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ABSTRACT
The paper examines the occupational trajectories of young pastoralist (rabari) men as they turn to new livelihoods in place of livestock herding in urban Gujarat. In contrast to the dominant skill development narratives, the paper offers a micro view of how youth with limited education and financial resources rely on an alternative infrastructure of skills beyond the state and private sector to cope with economic precarity. What is the role played by caste and community networks in shaping youth aspirations for social mobility, the pursuit of new occupations and the acquisition of innovative skills? To what extent do youth manifest a new entrepreneurial spirit and individual-centric agency that is commonly associated with the advent of the neoliberal political economy? The findings reveal the workings of a communitarian skill-ecosystem that mobilises community networks, reinvents traditional practices and produces innovative cultures of skilling and entrepreneurship, whereby youth attempt to cope and survive in precarious urban landscapes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Mehrotra, India’s skills challenge.
2. Krishna and Pieterse. ‘The dollar economy and the rupee economy.
3. Kumar, Youth in India, 3
4. Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, https://www.skilldevelopment.gov.in (emphasis added)
5. Gooptu, Nandini. ‘JSAD special issue on skill development in India.’, 243.
6. Byju Raveendran, Can Do Nation, The Indian Express, August 17, 2022, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/byju-raveendran-writes-an-india-where-anyone-can-start-a-business-is-taking-shape-8094023/
7. Parry, ‘precarity, class, and the neoliberal subject’ and Gooptu, ‘Neoliberal subjectivity, enterprise culture and new workplaces’.
8. Maldhari is a term that literally means keepers (dhari) of livestock (mal) and refers to five distinct pastoralist communities, namely, Rabari, Bharwad, Ahir, Charan and Jat.
9. Harriss-White and Gooptu, ‘Mapping India’s world of unorganised labour’, 90.
10. Jaatsi and Kymäläinen. ‘Navigating precarity in everyday (sub) urban space’, 2.
11. See Guy Standing for an analysis of the emergence of a new class of people (‘precariat’) who live precarious lives of job uncertainties and have the potential to cause social instabilities.
12. Mehrotra and Jajati K., CSE Working Paper, ‘India’s Employment Crisis, 3.
13. Meherotra, 1.
14. Harriss, The ‘wall’.
15. Krishna, The broken ladder
16. Jeffrey, Jeffery and Jeffery. Degrees without freedom.
17. Jeffrey, Timepass.
18. Jeffrey. ‘Great expectations: Youth in contemporary India.
19. Maru, ‘Engaging with uncertainties in the now’, 41.
20. In some places such as the Gir forest area in Gujarat, certain maldhari groups are categorised as Scheduled Tribes (ST).
21. OBC refers to Other Backward Class, which is a term used by the Indian government to classify several caste groups that are believed to be educationally and socially backward. Castes that are classified as OBC are entitled to preferential treatment by way of 27% reservation of seats in the public sector and educational institutions. The category of OBC is over and above the other two categories of marginalised groups that are entitled to reservations or affirmative action, Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes (SC).
22. Vihotar refers to the 133 sub-castes within Rabaris. It is a colloquial Gujarati word which refers to the number 133. Vis+Sau+Ter (20 + 100 + 13 = 133). 133 sub casts
23. Vihotar Voice, June/July 2018, www.vihotarvoice.com
24. Personal interview with author, June, 2019.
25. Appadurai, ‘The capacity to aspire’.
26. Ibid., 68.
27. Ibid., 69.
28. Willis, Learning to labour.
29. Upadhya and RoyChoudhry, ‘crafting new service workers’, 14.
30. According to a time-series study by Sanjay Kumar (Editor). Youth in India: Aspirations, Attitudes, Anxieties. 2019 youth continue to fancy a sarkari naukri (a government job) slightly more than they did a decade ago’
31. Jeffrey, ‘Generation nowhere’.
32. Rabari, Geeta, ‘The rabari in the city’ (‘Rona ser ma re’), music video, https://youtu.be/35mYQ8bqp1A?si=Ng7TNqHPfirDzZ01, last accessed August 1, 2023.
33. Cross, Dream zones.
34. Ibid., 89.
35. Gooptu, ‘JSAD special issue on skill development in India’, 244.
36. Carswell and De Neeve, ‘Jobs and skill acquisition’, 3.
37. Parry, ‘Introduction: precarity, class, and the neoliberal subject’ ; Carswell and De Neve, ‘Caste, dependency and work under neoliberalisation in south India.
38. See Brown and De Neeve, ‘Skills, training and development’ in the context of South Asia; Allais, ‘Will skills save us?’ in the context of South Africa.
39. Brown, ‘Skill ecosystems in the global South’, 10–11
40. Brown, ‘Haath se sikhna: geographies of practical learning’.
41. Personal interview with author, June, 2021.
42. Personal interview with author, April, 2022.
43. Gooptu, Enterprise culture in neoliberal India; Mankekar. Unsettling India
44. Upadhya and RoyChowdhury Citation2022; Desai (Citation2020).
45. Srivastava. ‘Skills, “personality development,” and the limits of theorising neoliberal selfhood in India.’ 5
46. Jeffrey and Young. ‘Jugād: Youth and enterprise in India’, 185.
47. Maru, ‘Engaging with uncertainties in the now’, 47.
48. Suvada, Vijay, Risky Rona, music video, https://youtu.be/VaGYsXCrbNM?si=XyLIYlXpkEEcpuCX, last accessed August 1, 2023
49. Personal interview with author, Jan, 2022.
50. Suvada, Vijay, Risky Rona, music video cover image, https://youtu.be/VaGYsXCrbNM?si=XyLIYlXpkEEcpuCX, last accessed August 1, 2023