Our angry young men

It was apparent that he had got a raw deal. His disappointment had made him curse himself for having returned to India. He had convinced himself that th-ere was no future for the next generation. The sooner the young quit India, the better it would be for them, he argued. His disillusionment is not difficult to analyse. Indeed, the opportunities for employm-ent have lessened and the avenues for business or other openings have shrunk. The state itself has no money to invest. In a country where 80 per cent of the Ce-ntral Budget goes to cover salaries, subsidies and the payment of interest, there is little left for development. The states are far worse because most of them borrow from banks to pay salaries to public servants.

I could still find arguments like the one that the bureaucracy had got bloated and that it needed to be cut by half. But I had no words in reply whenhe said that the rule of law had more or less collapsed and that ethical considerations inherent in public behaviour had disappeared. He found that criminals had a lot more power than the police, and invariably got away with extortion, loot and ev-en murder.

I wished I could contradict him. But he was telling the truth. Tyra-nts have sprouted at all levels. Their claim to authority is largely bas-ed on their proximity to the seats of power. Th-ere is not a single political party which does not look the other way when it discovers its own followers tainted.

But why was the yo-ung man worried over the future of his children? What about other children? I find that the elite all over the country has more or less the same attitude. It has focussed attention on itself and there is no consideration for others. There is no feeling of social obligation. It has no desire to act according to what is right and has no realisation of what is wrong. Since there is no end to the elite8217;s greed, it lacks the verysensitivity to appreciate the pain of those who have very little.

I told the young man that my generation might not have achieved much. But, it did try. It may not have scaled many a height. But it followed a value system wh-ich is not visible now. 8220;You are running away even before joining the battle8221;, I told him. What can one say about people who have had the best of opportunities but want to run away from the country on encountering the first difficulty? Still worse are those who go away only because the quality of life is better in the West.

Brain drain is not new. Lately, it has incr-eased. Ninety per cent of the top students from the Indian Institutes of Technology take the next plane to the US after getting the degree. True, universities and business houses at the other end are offering them positions which India does not have or cannot afford. 8220;You ca-nnot stop us in the na-me of the country8221;, one bright mathematician told me some time ago. 8220;Why should not we live well? Why should we be pinneddown to something inferior all the time?8221; He found no reason to stay back in India if he could not 8220;enjoy a good life8221;. 8220;The country needs us, we don8217;t need the country8221;, he said.

The young men and women are conscious that they cannot go beyond a point in the jobs they hold in foreign countries. Some have suffered discrimination and some have found lack of trust. Still they would rather serve in heaven than rule in hell, their attitude suggests. 8220;The pay pa-cket matters, not the mumbo-jumbo of nationalism8221; is their refrain.

In the midst of elections, the debate on such an attitude is out of place. Politicians are too deeply engaged in the battle for power and ascendancy to think of larger questions. Still if the middle class has little stake in the country8217;s future, it is a matter of concern.

In our effort to ensure material prospe-rity, we have not paid any attention to the spiritual element in human nature. There is something wrong in the upbringing at ho-mes and in schools when the youth isinterested only in careers, not in the betterment of society. In a country where religion is being increasingly equated with nationalism, the right kind of ideas may be difficult to inculcate. Still it is a serious situation, which may change with rapid economic growth.

What I wanted to tell the young man, who accosted me in the park, was that my generation did not think even for a moment of quitting India. The problems the country faced were, to some extent, common to other countries but there were a few problems for which we had no parallel or historical precedents elsewhere. What had happened in the past in the industrially advanced countries had little bearing on us today. As a matter of fact, the countries that are advanced today were economically better off than India today, in terms of per capita income, before their industrialisation began.

But, while considering the economic aspects of our problems, we must remember the basic approach of peaceful means to their solution. Perhaps we might alsokeep in view the old ideal of life force which was the inner base of everything. Before I could say all this, the young man had left. I pray that the children of today do not tell him when they grow up that his generation had cheated them.