The notion that ‘Young India’ is no longer just a TV jingle selling vests has been around for a while now. More than Pepsi drinkers swear by ‘Youngistan’ — several politicians find it necessary to make token remarks about it. With nearly 10 crore first-time voters expected this time, and talk about how in the next Lok Sabha polls, more than half of the population would be below 24, we have the Leader of the Opposition referring to a hope that “young” voters will fix Indian politics. Rahul Gandhi has taken on the BJP president by emphatically stating he is a “bachcha — like 70 per cent of India” — all apparently to target this young constituency, vast but new, untested; rumoured by turn to be energetic, concerned, apolitical and amorphous.It should have made strategists in our political establishment sit up when the US president-elect thanked the young for “demolishing the myth of the apathy of their generation”. On a freshly delimited map, the presence of the “untested” youth vote should be a terribly destabilising thought for party leaders. Even analysts are having problems adopting the word “young”. The first problem relates to defining what “young” is. When do you stop being young? Is 35 the new 40, or is it the Youth Congress (read flexible) age limit which must be followed? It is all so unclear that the phrase ‘young Turk’ is randomly hurled at any MP who is not yet sixty.“Young Turk” has a specific history and context. It evolved as a phrase used for young Turkish Parliamentarians in the early twentieth century, who formed coalitions across political and ideological divides to prevent the power of Parliament under the Ottoman Empire being curbed. So Turkish nationalists, and Turkish secularists (years before Turkey got its Ataturk) — all formed alliances to ensure that elected representatives didn’t find their voice snuffed out by a fearful though crumbling monarchy.In the early to mid-seventies in India, in the Congress party, there was future PM Chandrashekhar who with Mohan Dharia — both young then — formed a socialist faction; tacitly, many say, they helped Indira Gandhi emerge on her own and battle the old guard in the Congress. The Indian “young Turks”, through Parliament or outside, would force debates on issues like corruption or rising prices.How much are our present young Parliamentarians doing this, or even telling us what they stand for ? We know very little about their ideas or their utility. At a time when the trump card to win an election appears to be a party or coalition’s ability to energise youngsters to vote for them, there seems to be no coherent mechanism across parties to craft a strategy and terminology in sync with the young, one which can address their problems. Attracting youngsters seems to mean setting up a website if you are a BJP leader, and shaking hands with school students in Bhatinda if you are a Congress one. (If you are a Left leader, you are likely to dismiss this dimension completely.)Much has been said about the lack of inner-party democracy in India, but what will prove more damaging is the absence of a mechanism to absorb changing ideas and aspirations into old world party structures. In cities and even small-towns, youngsters laugh at even the Resident Welfare Associations being run by the 70-pluses, some of whom won’t even allow children to kick a football in the park. But that is just a small indicator of the larger problem, of information from young people taking ages to percolate anywhere near the top, to those who decide. The ‘youth bulge’, a controversial term apparently first used by a French thinker in the early 1970s called Gaston Bouthol, was meant to reflect the demographic state in which one-third of people are between 20-24. Another European scholar, Gunnar Heinsohm, used it to explain in an even more controversial book written in 2003 how war was a direct consequence of the young and the restless. The Europeans could reflect, read and theorise on it, as they had admittedly entered the age of the middle-aged, but in India, the “youth bulge” (for the want of a better phrase) appears to be upon us, and the least our politics can do is try and adapt. With student elections banned in several north Indian universities, or else a farce, another useful barometer of how young voters (students at least) are thinking is not available as an option. Apparently, much money (at least before the economic slowdown) was reported to have been committed by the two major parties to commission frenetic surveys and to set about a media campaign. How much will still be committed to ‘research issues’ for parties is not very clear, but what is clear is that of all variables in the mix, the one certainty seems to be the importance of the youth vote. Now whether it will be a decision to continue in the comfortable old ways; or whether, in the two or three months we have before polls, there will be inner-party churning across parties to alter the discourse may only become clear once the big six finish voting. seema.chishti@expressindia.com
