Why does so much of the political process lack resonance with so many young people? As our poll shows, politics doesn’t seem to address the worries of the youth in any particularly reassuring way. Yet all the classic signs of a disconnect between this class of voters and office-seekers only constitute the big picture.
Outlook’s correspondents fanned across the country and dug deeper, asking young people across a variety of backgrounds, incomes and geographies how they might want to change the world they were in. We found that apathy at aggregate level merely obscures a huge array of concerns that trouble them.
Perhaps trouble is a weak word, because a lot of these young men and women are downright livid; with politicians, with the government, with the system. Their issues range from temples to global respect. And this concern is increasingly manifesting itself in various shades of anger, across the spectrum from cynical disaffection to outright contempt.
Luckily for democracy, not all of them are willing to let go of a basic faith in electoral politics. Not yet.
Raman Sharma, Neeraj Khanna, Piyush Malik
Late teens, engineering students, Delhi
A lazy afternoon’s conversation, interrupted. What happens when young Delhi men take time off from discussing the relative merits of lattes to talk about changing their world?
Neeraj: Well, for one, I’d like to throw out all these netas and get in some hot-blooded young ones.
Raman: Yeah, Vajpayee is great but his government is another thing. These old fogeys haven’t changed anything fundamental.
Piyush: We want people who understand our problems. About education, jobs, visas.
Raman: Exactly. Neeraj and I are engineering students and we see all these people who cheat their way into colleges.
Neeraj: If they can’t provide us jobs here they should ease passport procedures. Then we can at least go out and make a living.
Piyush: Everyone is going out to study, which just says that there is something fundamentally wrong with our education system. We should completely rework it.
Raman: We have the guts to change things but it can’t be done politically. It’s no use voting. We should start our own party...
Neeraj:...at least we can persuade the EC to have some criteria for candidates. They should at least be graduates and an upper age limit that will force parties to recruit new blood.
Raman: And oh, yes! I want to invent a water car, have you seen fuel prices? I can’t afford to drive. That has to change....
Anushiya R. Mabel
18, Madras Christian College
"For the underprivileged, politics is very important. I want to politically sensitise non-Dalits since many of them are not even aware of the various issues that affect them. Their worlds and ours rarely meet, and they only nurse negative notions about Dalits. As Ambedkar said, untouchability is not just religious but also economic. Economic untouchability is a major problem today. I came from Tirunelveli to Chennai to study political science and get a better understanding of such problems. There are many like me who want to change the world and overthrow the caste order. But is it possible?"
Rukmini Sengupta
24, MBA student, Calcutta
"I wish we could persuade the US to be less of a Big Brother, and find effective ways to combat terrorism. What’s good is that as Indians, we no longer feel left out of global affairs. I feel we’re going to become even more relevant in global terms in the future.That’s a change I’d like to see happen in my lifetime—I’d like to walk the streets of Lisbon, Washington or Rio feeling like a world citizen, not defined by my skin, my accent or my passport.But I’m worried about the global control of big corporations and the all-pervasive corruption in our society. As for poverty, disease, illiteracy—will we be ever rid of them? I’d love to see that happen, but doubt it will, this century at least."
Ashish Awasthi
18, RSS member, Lucknow
"I look forward to a stronger Hindu identity. It is essential that our traditions remain intact while we move towards development. There should not be any more "anti-majority" secularism. It means respect for all religions, but I see opportunists forsaking their religious beliefs to pamper another.
I see a related problem in textbooks. For instance, Akbar was a foreigner who took over our country through conquests. Rana Pratap was a true ‘Bhartiya’ fighting patriotically for his land, so he should be on a higher pedestal. A true India can only be formed under leaders like Narendra Modi, who adhere to their views despite all pressures."
Anupam Shukla, 19, law student, adds: "I want my world to be at par with America, Great Britain and China. But traditions must remain intact. I want a party with good foreign policies and high-tech vision, but at the same time I wish to see a great Ram mandir built inAyodhya."
Maheej Mutte
20, MBBS student, Hyderabad
"The bureaucracy in this country must go. Influenced by the public sector, even the private sector is getting lethargic. Fast results are just not there. We need to get more accountability into our system.
Corruption is a way of life, but given that, politicians must also perform. It is time we set some minimum qualification standards for our politicians and stop voting for people who only make promises at election time. We need development, but development must come first in the villages, and not just in the cities."
Shaheerji Ahmed
25, Muslim Youth League, Thiruvananthapuram
"I am optimistic that a change will come sooner rather than later.My hopes for that lie in my generation. There is a strong anti-establishment sentiment among the youth, though this is unfortunately not being channelised in the right direction.
Unlike the last generation, we are watching anti-imperialist developments taking place throughout the world, thanks to the media.I believe the youth now has a sense of direction, with a new solidarity emerging against communalism and cultures that hark back to medievalism.These young people are pro-change and pro-poor.
I would call the current political dispensation a chronological aberration. The pogrom in Gujarat and upheavals in the rest of the country are the price we have paid for being lax. If the exit poll trends are to be believed, we could soon have a leadership that will put the nation back on its rails.
I do not share the pessimism of the tech-savvy upper middle class and the new rich youth for whom landing a white-collar job is everything in life. That kind of shining is destructive in the long run. Unless there is a shine in every family, the country won’t shine either."
Josaline Daniel
18, househelp, New Delhi
Will you vote?
Yes, this is my first time and I am very excited about it. I’ll vote for ‘Kamal’.
Which party does the ‘Kamal’ represent?
I don’t know.
Have you heard of the BJP? Do you know who Atal Behari Vajpayee is?
No.
What party does the ‘Hand’ represent?
Janata Party.
Why are you voting for the ‘Kamal’?
They helped us when we had problems at home last time.
If you could change the world what would you do?
I would get rid of poverty.
What do you want to do with your life?
I don’t want to get married before I am 23. I want to learn how to do threading and work at a beauty parlour. Actually, I wanted to be a doctor but I couldn’t study after the eighth.
Smita Mitra, Samit Basu, Ishita Moitra in Delhi, S. Anand in Chennai, Sutapa Mukerjee in Lucknow, Savitri Choudhury in Hyderabad andJohn Mary in Thiruvananthapuram
