Article begins
Navigating Uncertainty, Structural Inequalities, and Ethical Responsibility
Marginalized students imagine, perform, and reconfigure their futures in the state-run “Gurukulam” schools.
“Today Aspiring, Tomorrow Inspiring”
– Fieldnote, 2022
The first day of my fieldwork in 2022, I walked through the rusted, broken gates of one of the schools in the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TGSWREIS) network of campuses. The school premises, classroom walls, and even notebook covers were painted with motivational quotations such as “Aim High, Dream Big” (Figure 1), “Be the Change Maker,” and “Never Give Up.” Posters of premier universities, including Cambridge, Stanford, and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), were prominently displayed, each marked with the distance from the school. For example, posters read: “University of Cambridge-UK, rank 4, School to University of Cambridge: 7,977 km,” “IIT-Kharagpur, rank 3, School to IIT-Kharagpur: 1,643 km,” “University of Stanford-California, rank 3, School to Stanford University: 13,813 km” (Figure 2).
Through these aspirational infrastructures, elite institutions were making their way into students’ everyday lives. These images are not merely decorative; they function as material, spatial, and symbolic infrastructures that actively shape and restructure students’ imagination of the future. Here, distance itself becomes pedagogical: a calculated distance reminder that no goal is too far, and that, for a TGSWREIS student (known as a Gurukulam student), the sky is the limit.
The TGSWREIS is a network of government-run residential schools and junior colleges across Telangana, India. These schools are often called “The Society” or “Gurukulam.” The Society was originally started in 1984 in the state of Andhra Pradesh as Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (APSWREIS). After the formation of Telangana state in 2014, it became TGSWREIS. Today, the Society operates over 268 Social Welfare schools for Dalit students (Scheduled Caste, SC) and 188 Tribal Welfare schools for Tribal/Adivasi students (Scheduled Tribe, ST).
The Society’s caste- and gender-segregated residential campuses aim to provide holistic and high-quality education to marginalized children, especially Dalit and Tribal children, that is on par with education for advantaged children. The schools promote education as a means of development for marginalized communities (Figure 3). The official motto of the Society is “Educate, Excel, Empower.” The vision is to create confident, competitive, and globally oriented students for the 21st century. The Society also promotes school values such as teamwork, innovation, integrity, responsibility, equality, and goal setting. These values are displayed on walls and are part of students’ everyday learning (Figure 4).
TGSWREIS plays an even greater role in choreographing the aspirations of the marginalized students through the everyday spaces, schedules, and aspirational infrastructures. The institutional scripts at TGSWREIS emphasize specific aspirations not only through the curriculum but also through coaching for competitive exams such as the Indian Institutes of Technology Joint Entrance Examinations (IIT-JEE) and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)—exams that play a pivotal role in producing the “hegemonic aspirations.” Nevertheless, my 18 months of ethnographic research at TGSWREIS revealed that student aspirations are neither static nor linear.
Sketching the Futures
After a few months of fieldwork, I met Ranjith (Pseudonym), a 12th-grade student. He came from a poor tribal family. Ranjith shared, “Before coming to the Gurukulam school, I never had any dream… I don’t know any competitive exams.” But when he entered the TGSWREIS school, he said his life changed. “Now I wanted to become an IITian,” he confidently said. “Coming here, I learned what life is. Anything can be achieved if I do hard work.” When I asked him what it means to be a Gurukulam student, Ranjith replied, “A Gurukulam student means to be self-controlled, never give up, can do anything, a risk taker, disciplined, always learning, and hardworking.”
A week later, I visited Ranjith in the computer lab on the school’s first floor. On his desktop, a quote flashed: “Kill them with success and bury them with a smile” (Figure 6). He had spent long hours in the lab preparing for the IIT-JEE, a wristwatch constantly on his wrist to track his study schedule (Figure 7). Despite his efforts and discipline, he confessed to being confused, uncertain whether he would ever pass the exam. However, what drove him was the belief that his hard work will lead to success. As he said, “At least I am trying for something bigger.”
As part of a classroom activity called “Draw Your Future,” students were asked to sketch their imagined future trajectories. Most mapped aspirations along institutional scripted pathways that included passing competitive exams, pursuing higher education, and securing professional careers, such as engineering or medicine. Ranjith also drew his chart with the aim of becoming a computer science engineer. His aspirational artifact traced a seemingly linear journey from his current studies in the Gurukulam to cracking the JEE Advanced, completing a Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech) in Computer Science at IIT Kharagpur, and entering the software industry “with better income.” Yet his drawing also reveals that his journey is not linear or fixed. Instead, he imagines a life with parallel futures—becoming a civil or mechanical engineer, starting an online business, marrying by the age of twenty-five, and, in his own words, pursuing his ultimate goal: “being happy with friends and caring [for] family” until “last breath.”