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

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. Cet article explore deux programmes pour la jeunesse, YTK (Yuvati/Yuvak Talim Kendra) et IPDC (Integrated Personality Development Course), crees par la BAPS (Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha), une communaute hindoue mondiale. Ces deux programmes s'appuient sur la vision du bien-vivre de la BAPS, tout en integrant les conceptions du succes vehiculees par la mondialisation, en particulier l'idee selon laquelle l'education permet la mobilite economique, ou que les qualites personnelles (motivation, sens de la discipline) favorisent l'aisance materielle. Dans un contexte de neo-liberalisation de l'Inde, les programmes de la BAPS fournissent une boite a outils permettant de satisfaire les aspirations materielles, a travers un travail personnel visant a atteindre un moi ideal. L'approche developpee par la BAPS attire l'attention sur les benefices de l'ascese devotionnelle dans une economie neo-liberale qui suppose une grande reactivite et une flexibilite affective. Notre etude permet de documenter la dimension spirituelle sous-jacente des programmes de developpement personnel, et la mobilisation de la religion dans une perspective entrepreneuriale.