ABSTRACT :
India is a very “young country” it
is anticipated that fifty four percent of our inhabitants is below the age of
25 and rest is trying to look that way which made them important segment, and
hope of the future of our country lies upon them. However youth of character,
intelligence, self-sacrificing can shape the destiny of the nation. Youth
devoid of energy, suffering from inertia and dullness, without bravery and
mental vitality are bound to lead us nowhere. Before 1947 the value based
leadership channelizes the energy and power of youth in a good way and made our
country free from colonial rule. And the first Lok Sabha election were held
1952 largely the young freedom fighters jumped into the electoral contests to
contribute in national building task. Since then youth participation in
politics and governance has declined steadily because of certain obstacles.
INTRODUCTION :
Youth is a divergent social
category. It is a period of full physical and mental development. It can be
defined in a number of ways it can be viewed from the angle of process of
socialization. It’s essential as age category “according to oommen when we refer
to youth, we have in mind an age group, usually between 15 and 30 years”. In
the domain of politicians and elderly statesman , a person may be considered ‘a
young’ even though he has already crossed his fiftieth year of age” according
to this the term needs some clarification as gore has pointed out that youth
and adulthood are not wholly age related concepts they are at least in a part
social. The eruption of youth as a dynamic force today is by no means a
phenomenon peculiar to our country. It is rather a universal phenomenon. The
peculiar problems of present day society, particularly in a case of our
country, we have made the youth much more active as compared to a few decades
ago. Youth is living in the age of uncertainty, insecurity and uneasy calm. India
is witnessing a demographic transition. In a country where the bridge between
the celebration and mourning of diversity is wafer thin, and a time when
competitions between nations and developmental targets are on an upward shift,
being dynamic to the changing societal scenario and keeping in sync with the
mind sets and aspirations of the citizens are of paramount importance. These
aspirations are conceived by and more often reflect the wants and desires of
the majority population, which according to recent findings India is the home
to one of the largest and fastest growing youth population in the world.
Currently it has 330 million people aged at 10-24 and if one goes by the
national definition of the youth ages 13-35 then youth constitute 40% of the population.
By 2020, India is slated to become the youngest nation (average age 29 years as
compared to china 37, japans 48 and Europe’s 49. This makes it all the more
obligatory to shed light on the socio-politico aspects concerning the youth.
Migration of youth from rural to urban areas, education in social and civic
matters, religious views, openness to constructive debates, effective
leadership skills and gender sensitization are few of the many factors that
contribute towards building a foundation, upon which support systems have to be
built not just to make the participation of the youth in the political sphere
possible, but effective and tangible as well.
Objective
The objective of this research paper
is to highlight the role of youth and obstacles of youth which hinder them in
direct political participation.
Research methodology
In the present paper empirical
method of data collection is used
Youth political participation
With the independence in 1947 all
the dimensions of Indian youth political participation were changed and in
recent past, through the advent of various platforms, both offline and online
the youth of our nation has been involved in matters of public interest and
have portrayed the intent to be conspicuous part of today’s socio political
scenario. Participation of youth in politics is as an indicator of the roles
played by the young in society. No doubt, youth participation in other spheres,
like family, careers, religion, are also an important part of discourse and
have significant impact on all role that young people play in society and because most commentators declare that what
the country needs most today is value based political leadership, especially
among the youth. Indian freedom was obtained by amongst others a large cohort
of young people. Thousands took on leadership roles based on the principles of
patriotism and sacrificed their career and lives for the common good. Of course
they rode on the guidance of adults in their own generation and the groundswell
created by actions of the youth in proceeding ones.
When Jawaharlal Nehru was chosen to
lead the congress party at the age of 40, in Lahore in 1929, Gandhi said: “the
appointment of Jawaharlal Nehru as the captain is the proof of the trust the
nation responses in its youth. Jawaharlal Nehru alone can do little. The youth
of this country must be his arms and eyes. Let them prove worthy of the trust.”
