Globalised dreams, local constraints: migration and youth aspirations in an Indian regional town

ABSTRACT

Youth in India’s regional towns face a paradox: they are exposed to discourses of neoliberal globalisation through education and media, yet are unable to seize the benefits of globalisation, due to regional isolation. In this paper, we explore how aspirations of youth in India’s regional towns are influenced by their geographic marginalisation. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Darjeeling, a regional town in West Bengal, we demonstrate that regional youth feel disadvantaged in their access to middle-class jobs, modern education and lifestyles associated with neoliberal globalisation. Consequently, they express strong desires for ‘exposure,’ which can only be met through migration, particularly to India’s metropolitan cities. They are frustrated in their aspiration to migrate, however, as they feel constrained by the traditional family structure, discrimination in the larger cities and the uneven temporalities between regional towns and ‘global India.’ Their experiences highlight the geographically uneven effects of neoliberal globalisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Aspiration
• youth
• regional towns
• neoliberal globalisation
• migration
• Darjeeling (India)

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the guest editors, Prof. Tracey Skelton and Dr Suzanne Naafs, for useful feedback on previous versions of this article, and also our colleague, Professor Mario Rutten, for his valuable support and input throughout this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We acknowledge the ambiguity in the concept of a ‘middle class’ in a country as complex as India. As Fernandes and Heller (2006) outline, the Indian middle class consists of at least three fractions: (1) a small, privileged fraction with advanced professional credentials who seized the relatively small number of high-paying corporate jobs that neoliberalism has facilitated; (2) the petit bourgeoisie and (3) salaried educated workers in clerical, administrative and teaching roles. Given that neoliberalism has failed to facilitate the growth of advanced professional jobs in Darjeeling, the vast majority of the youth interviewed in this study came from families belonging to fractions (2) and (3).

2. The ‘plains,’ as used in this article, refers to the Indo-Gangetic plains, flatlands which stretch across much of Northern India. They are distinguished from the ‘hills,’ which refers to the Himalayas and other mountainous tracts.

3. Likewise, elsewhere in Asia, Waters (2015) notes a tendency for middle-class youth to look abroad for study options, to escape the limitations and high-pressure environment of local schools and colleges.

4. All names given to participants are pseudonyms.

5. Whether in English or Nepali, the Darjeeling accent has a tendency to place stress on words for emphasis. We have attempted to replicate this in text through use of italics.

Additional information

Funding

This research emerged from a 2012–2014, Australia Research Council funded project titled ‘Contingent Development in Regional India: Ethnographies of Neoliberal Globalisation in Gujarat and West Bengal’ led by Professors Timothy J. Scrase, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase and Mario Rutten [grant number DP120101129]. Dr Trent Brown was the postdoctoral researcher on this project.