ABSTRACT

The vastness and richness of India's diversity can best be understood by a passage from Mehta's (1993, pp. 458–459) Portrait of India: India teems with languages. There are 14 officially recognized regional languages, 250 major dialects, and thousands of minor languages and dialects. English, which was the official language during the Raj, has never been understood by more than 3 percent of the population. The closest thing to a national language is Hindi, yet it is understood by only 40 percent—or, at most, 50 percent—of the population. Most Indians can understand only one language—that of the place in which they were born. This diversity having been noted, we must ask: what is the unifying factor that binds this diversity? How does one understand Indian society? D'Cruz and Bharat (2001), in a review on family research in the Indological phase, consider the family in India to be one of the three most important social institutions for understanding Indian society. Building upon the theme of the Indian family, in this chapter we address issues related to this aspect from the perspective of the parent–adolescent relationship.