Young India Needs Sense of Purpose Not SOPs

We talk about young people as if they are a species to be studied and managed instead of mainstreaming and engaging with them as the largest stakeholder of our polity

Published in Indian Express

60% of our country is under the age of 30 years. Yet there is little substantive participation of our young in defining the direction of our country. The average age of our MPs at 56 years is more than double the median age of 25 years. Statistics are not available for other groups who shape our politics - academics, activists, media - but a quick mental check of the top names in each area is indicative of similar underrepresentation of youth. And this is reflected in our public discourse. We talk about young people as if they are a species to be studied and managed - how will they vote? how to skill them? how to give them jobs? - instead of mainstreaming and engaging with them as the largest stakeholder of our polity.

Talk to young people across the country and what stands out is their feeling of being talked at, pushed around, and being dismissed: we know what is best for you, you don't have experience. You lack judgement. Focus on your studies. Get a job, settle down. Your time will come. And young people respond to rejection with rejection. Ask ten young people outside of the elite circuit about political developments in the country in the last month - most will struggle to respond. Reference political leaders in various fields and ask them to tell their stand on some topical issue. They will shrug. Name the top public intellectuals in the country and most may not even have heard of them. We can of course say that young people today are selfish, they don't care. They are too distracted, they lack commitment. But this is at best a partial truth. The larger political class and process simply have not been able to establish relevance for young people. Youth today are responding to the cues and incentives around them; they are paying attention to those who are reaching out to them.

Ask a young person to name the top five actors and s/he can. Sports statistics? Yes, sir. Specifications of latest phones? Indeed. The script of the latest hit movie? Song lyrics? Of course. Young people are very much paying attention. Just not to us. See too, the dedication of the young person who fancies her chance at celebrityhood practising a dance move, the boy spending time in the gym. There is no lack of commitment there. Young people are searching for recognition, for an identity in which they can take pride in, to belong. And because there are no accessible pathways to belong and be recognised in constructive politics, they are choosing other options. Association with a celebrity, styling themselves like him/her gives a sense of belonging. Phones, clothes, other consumer items are increasingly linked to their sense of identity and self. To be “discovered” in many ways offers a better probability of escaping their circumstances than studying in a dusty college somewhere or working in a dead-end job. Thuggery, bullying, majoritarianism offers a sense of power when as a whole there is a dispiriting lack of agency.

We cannot ignore Young India if we care about our democracy. Nor can we pick and choose the issues we want to prioritise, our politics has to be representative of their needs and aspirations as a whole. We have to talk about the things that matter to them in a language that they understand. At the very least this means prioritising the educational, employment and identity concerns of young people in our everyday discourse and politics. Yet a few examples in each area bring out the skewed nature of our discourse.

Equal educational opportunity has become a purely rhetorical statement, somewhat like the way beauty pageant aspirants reference world peace. 70% of our higher education is in the private sector and increasingly even public universities are getting privatised with the onset of “self-financing” courses making a complete mockery of the role of education as a tool for socio-economic mobility. Entire universities are completely notional: there are no classes, students study in coaching centers. Three-year courses are taking up to 5 years to finish. The examination system is a complete sham. Students are paying exorbitant fees and graduate saddled with debt without prospect of a job. Yet our focus on these issues is episodic, that too only when there’s some immediate crisis. Students are the most visible face of a progressing India. With only 1 out of 4 college-age youth in college, they are also the cream of our burgeoning youth population. Our inability to prioritise even the concerns of this subset is indicative of how we are failing our entire youth population.

Similarly, our approach to employment is highly utilitarian. Employment is not just about economics, it is also linked to one’s identity. Yet there is very little conversation about how to imbue meaning and pride in the lives of those at the lowest end of the work chain. We want those who work with us to demonstrate “work ethic” – reliability, punctuality, diligence – but it is not clear what exactly is gained for the young person in being all these three things? Will my domestic worker advance to chief domestic worker or head of dishwashing company if she were the best domestic worker. If we want the vast majority of our young people who will be herded into low-end jobs to imbibe these virtues of collective living, then we need to create those avenues for them where these will be recognised and rewarded. We have to acknowledge the essential role of young people in nation-building and create meaningful opportunities for them to engage with politics and governance. This is important because young people suffer from additional barriers to entry because of their age and inexperience. At a minimum, we need to ensure their representation and create an institutional architecture for youth to get involved in their local community.

Ultimately all of us have a desire for self-expression, to be part of something bigger than ourselves. If collectively, those of us who have the power to shape platforms and narratives, are not able to make our politics representative of the needs and aspirations of our youth, they will simply look for meaning and succour elsewhere. The consequences will not be good for our country.