onto our poll campaigns this year. A lot more than something,
actually, considering we had some young urban professionals actually
campaign for Obama in Bangalore!
Now, we hear the youth of the country are being asked to come out in
large numbers and vote. I wonder why? Barack Obama had a million
volunteers on the ground on election day. In India, with three times
the population, we'd be lucky if we get a thousand to do any work
voluntarily. We're just not that sort of people.
Today's Indian urban youth have a lot of bright qualities, but being
well informed is not one of them. Neither is being involved in any
sort of movement beyond the token environmentally conscious act like
using recycled paper, and never mind going on a drive for no reason at
all. We're asking these bunch of morons to vote? What for? And what
happens after they vote? More votes to the same bunch of idiots
asking for their votes? After that, what?
How many of our youth are actually qualified to make a voting decision
of any sort? Not that there is a great deal of idealistic polarity to
choose from, but while Tata Tea tries to sell more tea bags through
these elections, our politicians run helter skelter playing horse
politics, and our electorate should know bloody well that as soon as
the elections are over, we're back to being neglected. If we are
lucky, that is. More often than not, we'd be impeded from making any
sort of progress.
Our youth seem to be waking up all right, but that's because all of a
sudden, it is fashionable to be politically noisy. Rather, it is now
politically acceptable to be noisy, as long as it is fashionable. Are
our youth capable of joining any debate, on any side of any aisle?
Absolutely not. Sure, they'd have a great deal to say about freedom
of expression, fighting againt AIDS, global warming, and all the
things that American television tells them to get fashionable about,
but do we think any of them know a damn thing about pharmaceutical
companies addicting our poultry to vaccines and diseases we never had
in the first place, and do they know anything about human trafficking
that our politicians are involved in?
The one thing we don't need in any larger quantities in India is
noise, and that is what our youth are on the national political
landscape - noise. They have their own aspirations and god bless them
for that, but let's not mistake that for any revolutionary potential
that can transform India. That is simply not to be expected.
They will send out e mails with pictures of how dirty some holy spot
is, and how overpaid our politicians are, but they wouldn't as much as
pick up the phone to call the electricity board to tell them that a
power line is dangling a bit too low for comfort, or call the local
MLA to tell him to do something about the garbage that hasn't been
picked up for a week.
Our youth are enthusiastic about a lot of things, no doubt, but
enthusiasm is a poor substitute for ability. Our able youth have seen
through the perils of getting involved in Indian politics and have
cleverly avoided that path all together. They are unlikely to be
wooed and they are unlikely to be seduced by the promise of having to
fight a system that is endemically rotten. They are the ones that
quietly plan their way to their private successes. Ask them about the
country and you will get a polite "no comment".
Their less able brethren, however, are rich pickings for catch words,
and product sales through - you guessed it, fashion! Today it is Tata
Tea telling them to vote, even though most of these young idiots
wouldn't even know their local candidates. Tomorrow it will be
L'oreal telling them they should vote for someone with darker skin!
Two months ago, it was America telling us that they have created
history by voting a black guy to the highest office, and nobody to
date has publicly questioned the validity of that claim, considering
one of Barack Obama's parents is white! I wonder if they would have
celebrated him as the first white president if he had won the election
in Kenya!
I can understand Americans in their natural fervour for racism running
with appearance, and Barack Obama is decidedly more black than white
in appearance, but what is the matter with our youth? To what have
they lost their ability to think? Is thinking not fashionable at all?
They are all armchair activists and advocates, and waking them up will
simply make them unbearably, visibly, stupid. That's the kind of
embarrassment India can do without.
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