Agency in Neoliberal India
Kishi, Louisiana, Sophie, Sophia
Reading:
Bhandari, Riddhi and Pandey, Siddhi G. (2025), Enterprising Citizens: Digital Self-Help Gurus in Post-Liberalization India. Anthropology of Work Review, 46: e70009. https://doi.org/10.1111/awr.70009
What is the purpose and main arguments of the article?
The main purpose of the article was to analyze the rise of digital self-help gurus (SHGs) and how they promote a citizenship model centered on entrepreneurial self-making. The SHG’s help cultivate a new neoliberal and entrepreneurial personhood and encourage the person to focus on the “self.” This use of SHG’s aims to reflect how social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and X) based self-help change ideas about work, success, and responsibility in India.
The article argues that these self-help gurus construct the new “enterprising citizen” who primarily focuses on self-improvement, productivity, and success as a new person. The economic problems “India’s youth wait for stable jobs in post-liberalization” and educational degrees are a “time pass” (Bhandari, 2025). These SHG’s want to reframe the mindset on discipline, flexibility, constant skill-making, and flexibility through entrepreneurship. Using these motivational messages through social media makes the viewers think they are models to follow and they encourage failure and success.
How does the article highlight or explore the course themes?
The prevalence of digital self-help gurus in India highlights the theme of identity and agency because of they provide a sense of control in an unstable economic landscape. These online figures work to motivate India’s middle class to be “entrepreneurial”. The SHG’s promote determination and the ability to accept failure. This is relevant to the theme of agency as the SHG’s advocate for failure to be accepted as part of the journey. They recommend that their subscribers create a ‘failure resume’ which helps them to own their failures. This ideology is very meaningful ‘situated in the context of India's ongoing economic flux, normalizes, and even romanticizes the high rate of failure…’ (Bhandari, 2025) this kind of work is empowering to young middle-class Indians trying to ‘work their passion’. This carpe diem mentality is on par with larger global trends of autonomy and mental health. The mix of these two internet trends brings up the idea that success is within your control. That being said there is only a small fraction of the Indian population where this type of entrepreneurial success is in reach. “However, the paradigmatic frame of entrepreneurial citizenship can be exclusionary—it implies a large residual class of “entrepreneurial others”’ (Bhandari, 2025) This divide raises questions of privilege and how when these motivations are presented to the public is the idea of ‘agency’ flawed.
How would you describe the “vibe” of the text?
The vibe is observer-like. It’s like you are going through people’s day-to-day lives across different walks of life and classes of living, noticing the same color of ‘thread’ across each person’s behavior. Gradually, you follow these threads higher to this looming ‘ball of yarn’ and get a better sense of the interconnectedness of the threads you saw, and those you didn’t even know existed. As you read further, the vibe felt like you gradually uncovered nuances to what you thought was the sole focus. i.e. the Self-Help Gurus at first seemed like all that the article focused on, but that became secondary to the entrepreneurial spirit at the heart of their lessons. Which later seemingly became tertiary to India’s history and advocacy with entrepreneurship. It was like starting out with a zoom-in on the facet of a gem; gradually zooming out to see how it connects with other facets to form the eventual diamond.
It seemed like every now and then, while following the series of ‘threads,’ you would stop at a knot where multiple threads met (e.g., management training in the 1990s, anxieties about the economy, mass media contributions, religion, etc.) to gauge how many threads formed that knot and proceed. You wouldn’t (and couldn’t) touch or fix the knot, but it further cemented the feeling of being an observer, as a system or, at the very least, someone listening to the actual observer’s findings.
How does this playlist complement the vibes of the text (somatically, sonically, taste, tempo, genre)?
The songs and the overall playlist do a good job of painting the environment that the text makes us feel like we are observing. A good chunk of international songs set the scene in India. Furthermore, these songs being in the native language capture how Indian's champion and appreciate their culture; cementing it as something constantly in focus.
The playlist uses hip-hop (with some electronica) to capture the youth aspect of the article. Specifically, how they are one of the key recipients of the ‘entrepreneurial’ and ‘self-help’ teachings. These teachings manifest in the urge/feeling to be on the move, constantly doing something and that anything is possible. You see that same incessant action of being on the move with the rapping and drums permeating across all the hip hop songs. You see that ‘hope’ with the synths in electronica inspired hip-hop songs, the singing sections of some of the hip-hop songs and the R&B and vocal jazz selections of songs on the playlist.
The playlist also uses songs that have no lyrics; film scores to be more specific. These capture what’s it like to be immersed in the bustling environment of India and feel like a foreign observer piecing together the components (both past and present) of things you are noticing.
How did each of you go about finding songs to include in the playlist?
The songs we picked both resonated with the themes in the article about drive, the digital age, and agency via both lyrics and the nuance of the emotions they bring up. These songs reflect resilience one through self-reflection after loss, and the other through staying true to your values and dreams in the face of adversity. The tempo of the music is an influence factor, and the vast majority of our playlist was upbeat and motivational. This vibe is something very common in music and can be as important and influential as motivational speaking.
How did you decide on the order and transitions between each song, including how to begin and how to end?
Our playlist begins with the inspirational song Apna Time Aayega, meaning “My time will come,” and another line translating to “Whatever you have sown, you will reap only that much.” This song looks prospectively toward a time where hard work will bear fruit. In the context of the text, this song introduces the message that working towards self enhancement and an acquisition of entrepreneurial skills in collaboration with SHGs will reap benefits. Our playlist ends with My Way by Frank Sinatra, a song with themes of self-discovery where the artist reflects retrospectively upon having lived a life of no regrets. A life where the artist took control of their path and looks back on his initial apprehension and anxiety to change with amusement: “I’ve had my fill, my share of losing. And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing.” This song resonates with the SHGs facilitation of individuals disengaging with old value systems that aren’t serving themselves and easing the associated anxieties. When choosing the order of the songs, we attempted to create a flow that represented the gradual strengthening of the initial inspiration for self-improvement in post-liberalization India to a more reflective perspective.
Were there ethical concerns or debates that came up while creating this playlist?
We were primarily concerned with encapsulating the true message of the text and not undermining the nuance and complexity of post-independence India. It felt difficult to find songs that unconditionally resonated with specific messages of the text, but we found that it was easier to relate more specific lyrics and overarching themes/emotions conveyed within songs to the text. In addition, we debated if and how the perspective of the artist who created the song played as a role in conveying our desired message, as we noticed that a lot of the songs included in our playlist were written by white men. We ultimately decided that the incorporation of a diversity of genres as well as artists was valued.