| |
|
|
Young Blood Matters: Welcome To India. Better Call It The `Young India'
By ugesh sarkar, Section Young India & Indians  Youth power is said to be taking over. As we approach the forthcoming Parliamentary Elections, the widespread disenchantment among India's youth, is an issue, which we can no longer afford to brush under the carpet It's a young country, bubbling with youth. It's a young country all set to stand at par with its big daddy. And it's also a young country that carries a huge ugly belly with poverty and unemployment as its babies. Wondering about the name? No prizes for guessing, it's the world's largest democracy with about 51 % of its population of 1.15 billion younger than 25. Welcome to India. Better call it the `Young India'. And with the fact that tens of millions of these Indians are expected to vote for the first time this spring, in India's parliamentary elections, not much is required to explain the role of youth punch in this election. The last Parliamentary elections saw some promising youngsters making it to the parliament and taking the house by storm a couple of times (read Rahul Gandhi's speech in parliament, Omar Abdullah's five-minute flow of strong words and a few more of them), but the bigger question is, did all of that affect how the country functions? Categorically the answer is both yes and no. `No' because few young guns who are often treated as the guys with `hot heads and less experience' cannot always influence the senior party leaders and govern the policymaking. So that way nothing sweeping happened even though the ruling party had a good number of promising young leaders. However having said that, the young leaders did manage to shape and change a couple of things. The modernisation of post offices across the country is a simple example of that thanks to Union Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology, Jyotiraditya Scindia. And very few would disagree on the growing clout of Rahul Gandhi among the urban and rural masses. And mind you, it's not happening just in vacuum. According to a recent media report, with 65 % of India's voters being under the age of 35 (including one hundred million first-time voters), the young make up a sizeable chunk of the electorate and the Indian electorate of 2009 will be the youngest since 1952. So that way thoughts of young Indians having an inclination towards the young leaders is quite obvious. A clear cut indication of the fact is the projection of young Rahul Gandhi as the face of the Congress against the 81-year-old veteran, L K Advani. So does that mean that the youth has arrived in Indian politics and the country is set to witness a drastic change? Ask the voters, and not many agree to that. They believe that Indian politics is undergoing a phase of transformation exactly the way Indian cricket has been undergoing for a couple of years now, where old and the young have played together and took the team to heights. Source: www.dayafterindia.com Young Blood Matters: Welcome To India. Better Call It The `Young India' Click On "Full Story" For More...
Nupur Sharma, president of the Delhi University Student's Union (DUSU) says, "Just singing the youth song is not going to change the scenario of the way Indian politics operates. It's a great thing that currently with the youth power India has, it can do wonders. However, the youths need to understand their responsibilities. Having a face that shines in the vigour of youth alone won't make the country a developed one, thinking practically and logically has to take a front seat. After all politics is not a ramp walk."
And Nupur is not alone who believes that the participation of the Indian youth in politics is extremely important, but its involvement needs to be in the right direction. In fact even Advani while speaking at a recently organised seminar on National Values Crisis and its Redressal by the Foundation for Restoration of National Values said that it was necessary for the best and the brightest among the youth to join politics and serve the nation. And at 81, Advani knows what he means. One can call it the Obama syndrome (the US President used all kinds of social networking, micro blogging, video sharing techniques to promote his campaign and won the elections) or a reality but both major Indian political parties in the world's largest democracy are trying to win over youths, through the Internet or through some perceived hip quotient. Unlike in the past Indian elections, old is out and young is in. Advani was recently photographed pumping iron in a gym recently, and one of at least five Facebook groups devoted to him describes him as The Iron Man of India. He is also writing on his own blog, all in a bid to show that he is the fresh face of India, the man who can appeal to young people. He has also launched a college campaign called Advani@Campus, in which leaders of different fields will go to colleges and preach the benefits of Advani's party. And so is the Congress carrying out campaigns, putting up billboards saying, "In the footsteps of the past, we are looking at the future," with a picture of Rahul Gandhi wearing a Nehru waistcoat, like the one named after his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru and a lot more. All of which clearly aims to woo the young voters. But in this mad race, very few political parties are actually voicing out pragmatic solutions to the issues that dot the youth's mind in India which include, better infrastructure, inflation, national security, terrorism and of course better employment opportunities (which indeed becomes a priority in times of global meltdown). JNU Student's Union (JNUSU) president Sandeep Singh who spoke to this correspondent from Buxar in Bihar where he is campaigning for a political party, said, "Just alluring the youth and seeking their vote is a trend every political party is following in this election, but the youths need to be careful in making the right choice. After all at the end of the day, every single vote counts in making a change." And to ensure that the young voters are rightly informed, there are lots of campaigns also going on (Read Catch 'em young). But when it comes to choosing a leader as the PM, the youths have too many names in their mind. A final year Delhi University student of English (Hons), Anupam Anand says, "We can easily relate to A R Rahman, Viswanathan Anand, the soldier who lays down his life for the country, even MS Dhoni, but not with the political leaders who live and feed on sycophancy." Anand is not alone. Abhijeet Das, a young IT professional who will vote for the first time this year says, "I am excited for my voting rights but at the same time, disappointed that I can't name a single politician whom I believe that can lead India to the right path. A country of billion and we don't have a name whom we can bank upon. It's a shame."
A data titled National Election Study 2004 from the Centre for Developing Societies justifies the anger voiced out by young bloods like Abhijeet. The data says the number of young MPs in the Lok Sabha have been constantly decreasing since the first ever General Election. It says what was 140 in 1952, came down to 112 in 1984 and finally in the last general election there were just 61 young guns who represented the masses in the world's largest democracy. The youth representation in the political scenario certainly needs to get a shot in the arm. Unless that happens, the so-called Young India will continue to have that gap between the leaders who are in their eighties and the youngsters with fire in their bellies, but searching for the right direction. Nevertheless as the election fever grips the country, and the show stretches like a Bollywood movie, the youths of India need to put their thoughts and perception in the right selection of the candidates. After all, the pappu (referring to the Bollywood number Pappu can't dance saala) knows the power he has.
|
