What does the youth of India want? Engaging the youth..
Youthfulness demands a plethora of young ideas and an equal amount of enthusiasm to materialise the same. Youthfulness is not a disregard of traditions, but the urge to knit together the wilting old with the blazing new. Youthfulness brings into consideration the energy to break the shackles of dead habit.
However, engaging into fruitless communal arguments, involving in heinous crimes and fighting each other to death over seemingly petty issues, the youthful denizens of India are apparently the strongest setbacks for the economic force. The workforce, labour force and human resource of India is being left largely unused. Where did we, as a nation, lose the fire of Bhagat Singh and Khudiram Bose? Where did we lose the courage of Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose? Where, in the path of development, did we kill developing energy within our youth?
The meaningless censorship on thoughts is indubitably the most crucial cause behind the loss of ideas. The youth of India is desirous of creative freedom, rather than a mere financial exchange. The average Indian youth today is armed with a macrocosmic universe of information in the guise of the World Wide Web, and this empowerment has allowed them to criticise the negatives of the system. This criticism, in due order, must lead to new ideologies, frameworks and functions.
The degradation of nature, increasing pollution, declining health status and degrading quality of education requires to be checked by the youth. The youth of India needs to learn to put the dynamism of youth before the stagnation of the societal norms, in order to give rise to a interwoven juxtaposition of nature and technology, people friendly and pro-poor healthcare and best of education at the grass-root level. Youth of India needs to draw inspiration from personalities like Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg, who transcend the boundaries of age and strive to bring change in the world.
Familial pressure, community standards and societal objections has led to a loss of happy youth. With the unemployment rate touching 8.5% as of October 2019, and a vast unbridged gap between investment and return of human resources, the youth today is struggling with means to sustain themselves. The World Happiness Report of 2019 avows the not-so-astonishing decline in mental health among Indian citizens. Ranking at the 140th position globally, the youth of India invariably and inevitably needs to be happy and content. Happiness is fundamental to human existence, and the lack of it puts a straightforward symbol of interrogation on the ways our country is catering to the youth, their dreams, aspirations, and interests.
In the same breath, it is important to also underscore the involvement of youth into the political arena, in order to have their goals put on the table and pursued with interest. This aspect is being increasingly condemned and put under the radar, with baseless, meaningless accusations and labels put on students across the country, from Jawaharlal Nehru University to Banaras Hindu University. As fee hikes, privatisation and biased media keep playing the most disgraceful role against the future torchbearers of the nation, the onus to fight back lies on the youth themselves.
The energy to bring change is the hallmark of youthfulness. Positive vibes, optimism, awakening and reawakening form the trademark qualities of youth. Echoing this very spirit of life, the youth today refuses to be bound. The youth today shrieks in the voice of protest. The youth today has risen, awoken and is unstoppable, for the youth today knows his rights and fulfils his duties
- Shaoni Chakraborty
