Arjun Appadurai-From Milkman to Millionaire: Aspirations, Re-Enchantment, and the Rise of the “Global Peasant”

From Milkman to Millionaire.

Sanjay Srivastava’s article “Gurugram, London Bridge” (The Indian Express, January 02, 2024) paints a vivid picture of transformation in contemporary India. It tells the story of a villager from Haryana’s Gurugram who rose from delivering milk on a bicycle to becoming a land-sale millionaire, standing confidently under London Bridge in ripped jeans. His journey reflects a broader shift in Indian society, where aspirations, re-enchantment, and individualism redefine cultural, economic, and political landscapes. Drawing upon insights from thinkers like Arjun Appadurai, Jane Bennett, and Max Weber, this essay explores the interplay between tradition and modernity that shapes this villager’s story and what it signifies for India’s evolving identity.

Aspirations as Cultural Pathways

Arjun Appadurai’s concept of the “capacity to aspire,” introduced in the chapter “The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition” (Culture and Public Action, Stanford, California, 2004, pp. 59-84), offers a framework for understanding the villager’s transformation. Appadurai identifies this capacity as a cultural strength influenced by societal opportunities.

In India, systemic barriers such as caste hierarchies often restrict aspirations. However, Appadurai emphasises that empowering communities through education, cultural recognition, and participatory governance can foster ambition, bridge gaps between poverty and progress, and create pathways for inclusive growth and social mobility. This perspective sheds light on how marginalised groups can reimagine their futures by leveraging their cultural capital and navigating structural challenges.

In The Future as Cultural Fact (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Appadurai expands on this idea, underscoring the transformative role of imagination and aspiration in shaping social and cultural dynamics. He argues that imagination, once confined to elites, has become widespread, enabling even marginalised individuals to envision and pursue better futures within a globalised context.

Aspirations, Appadurai explains, are deeply rooted in cultural frameworks but can transcend traditional constraints when aligned with modern systems. The villager’s journey illustrates this principle: his success arose not just from hard work but from his strategic ability to merge local knowledge with opportunities in the global economy, overcoming entrenched barriers and redefining his place in society.

Appadurai’s ideas connect closely with Craig Jeffrey’s study of Indian youth in Meerut, explored in Timepass: Youth, Class, and the Politics of Waiting in India (Stanford, California, 2010). Jeffrey describes how young people’s dreams of a better life often clash with barriers like caste discrimination, corruption, and limited job opportunities. This creates a culture of “timepass,” where frustration with the system is expressed through small acts of resistance, such as questioning societal norms.

However, this waiting is not entirely passive; it also involves using education and political connections to push forward personal goals, even while sometimes upholding the very inequalities they criticise. To explain this, Jeffrey uses Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus—the ingrained habits, behaviours, and ways of thinking shaped by one’s social and cultural background. For these youth, their habitus is influenced by their caste and class, which limit how they imagine and pursue success.

While their education helps them aspire for upward mobility, the social structures around them keep their ambitions in a state of limbo. Jeffrey shows how their protests against corruption and inequality reflect this mix of striving for change while navigating the constraints of their environment. These actions reveal the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of their aspirations and struggles.

Jeffrey’s exploration of youth aspirations and their navigation of systemic barriers in Meerut provides a lens through which to view the broader transformations in Indian society. Just as these young individuals grapple with the tension between ambition and constraint, the Gurugram villager’s story reflects a similar interplay of forces. However, where Jeffrey focuses on the socio-economic dynamics shaping aspirations, the villager’s journey introduces another dimension: the coexistence of rationality and enchantment. This blend of practical strategy and spiritual belief offers a striking counterpoint to Weber’s concept of disenchantment, illustrating how modernity reconfigures rather than replaces traditional meanings.

Re-Enchantment: A Modern Transformation

The villager’s story challenges Max Weber’s idea of modernity as a process of disenchantment, where rationality replaces magic and religion (Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, trans. G. Roth and C. Wittich, University of California Press, 1978). Instead, it aligns with Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm’s argument in The Myth of Disenchantment (University of Chicago Press, 2017), which contends that enchantment persists in modern life, coexisting with rationality to reshape traditional beliefs. This coexistence is evident in the villager’s blend of faith in divine grace and strategic worldly actions, where material success intertwines with spiritual belief.

Josephson-Storm critiques the narrative of disenchantment as a constructed myth, noting that figures like Weber and E.B. Tylor contributed to this idea while engaging in mystical practices themselves. He argues that rationalisation did not eradicate magical beliefs but integrated them into new frameworks, with spiritual movements thriving alongside scientific advancements. This reframing of modernity shows how enchantment and rationality interact dynamically, as seen in the villager’s ability to merge spiritual conviction with mastery of modern systems, illustrating a uniquely modern blend of tradition and practicality.

