Dreamers: How Young Indians are Changing the World

<< This post-print was originally published in Contemporary South Asia (2019). The version of record is available on the publisher’s website and is archived on Academia.edu (incl. keywords). Citation can be downloaded on Hal.

This is the most desperate generation of Indians since Independence’ (24). Set at the crossroads of journalism and ethnographic studies, Snigdha Poonam’s first book is a harrowing account of aspirational youth grappling with their careers amidst uncertain landscapes. These are mainly shaped by rapid globalisation, the rise of Hindu majoritarianism, and the ‘3E’ phenomenon, or the lack of employment, employability and education (21). The author provides a captivating portrait of seven Indian youth from tier II and III cities (29) of the Hindi belt, who engage in a variety of professional activities often at the fringes of legality.

As it questions India’s ability to benefit from its demographic dividend, the book makes the argument that the world’s largest democracy is failing to provide quality employment, education and social protection while perpetuating a socially conservative milieu. Poonam shows how such unfulfilled promises of empowerment, nevertheless, bolster jugaad – Hindi for ‘whatever works’ (249) –, a form of entrepreneurship that makes do with whatever is available. As in Jeffrey’s classic account (2010), Indian youth express dissatisfaction with their current situation; yet, contrary to what emerges in Timepass, none of Poonam’s respondents advertise such discontent of ‘doing nothing’, nor do they spend most of their time preparing for civil service examinations.

Respondent Lavanya monetises her ‘oh-my-god instinct’ to farm viral online content for social media consumers (10). Mohammad, a local beauty contest winner, gets a government loan to keep honeybees in the hope that the money will fund his teetering acting career (209). Unable to find a good job, Pawan works in a hoax call centre where he poses as a U.S. income officer, scamming Americans of millions of dollars over the phone (233).

These accounts show how India’s jobless growth strengthens the emphasis that young Indians put on economic security, their weak spot for consumerism (also see: Lukose’s Liberalization’s children, 2009) and their fondness for material achievements over the postmaterialist ideology that has developed in post-68 Western societies, which revolves around freedom of speech and participatory politics. We are told the story of the ‘fixer’ Pankaj, a broker between farmers and state-sponsored welfare schemes (105) who, after buying a SUV, inadvertently triggers the jealousy of poorer villagers in southern Jharkhand. The only character moved by moral values is Richa, an activist who becomes an elected female student leader after challenging the macho-dominated political culture of Allahabad University and its male-only central teashop (159). While her story is passionating, it would have been interesting to hear how Richa’s liberal agenda resonates with caste and left politics in campus where, after all, the burgeoning sections of Indian youth grow up.

The literature on rural development – such as in Krishna’s Active social capital (2002) – shows how youth can serve as change agents within their families and the village community through engaging in social entrepreneurship, tutoring and personal care. Poonam mainly emphasises the individualising effects of liberalisation, thus not discussing the social utility of young entrepreneurs within deprived communities. For instance, the author tells the story of Moin, a young Muslim whose aspirations to assist his community remain unknown. He learns to speak English by dialling the toll-free mobile customer service number so he can practice his conversational skills (43), and goes on to set up his own language training centre for the aspiring middle class.

Along with the dreamers’ amoral quest for material achievement, a misplaced understanding of izzat (respect) pushes young people to embrace Hindutva careers against imaginary enemies; love jihadis, valentine couples, cow slaughterers. Vikas, who takes pride in instructing the police to prosecute Muslims for alleged harassment of Hindu girls (122) fails to get a ticket from the leading Hindu nationalist party – even after loyally running its social media campaign activities in the state of Jharkhand. Silent or vocal, Poonam’s youth are (somewhat problematically) unanimously pro-Hindutva, but such a straight jacketed political portrayal leaves two questions open: is the widening gap between aspirations and prospects driving the saffronisation of youth? To what extent is this the by-product of the current majoritarian political zeitgeist?

Poonam’s book is not entirely academic in tone and somewhat reluctant to analyse infra-national diversity, however it constitutes an essential point of reference for anyone researching the metamorphoses of India’s youngsters and their frustrated ambitions. While the account tends to be biased towards the less successful strand of ‘dreamers’ from North India, it makes a stimulating contribution to the existing empirical literature on the idiosyncratic practices of a new generation ‘hanging between extremes […], hitting adulthood with the cultural values of their grandparents […] but the life goals of American teenagers’ (24).