What does it say about society when we calmly allow mighty powers to crush the most vulnerable among us?
We should let the youth speak and get out of their way. Representation pic
India has long been referred to as a country that has no place for women. This has become more evident over the past few years, when our countrymen and government have done everything in their collective power to make sure women know their place. India stopped being a country for minorities a while ago too, and has forever been a hellhole for those unlucky enough to carry the burden of caste on their shoulders.
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I believe it’s time to add youth to that illustrious, fast-growing list. India isn’t a place for the young either, if what you see and hear are anything to go by. Let’s put aside the open violence against teenagers that has now become a matter of course. Let’s just pretend it isn’t important enough to discuss unless the people being assaulted happen to be relatives of ours. Let’s ignore unemployment too, and housing, and the bleak future that stares millions of graduates in the face, because to mention these things is to invite attacks from older men who don’t believe India even existed before 2014.
Let’s focus, instead, on how the people who wield power tend to use it most on those least prepared to defend themselves. This became obvious a few weeks ago when the face of a celebrity’s son was splashed across all our television screens simply because he happened to be at a party where drugs were consumed. The drugs made an appearance too, in quantities so small they would give any self-respecting port in Gujarat a bad name.
A year or so ago, another young woman was paraded before us for weeks, for allegedly daring to possess a narcotic of some sort. She was vilified for our viewing pleasure, because so many of us chose to sit back and watch.
It’s hard being young in India today, because young people are constantly being prevented from living their lives in ways of their own choosing. They are policed at every turn, by parents and teachers, neighbours, and the State. If they voice protests against injustice, they are arrested and jailed without trial. If they choose to stand for what they believe in, they are assaulted and insulted. If they go out and party, they are judged.
Some of us will write this off as inevitable because it is how things have always been. I can’t seem to reconcile myself with that idea though, because even if I knew India was unjust to the young even in my time, I can’t seem to recall as much energy being diverted towards the suppression of young voices by governments during those years.
Part of me understands that the children of celebrities must pay the price of being born to famous mothers and fathers. There is uncomplicated human jealousy at work there. Another part of me questions why only some children of famous parents are picked on, while others are rewarded. I also think of what it says about the rest of us, who watch disinterestedly as these young men and women are paraded and insulted in public while we shrug our shoulders and allow a cruel, heartless, immoral government to have its way with them.
We seem to want a generation of young Indians who won’t question anything. We want them to play the roles we allocate for them and accept any lot in life that we deem them worthy of. We don’t want them to talk back, even if they have a right to protest decisions that affect their future. We want them to live quiet, unobtrusive lives, because so many of us and our parents have done the same. We want them to accept the status quo because we were too afraid to change it.
What we fail to understand is that governments don’t exist to terrorise the people, they are elected to govern. They shouldn’t have the power to demonise the youth for what they believe are vices. They exist to serve us and make our lives better, not to take on the role of moral policing and create rules for how our children ought to behave.
If we really cared about India’s well-being, we would spend a little less time focusing on what young men and women are doing on weekends, and a little more time on how wealth that belongs to all is being transferred to private hands under our noses. Our children are smarter than we are. We should let them speak and get out of their way.
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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