Jane Bennett, in The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics ((Princeton University Press, 2001), highlights how enchantment thrives in ordinary moments, energising human agency through wonder and vitality. This is exemplified by a villager’s transformation from rural obscurity to global prominence, symbolising a re-enchanted modernity where traditional boundaries between the sacred and secular blur.

The villager’s “capacity to aspire,” combining divine grace with worldly strategy, aligns with Bennett’s idea of joy and wonder as catalysts for ethical and social action. Such aspirational individualism mirrors a dynamic interplay of ethics, aesthetics, and vitality, challenging linear views of modernity. Enchantment emerges as a synthesis of cultural fragments—gods, markets, and land—interacting to create novel forms of belonging. This perspective reveals how imagination and aspiration shape transformative experiences, underscoring the potential for enriched lives within contemporary systems.

The “Global Peasant”: A New Indian Archetype

Jane Bennett’s exploration of enchantment as a dynamic interplay of ethics, aesthetics, and vitality finds a compelling parallel in Srivastava’s depiction of the villager as a “global peasant.” Srivastava’s depiction of the villager as a “global peasant” introduces a new archetype in Indian society. This identity disrupts the binary between modern and pre-modern, combining traditional values with contemporary ambitions. The villager represents a community that has historically been marginalised but now thrives by mastering the complexities of modernity. His ability to navigate bureaucratic hurdles and negotiate with corporate players signifies a redefinition of rural agency in the globalised world.

The “global peasant” archetype resonates with Lotte Hoek’s analysis of aspirational individualism in Cut-Pieces: Celluloid Obscenity and Popular Cinema in Bangladesh (Columbia University Press, 2013). Hoek examines the “cut-pieces” in Bangladeshi cinema—spliced fragments of sensational content—as symbols of the tension between tradition and global influence. Just as the villager reconciles local identities with global opportunities, these cinematic fragments mirror societal transitions where aspirations oscillate between sacred ideals and material realities.

Both the “global peasant” and the “cut-piece” embody the collision of gods, markets, and morality, illustrating how marginalised identities navigate modernity’s complexities. By adapting global trends to local contexts, these figures create hybrid forms of belonging, reflecting a re-enchanted worldview where tradition and global forces intersect. Together, they highlight the fragmented yet interconnected nature of contemporary aspirations, underscoring the transformative power of imagination within evolving socio-cultural landscapes.

Aspirational Politics: From Nationalism to Individualism

The villager’s rise highlights a broader political shift in India. Traditional nationalism, which prioritised collective identity over individual ambition, has given way to a new politics of aspiration. This era is defined by the individual pursuit of success, often at the intersection of markets, morality, and divine belief. The villager’s story embodies this transition, where personal achievements resonate with collective dreams, redefining the cultural and political ethos of the nation.

As aforesaid, Craig Jeffrey’s study of youth politics provides further context for this shift. He explains how aspirations are not just expressions of hope but also acts of resistance against systemic barriers. The Gurugram villager’s journey, shaped by both strategy and struggle, exemplifies this dynamic, where individual success challenges traditional hierarchies and creates new social possibilities.

The Interplay of Rationality and Wonder

The villager’s story illustrates the coexistence of rationality and wonder in modern India, reflecting Gordon Graham’s argument in The Re-Enchantment of the World: Art versus Religion (Oxford, 2007) that art and religion serve as vital spheres of meaning in human life. Graham critiques the disenchantment of modernity and highlights how art has risen as an alternative to religion, providing coherence and purpose in a fragmented world​.

Similarly, the villager’s ability to combine divine faith with practical strategies mirrors how modern aspirations are rooted in cultural and spiritual traditions. Just as art inspires through creation and contemplation, the villager’s journey shows how traditional values and spiritual beliefs continue to energise human agency within a rapidly modernising society.

This synthesis aligns with Joshua Landy and Michael Saler’s idea, in The Re-Enchantment of the World (Stanford University Press, California, 2009), of “secular magic,” where rationality and enchantment coexist, offering mystery and transcendence without relying solely on religion​.

The villager’s belief in divine grace alongside his pragmatic approach echoes this interplay, demonstrating how modernity fosters wonder within rational frameworks. Just as Landy and Saler discuss how secular spaces like sports and mass culture evoke awe and purpose, the villager’s story reveals how cultural traditions adapt to new opportunities, creating hybrid identities. This dynamic blend of rational and spiritual dimensions reflects a pluralistic modernity where aspirations thrive amid a rich tapestry of meaning and wonder.

Conclusion

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The Source’s Authority and Ownership of the Article is Claimed By THE STUDY IAS BY MANIKANT SINGH