Social Sciences: Old Dogmas, New Challenges C T Kurien Social Science and Development: Quest for Relevance by P C Joshi; Har-Anand Publications, Delhi, pp 354, Rs 495, TRAVEL down memory lane to the 1940s the second world war, the Quit India Movement, the Cabinet Mission, end of the war, the Interim Government, Independence, excitement, expectations... Think of the sensitive young men and women in high schools and colleges during those years, inspired by the freedom movement and of the exhortations of the leaders to serve the country, to build it, to shape it, to hold it up in the comity of nations. How would these patriotic youngsters respond to the new situation and its challenge? Some would go into the newly started Indian Administrative Services, to become part of the team led by Nehru, Patel and Azad and thus to be directly and immediately involved in the exciting task of nation-building. Others would opt to stay on in academia to take on the less visible, but equally exciting and longer term mission of searching for the roots of Indian society, critically reviewing the impact of the colonial era, analysing the problems that confront the new nation and suggesting remedies for them, and through alI such efforts to evolve a science of society relevant for our limes and our needs. These youngsters of the 1940s are now in their late 60s and early 70s, Some of them, belonging to both the streams, have recently been looking back over the past half a century and sharing with the present generation the visions they had when the country attained freedom, the issues that dominated their professional careers and their thoughts about the unfinished agenda.