For Patna8217;s youth, life is elsewhere

At a time like this, when the city youths would be busy electioneering for their select brand of netas8217; just five years ago, they sit in Gandhi Maidan watching the children play cricket, the couples in love occupy the Khumrar Park or for those who can afford, surf the net. Simply playing it cool.

For a change, politics is not a happening thing for the youth in the Capital of country8217;s one of the most politically active States. The election campaigns of all the major political parties here have had the youth element missing. Statistically, there aren8217;t many left for that purpose.

A constant erosion of city youth to metros such as Delhi, Calcutta and Mumbai over the years has virtually rendered the city to a state where the absence of the most productive population is actually visible.

Leave alone the elite residential areas, even the average middle-class colonies in the city have the youth missing. You see school-going children, middle-age couples or retired persons but not young men and women.

8220;Almost all of my school friends left Patna for higher studies in either Bangalore or Delhi and have now settled there,8221; says Vikas Aggarwal who runs an Internet business.

For those who remain, the life is tough. 8220;There are no new industries coming up in the state. Those which were there have either turned sick or have bundled up. For qualified youth, Bihar is certainly not the right place to rise up in life,8221; explains Ramesh Yadav, a student of the Patna College.Their argument is reflected in the city newspapers where the classified columns practically run dry. And for whatever little options are there, the salaries match with the lowest in the industry.

8220;We have no hopes of a bright future in the State. Somewhere inside we do feel sad that our counterparts in states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have much smoother path to rise to prosperity. For us, it is struggle all the way,8221; say Atul Kumar and Bhavesh Chandra, final-year MBBS students in the Patna Medical College.

They say that for them politics was not an area of interest. 8220;But now nothing interests us here anymore,8221; say the students wearing a faint smile of despair on their faces.

Politics has left Patna8217;s campuses. The city colleges which were once abuzz with student politicians and slogans now wear a deserted look. The Patna University campus looks no different. Once witness to the aggressive student movements led by political contemporaries like Nitish Kumar, Laloo Prasad Yadav and Sushil Kumar Modi, the university is closed for the election. So is the mind of the youth. The weeklies like Jan started by Ram Manohar Lohia for the youth closed down a few years ago. Some other newsletters brought out by students as a part of the socialist movement, have also breathed their last. 8220;The youth movement in Patna, in fact the entire State, has been wiped out and fossilised into the pages of history,8221; admits Prem Kumar Mani, national general secretary of the Janta Dal United.

8220;There are no new leaders emerging in the State. It is sad that there has been an overall decline in the interest of educated youth in politics. We have no youth leaders with a vision for the State,8221; says Mani.

But the youths blame it on the political elders themselves. 8220;We are just sick of the scams and the politicians. Nobody has harmed the people of Bihar than its own leaders. Today when we go out of the State, people of other States treat us as backwards and as unwanted waste of a poor State,8221; says an agitated Shrutikant, student of Bihar National College. 8220;We just want to run out of this system.8221;

So amid poll violence, promises of better future, eradication of jungle raj8217;, the disillusioned youths of Patna want to take a break. Valentine8217;s Day is just one occasion they look forward to celebrate not an Assembly election. 8220;Sad, they now prefer to guzzle Coke, watch movies and do masti than politics,8221; says Mani.