Jugaad Authorities: Hyperlocal Peers and Trajectories of Vernacular Power in Contemporary Delhi

This article analyses the figures of four contemporary Sufi peers who have established a formally unrecognized yet authoritative position despite their lack of ties to established Sufi transmission lineages or access to either symbolic or concrete capital. These peers operate in the lower strata of Delhi’s urban society, in ‘economies of despair’, composed of concentric circles of unfavourable life circumstances, limited resources, under-recognition and the deepening communal divide. Through a methodological combination of ethnography, participatory observation and textual analysis I examine their life trajectories to better understand the ways in which hyperlocal peers craft jugaad (improvised) authorities; the issue of space—the aspiration to exert power over a shrine and the transformation of the space, in some cases, from concrete to virtual. Finally, I address the transformations in peeri-mureedi relations in the neoliberal era through the prism of the consumer society.