ABSTRACT
This chapter sets the context for looking at, first, the phenomena of how Indian society is integrating, valuing and challenging modernity, introducing the reader to the proclivity as well as the ambivalence of the Indian towards its imperatives, including that of liberty, consumerism, meritocracy and capitalism. The chapter introduces the notion of civilizational codings and how these in the form of Indian identity, through socialization over several centuries offers many a clue towards the understanding of the current phenomena of integrating modernity. Second, this chapter introduces the need to explore the nature of lens with which this phenomenon is being explored, arguing for the necessity of moving away from Anglo-Saxon or occidental lens of looking at self, identity and society. With these two arguments, the chapter endorses the reason for existence of the EUM lens/framework, differentiating it from Western lens and frameworks. It then culminates into describing the structure of the book and its various chapters.
