Well, the pessimists say – ‘No matter how bad things get, they can always get worse’. Although, since we believe in duality and the law of opposites…the same quote can be reversed and will therefore become, ‘No matter how good things are…there is always a scope for improvement.’
While Narendra Modi and his government has done much to fulfil the aspirations of the Indian youth by focusing on employment, employability and entrepreneurship; the country still needs to work on an all-inclusive policy that will help connect the young Indians to their government. While admittedly, a new national youth policy was adopted in 2014, but the policy document itself talks about the lack of a clear political push to integrate the youth to the Indian politics. Thus the document states:
“Despite a growing focus on youth participation in lower levels of governance, and a clear political push to help more young people transition from student and youth politics to national politics; there is very little coordinated action to promote youth engagement in politics and governance. Furthermore, existing programmes such as those run by MoPR are focused on youth who are already elected leaders or n some way associated with politics, rather than on bringing more youth into political systems.”
That is what is wrong with the current draft of the National Youth Policy, which is not inclusive enough and thereby fails to connect the young Indians to their government. These two sentences, in fact, in the policy document spells out the need for a better-drafted (more-inclusive) National Youth Policy.
The reason we need this is simple – the average Indian youth has for a long time felt quite disconnected from his government. Of course, this is neither strange nor surprising. After all, the ‘Young and the Restless’ have always held little patience with the ‘Old and the Useless’ sitting in the Indian Parliament. Of course, with Narendra Modi assuming charge, much changed as the youth was given the opportunity to connect with the government and voice their opinions.
However, having said that — just voicing opinions on a digital platform or through a mobile application is not a policy. They simply are initiatives, albeit good ones. But what we now need is a properly-formulated youth policy that will help connect the young Indians to their government. This will help not only in giving the Indian youth an opportunity to voice their opinions, but will also help bring the youth to the forefront of Indian politics, so that they will cease to be mute spectators and partner with their government to bring about positive change.
What is especially strange is that though we have been celebrating National Youth Day since 1984 (on 12th January to commemorate the birth of Swami Vivekananda, the maker of modern India), we have failed to utilize the full potential of the 80 crore young who call this country home. If we could develop a National Youth Policy that could harness this untapped power, the scope for improvement would be tremendous. After all, there is nothing in this world that a billion dreams – together! – cannot achieve!
