India is my country. Filled with many religions, castes, cultures and people it is known for its rich diversity of humanity.India’s young people are talented and educated. They have great ambition and vision for the nation as well as their personal life. Even they are ready to migrate to another country in order to accumulate money. They are hard workers, family lovers, committed citizens and good followers of religions. I am one among them.
In addition, they have enormous potential to lead but always follow someone. They have good knowledge but never speak out. They always wanted very good political leadership but always stay away from politics except voting in the public election. They are very creative but never start anything new. They are courageous but never challenge anything. They are rebellious but always follow the stereotypical customs and unequal social structure. They always dream for a better world but never stop dreaming and start working to achieve it. I am one among them
Yes, Indian youth are like hibernating computers, they are so powerful, intelligent, and swift but they should wake up and start up. On the whole, in this essay I am trying to explore Indian youth and their problems with special regard to politics. To approach this issue systematically, first I am going to study their present status which help us to understand them better and secondly, finding their crucial problems in order to understand the reason for this potential group’s lack of political contribution and finally suggesting some helpful practical and policy recommendations which will empower their political contribution as well as political inclusion.
Current scenario
It is estimated that some 47% of India’s current 1 billion populations is under the age of 20, and teenagers among them number about 160 million. By 2015, Indians under 20 will make up 55% of the population.[1] It is one of the significant facts that India has to celebrate. Youth base of a nation is the backbone of its political, social and economic power. However, here, Indian youth are tremendously contributing in social and economical arena and greatly sidelined in political arena. I always wonder why this paradox of exclusion and alienation? For example the current prime minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh aged 76 (Date of birth: September 26, 1932)[2], L.K.Advani, the present opposition party leader and the proposed prime ministerial candidate from the opposition party for the upcoming general election in 2009 aged 81(Date of birth: 8 November 1927)[3], and M Karunanidhi, the chief minister of my state, Tamilnadu aged 84 (Date of birth: 3 June 1924)[4] . The top politicians and policy makers of our countries are more than 70’s, generally the retirement age is 58 in India and maximum it can go up to 65. Logically speaking, they all are supposed to be at their home and taking rest with their families but unfortunately they are running the governments. However, it is very true that the weaker health status of these aged leaders which creates a narrow mindedness and an insecure feeling about the future of their political party and the family blocks the way for youth participation in politics. Rahul Gandhi, one of the young politicians and a high ranked policy maker of India admitted this fact honestly and he said “The youth want to join politics but don’t know the way. Once they enter politics, they don’t find it clean. They are confused about politics and it looks as if there is a wall between them and politics. We have to break this wall.”[5] This is the primary problem, inIndia politics is an exclusive asset of privileged families and it can be transferred to their generations and no one can inherit it and not even enter into it without their permission. And it is run by as of their family asset .Who is going to break this wall of exclusion and hierarchy?
Young people’s position and problems
In this context, how young people are approaching politics? It is very interesting to note that majority of them believe that it’s a junk and committed to the rogues of the nation. They strongly believe that a good person cannot survive in politics. Madhuri Krishnan, reported about the youth of Bangalore, one of the cosmopolitan cities of India with regard to their last general state election as follows, “Most confessed they knew little about the political system till now, and that they were going through an “undecided” or “confused” period.( to decide to whom to vote)” . It is very helpful to understand the political awareness of the youth in the mega cities. However, I am from a small village andIndia’s most of the population is living in the villages. Through my own experience and study village youth has two positions with regard to politics. One group of people does not know anything about politics. It’s more or like a season (election) for them. Another group of youth blindly follows the local leader and the party on the basis of the petty benefits they receive from them starting from a time of food, liquor and so on. When we speculate this scene it is clear that they are far away from positive politics and policy making. Meantime, we cannot simply blame political parties as well as leaders for youth’s exclusion from politics. If we look deeper the reason is more personal. Predominantly all the youth inIndia run behind money, to be frank they are product of modern consumerism. They love to accumulate money, to live a life of a king. They are selfish and no one is ready to be challenged and sacrificed.
Though we critically look into the current political scenario in India in particular and the whole world in general we have to accept the fact that anyone involves politics needs more courage, commitment and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Indian youth are not ready to put themselves into public life. There is a crude proverb in Tamil (my mother tongue) goes like this “Those who enter into pubic service reach a pathetic death”. It is true to some extent that public service and politics may let you empty handed. Democratic politics based on election is like gambling if you win you are the king if you loose you are the servant. Because in education or employment there is no absolute defeat though there are ups and downs but in election certainly there is winning and failure and the modern youth never wanted to be failed and in contrary, not ready to take that much risk to win also. This kind of pragmatic and selfish indoctrinations bombarded the youth and put their life away from political participation. According to a survey conducted by Coca-Cola (KO), the primary ambition of young Indians from the smallest villages to the largest cities is to ”become rich.” Young people hope to achieve this goal through enterprise and education.[6] Every youth wants to become millionaire like N. R. Narayana Murthyof Infosys and Shiv Nadar of HCL. They certainly believe that money making in a right way is not possible in politics so they honestly concentrate on their work. And it is very interesting to note that all these people are strongly believe that entering into politics may harm their money wallet so it is better to stay away from politics to save money without losing it.
