential to materialise the imagination for social change and at the same time needed more input from the voice of the subaltern and marginalised. The history of psychology shall decipher the hidden history and look for the stories of the voiceless. The book promises to show historical perspectives on psychology in modern India, some of the terminologies here are taken for granted and a wider connection with the social theory is missing. However, all the parts are well ingrained with the updated information on the subject dealt with. In the future, there is a need for some more critical scholars from interdisciplinary schools to better correspond to the history of social sciences and sociology of sciences. This volume is a must read for students and faculties of psychology, with new inputs from scholars seeing the critical aspects have the potential to redevelop this book into an interesting and important read in the future. OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India E-mail: sinchetan@gmail.com