Aiming for the good life: A study of two BAPS-led youth programmes in India

Abstract

This article explores two youth programmes, YTK (Yuvati/Yuvak Talim Kendra) and IPDC (Integrated Personality Development Course), created by BAPS (Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha), a global Hindu community. Both programmes rest on BAPS’s vision of the good life while recognising globally circulating ideas of success that associate economic mobility with self-motivated and disciplined workers. In the context of neoliberalising India, BAPS programmes provide a toolkit for attaining devotional objectives and aspirational success where each depends on refashioning the self into an optimised ideal. BAPS’s emphasis on the continuous and affectively intensive work of self-making in order to attain devotional goals draws attention to the translatability of devotional labour to those market arenas that demand affective responsiveness and flexibility. The youth programmes highlight the global discourse of self-improvement, filtered through BAPS conceptions of self in relation to others and point to the continued salience of religion in entrepreneurial times.