Two recent events that hogged the Indian media headlines and gave us fodder for inconclusive debates and discussions prompt me to write this piece. One, the tragic death of a student leader in Calcutta and two, the mass judgment and rejection of India’s young political icon turned whipping boy of the ruling party, on the back of his debut speech as the second in command of the Congress. The two episodes raised several questions in my mind regarding the prospect and participation of India’s youth in its political future.
The former brought back memories of my college days when
pitched battles between the police and students were commonplace in the heart
of Kerala’s capital. In smaller towns where student unrest wasn’t rare, the dissonance
was heard in spurts and it rarely flared and assumed violent proportions of the
kind that could be potentially fatal. Campus politics straddled two levels at
that time. One, to which a majority of youngsters - mostly boys - belonged,
adopted it as an activity that was an essential part of campus existence, one
that gave them macho image among a bevy of girls and a group of peers. It
provided them with all the necessary ingredients to make their stint at college
a blockbuster, complete with stunts and bravado. The student leaders were
heroes in their own right, fighting for privileges as trivial as a clean
canteen to graver things like conducting elections and forming college unions.
Political leanings for the followers were largely a matter of
chance than choice, and allegiance to a faction was more often than not based
on factors that were whimsical than ideological. College elections were high
octave events that were fought with as much verve and fierceness as public
polls. For those in the fray and their committed followers, it was a chance to
foray into the larger aspects of professional politics, and for the followers, it
provided the experience of participating in the political process that upholds
the democratic tradition of India. To the leaders of the parties that backed
them outside the campus, the youngsters were pawns in a bigger game –
adrenaline driven and impressionable, they helped in spicing up the slugfest
outside. Some of the young, uninitiated ones fell victim to the vicious plans. Politics
in the campus was largely indoctrinated and influenced, and it rarely produced
icons of the kind the country had much use for in the future.
Not many of the above, neither the leaders nor the foot
soldiers, carried the spirit forward to become politicians; fewer still became officially
anointed leaders or representatives with a distinct political voice. They moved
on to become professionals of other kinds, the political heydays becoming just
a blast from their past to be recounted in personal memoirs and alumni
gatherings. Political activism, which was a favoured occupation within the
campus confines, petered out of their life for more than one reason. The
situation doesn’t seem much different more than two decades later.
Politics, in India, is a sullied word, and a career in
politics is viewed with disdain, thanks to the conduct of men and women who
claim to be advocates of advancement and champions of change for modern India. The
history of Independent India has given very little reason for its people to
consider politics as a serious vocation. Although no one discounts the
importance and role of modern politics in matters of democratic governance and
public policy, there are very few takers for the job among the educated youth,
for it neither commands genuine respect in the public eye nor it offers
complete fulfillment in one’s private estimation. How many young boys and girls
that we know mention politics as their chosen career option even though they
root for a strong leadership to manage their macro economic and social affairs?
In a country where social sciences still don’t get the preferred ticks in
college application forms and in a civil society where the responsibility of
governance is easily passed up as someone else’s job, the probability of
youngsters taking up roles of national obligation is abysmally low. India is a
nation of strong opinions, a lot of which emerges from the young and the
restless, but the vociferous voices either become a din that achieves little or
fizzles out in collective frustration. No family, except those inheriting a
sterling legacy, wants its progeny to take up the cause of nation building and
political stewardship. Those who willy-nilly chart the forbidden course lured
by the heady mix of muscle and money power it might offer, end up being wannabe
administrators with minimal exposure and maximum ambition, a lethal combination
that in no way improves the prevailing situation. When the scope of political activism stays
restricted to protest marches and sloganeering fuelled by the parent bodies to
achieve their larger motives, and when political proclivity is fired by limited
private goals, there can be neither true leaders nor staunch followers. The
upshot of such rash adventurism will either be trivialization of political
maxims or radicalization of ideas, both of which will leave collateral damage
of different kinds.
In a country that sets out on democratic adventures of all
kinds, where the eclectic mix and the elitist miniscule co-exist (although in
severe conditions of feud and discord), where political equations are so fluid
that policy making often takes a beating at the cost of national interest, the
dearth of able statesmen and administrators signals bankruptcy of a disturbing
kind. This is where the second major event of the past weeks, namely, the
crucifixion of a political scion, which his opponents started and was then duly
completed by the mob and the media, comes in.
Was I disappointed? Yes, I was acutely disappointed, for till
recently I had hoped that the youth idol would someday grow in stature and
assume the cosmic form. The nation badly needs an iconic change. It needs
reprieve from time worn ideas of the old school that brawls more and governs
less. It needs fresh blood in its veins to surge ahead. When Rahul’s speech
plonked, it was my hope for this major alteration in the nerve centres of
India’s body politic that crashed. It is certain that I was not alone in
mourning the fall of the glass citadel.
We don’t expect the
Prime Minister to give us quick fixes to the running list of our problems, but
we at least want solemn promises that would drive us to the voting centres in
the elections to come. There is a clear
difference between a leader who says “Yes, we can,” and one who says miracles
don’t happen. The impatience of a billion plus population cannot be assuaged
with existential aphorisms. The million mutinies of a chagrined nation cannot
be doused with sentiment and philosophy. I don’t intend to indulge in any kind
of Rahul bashing here, but I can’t imagine the electorate handing over the
future of our nation to a Cambridge educated youngster who has yet to learn the
ropes of nation management. It isn’t
enough to inherit legacy and earn a degree in International Relations to run a
country.
Whether Sudipto would have stayed a commie for life and been
someday on the Politbureau is anybody’s guess. Whether he had harboured
political dreams of larger dimensions is unknown. If he had had greater
political ambition that could have transformed him into a national figure of
any political worth, then, his death is a huge national loss that we all must deeply
mourn.
The new generation lacks bonafide political aspirations that
would eventually lead them to serving the public with a fair amount of
legitimacy and credibility. Those who do steer towards the vocation are
pitifully deficient - either in education or experience or both. The intellectuals
who graduate from universities may have the right tools that could shape public
policy and influence public opinion, but they unfortunately are not the faces
that greet us on the hustings. If we need erudite men and women to govern us,
we must nurture them when they are still young and receptive by providing the
right climate to grow and spread their political bough. It might be irrational to imagine that this
can be realized in this day of confused and misplaced polity. But it is certain
that the gaps that exist between the campuses, scholarly retreats and the house
of the people will result in major tectonic shifts in the democratic crust of
India, and the impact it will have doesn’t augur well for the world’s largest
democracy. Against this back drop, the demise of a student leader and the fall
from grace of an erstwhile hero are tragedies that call for a solemn candle
light memorial at our town squares.
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