And they did, youth participation and leadership during the Indian freedom
movement is well documented
We believe that something changed in the way the elders of the freedom movement were viewing youth in those days just after independence. While putting together the founding principles, they debated on the responsibilities and duties of each segment of society. Sometimes then, acting on a reductionist and exclusivist point of view, the elders decided to approach youth in a very less manner and that is why what we get. The adults decided to shoulder a large part of the government load onto them and asked the youth to go back into the classrooms in preparation of adulthood, they were urged to reduce their roles back to their studies, careers, and families which results in our parliament is called world’s oldest parliament because of increasing average age of parliamentarians with the time.
In the first two Lok Sabha average ages of MPs were 45.8. Largely it was the freedom fighters that jumped into the electoral contests in new India, hoping to contribute to the nation-building task as significantly as they had to ousting the empire. After independence too as evinced in the number of young parliamentarians in the first two Lok Sabha’s youth led from the front. Since then youth participation in politics and governance has declined steadily. In the 16th lok sabha election, average age of member of parliamentarians increases to 53.86 which were 45.8 in first two Lok Sabhas this increasing average age of parliamentarians is a big cause of concern. During the last eight Lok Sabhas (1989-2014) the share of young members has not crossed one-fifth of the total strength of the Lok Sabha and the present parliament after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was known as world oldest parliament because of the low percentage of youth between the age 25 to 40, because of the certain system in existence and other factors marsh down the youth in their political participation.
Obstacles to
youth participation
Moreover there are certain obstacles which hinder
the youth to participate in politics either political participation, youth is
limited to electoral processes such as voting, filing petitions, staging protests and so on. The participation of youth
in elections and the participation
in the parliament are limited and there are many factors that marsh down the
youth and hinder their
participation
Perception : The perception of a common man is that politics is
only for the wealthy, powerful,
old and well connected/endowed, which curb them from even trying, let alone winning.
Lack of constitutional provisions : In order to be a Member of Parliament in Lok
Sabha the minimum eligibility is 25 years and 30 years for the Rajya Sabha.
This is one of the main reasons for the low representation of members in
Parliament. People below 35 years are rarely found in political leadership
positions.
Culture : The Indian culture as adopted by
parents, mentors and a major part of the society is one that believes in
the idea “experience comes with age” and axiomatically “the aged are
always experienced”. The youth, with proper systems in place, can acquire the
experiences that would make them “experienced as the aged”. Society still
continues to view a non-youth candidate in a more acceptable light than
a young candidate in electoral situations.
While
the reasons for the non-participation might be any of the following, certain
systems in existence also hinder the participation of the youth in politics.
1.
Non-encouragement
by parents and educational institutions
2.
Lack
of institutionalization in the system of selection of candidates for elections
3.
Corruption
4.
Peer
pressure
5.
Unavailability
of visible rewards
CONCLUSION :
The participation of the youth in elections,
signing petitions, joining hands in civil protests and fasts across the country
have increased. The movement that asked for the introduction of Jan Lok Pal
bill gained its strength and energy only by the participation of youth in huge
numbers. This clearly demonstrated that the Indian youth do engage themselves
in programs and movements of National Public interest. But the decreasing share of youth in parliament since
1952 made them away in nations decision making process which needs to think
broadly, and it become need of the time that there should be a proper use of
government policies and programmes which are meant for to develop youth
leadership, so that youth resource can be channelize in nations decision makings.
Further there should be a retirement age for parliamentarians, so that proper
space can avail to them and it can become possible to achieve the 2020 goal
which was put forth by Abdul Kalam.
REFERENCES :
1.
The ocean in a drop (inside-out youth leadership)ashraf
patel.Meenu Venkteswaran. Kamini Prakash and Arjun Shekhar.
2.
Indian youth and electoral politics (An emerging
engagement) Sanjay Kumar.
3.
Political dimensions of youth empowerment. M.
Alamgeer
4.
Youth development index and report 2017.n
5.
www.indiatomorrow.net>eng>32-lok-
AUTHOR: Billal Ahmad Bhat, Research Scholar, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vikram University, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India
CITE THIS:
Bhat, B. A. (2018).
Youth Political Participation and Problems. Praxis International Journal of
Social Science and Literature, 1(1). https://www.pijssl.com