Lesson to learn from Corporations and Global organizations
Everyone knows the power of youth including all politicians in India. Cleverly they use youth as errand boys to fulfill their vested interests and political agenda. However, Indian corporate companies are catching potential youth to develop their business empire. The Reliance, one of world’s biggest Indian companies believes in youth power. There is an appropriate blend of Youth and Experience with approx 50% of the workforce below 40 years of age. The average age of around 34 years continues to move downwards in alignment with the company ethos of providing and entrusting responsibilities at a young age.[7] It has many creative programme to develop their youth. One of the programme called Dronacharya, launched at Jamnagar manufacturing division. Under the programme, a senior person called “Dronacharya” takes under his tutelage 2-3 youngsters – “Arjunas” – and trains them ready to manage independent positions in 3-6 months. This programme has had resounding success with over 1500 “Arjunas” being trained. With the resounding success of this programme, this is now being rolled out to other manufacturing divisions.[8]
Infosys, another biggest software company in India strongly based on youth. It has implemented several programmes to utilize youth power. One of them is Catch Them Young(CTY) CTY is a two-week program that gives school students across India a head start in understanding Information Technology. Top performers in the program get an opportunity to work with our experienced professionals on exciting projects. Since its inception in 1997, CTY has introduced more than 1,000 school students to various facets of IT.[9] Another one to include village students is Project Genesis, it is aimed at addressing the talent requirements of the business process outsourcing industry, by making youth from Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns employable in the IT-enabled Services (ITeS) industry. Genesis includes programs like Train the Trainer and Principal’s Conclave to align curriculum and teaching methodologies at colleges with industry requirements. Started in 2005, Project Genesis has now spread to 407 colleges across five states in India.[10] This is all the success stories of corporate companies. They know they can survive, grow and compete with global power only with youth power. Politician should learn from this corporate success of blending and balancing youth and old in leadership. There is a common complaint that elites are taken by corporations and junks only come to public service and politics. But it is not true. On the whole corporate professionals count less than 1% of total youth population .The real story is corporate companies are pouring out money in their youth force and make them potential professionals. They understand their potential youth are the backbone and are investing generously upon them to develop their skills is the only way to make their companies stronger.
The global organizations like UN and WCC understand the importance of youth. They came to a conclusion that policy making without youth participation is incomplete. And global policies should reach every youth in order to implement effectively. Consequently, UN every year publishes an exclusive youth edition of Human development report (HDR) prepared by global youth for global youth. World Council of Churches, move further and employs global youth in its head quarter as a staff through its highly competitive internship programme and teach them to become global leader and provide them tools and freedom to learn and grow in the international city of Geneva. These are all examples how organizations investing on people understanding their worth. Indian government as well as all the global political institutions should know the value of youth and help them to be part of politics and policy making.
Youth in politics: re framing the future
It is time to accept youth into the politics and give space to them to make politics very fresh and energetic. They are ready to come in but nobody ready to include them into their fellowship of policy making. First, the government should accept youth in their policy making portal they are the fountain of creativity and empowered with modern technological advancements to do things effectively as well as swiftly. In order to give space to youth, the old politicians should retire when they feel its time. At least Indian politicians should retire at 70. Nepotism should be removed in politics through judicial intervention and should be considered as an offense if it is illogically implemented. For example many of the politicians relatives and children into politics without any commitment, knowledge of politics and so on their only criteria is “leader’s relative”. Because of their entry many of the young visionaries chances have disappeared. Indian government should reserve 25% of election seats to young candidates in order to increase youth participation.
Government and political institutions should invest on youth to develop their capacity as politicians by guiding them though eminent politicians and straight forward statesmen .Political leadership training should be given starting from the school level to the college and the importance of politics and policy making should be taught to the students regularly. Meantime, youth should remove their biases against politics and enter into politics in order to create a better world. The attitude of money making and education for employment (encashment) should be changed and they should understand that life is beyond money. They should understand that the politics is one of the best ways to execute good things to the masses. They should consider public service as a noble one and should not be carried away by consumerism alone. They should be ready to be challenged, sacrificed and speak out; it is the need.
Conclusion
The courageous and committed youth who have passion for positive change are everywhere. Finding them, molding them and letting them in the right place matters. Committed governments as well as the political institutions should undertake this noble duty of mentorship to find, cultivate and fix our youth in policy making and politics will result in a new positive world of possibilities and challenges. It is not possible without the help of existing politicians and political structures, the present people should generously accommodate these youngsters in order to revive politics. I hope Indian politics will change with more youth representation and will reach every corner of democracy with all its energy, enthusiasm and creativity.
Written on 2nd February 2009 and posted on 7th January 2011
[1]India’s Youth, Business Week Online : October 11, 1999 http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_41/b3650015.htm
[2] http://www.manmohansingh.org/php/showContent.php?linkid=2
[3] http://www.lkadvani.in/eng/content/view/341/256/
[4] http://www.tn.gov.in/tnassembly/mkarunanidhi.htm
[5] Money power, nepotism obstructing youth entry into politics: Rahul New kerala.com, New Delhi, Feb 8 http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-89334.html
[6] India’s Youth, Business Week Online : October 11, 1999 http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_41/b3650015.htm
[7] http://www.ril.com/html/aboutus/human_resource.html
[8] Ibid ,
[9] http://www.infosys.com/investors/reports-filings/annual-report/annual/Infosys-AR-08.pdf
[10]Ibid,
