POLITICALLY PRESENT STUDENTS

Our country has just concluded a very crucial phase of five-state elections . Homes , streets, offices, are abuzz with election talk, with people offering their individual perspectives on who has won, lost, and is forming new governments in five states.

There is a lot changing, yet lots stay the same. While the BJP has swept four elections, the emergence of the Aam Admi Party on the national level is a truth that is unfolding right before our eyes. The road to 2024 just got a whole lot more complicated and exciting. Alas, in this kind of politically charged atmosphere, there is a huge part of our young Indian society, missing.

Absent from the general discourse, absent also from having their own opinions on the matter. This, in a young country like ours, I shudder to think, cannot possibly be a good situation! I am referring to the middle to high school students of India. Although they may not be in a position to cast their vote, does that mean they shouldn’t have an opinion? I feel it is vital that they do.

Having said that, are they really knowledgeable, invested, aware, enough to have an opinion? Students in India are made to study how our political establishment works. By middle school, most students gain an insight and understanding, a t least of the basic fundamentals of the Indian Democratic & Parliamentary systems.

How elections take place, representation, voting, constituencies and the like. But perhaps this theoretical knowledge is too rudimentary and doesn’t evolve into a more reality-based understanding of anything that is politically current. Our students, espec i a l l y those attending ‘good schools’ in metropolitan areas, go to great lengths to hone their debating skills and participate passionately in a forum such as the MUN (Model United Nations), debating furiously, international problems and seeking possible solutions. While this is a worthy pursuit, should there not be a platform such as the MUN for our own, native politics?

A regular and prestigious event that will compel tomorrow’s voters to research, gain different perspectives, and form their own opinions on national political history, issues, parties, states, regions, problems. It will familiarize them with the current political landscape of the country and engage them in a manner that will best prepare them to make informed decisions when it comes time to cast their own votes in the real world.

This kind of grounding and base-formation will also prevent young Indians from blindly adopting a political ideology that they seem to present either inherit from their parents and families or imbibe from their suddenly politically charged college environment – there is an argument here that when a young Indian voter does start thinking about his or her politics, it is too late already to really form one’s own, personal, well thought out perspective.

I remember my own experiences as a child, in most quarters of my family, there was this overwhelming loyalty towards the Congress Party with senior members of my family entirely dedicated to Indira Gandhi. I just accepted this bias towards Congress to be the gospel truth because I had no other alternative. No forum to debate, explore, or historical perspective on which to base, and come to my own conclusions and opinions.

I suspect the influence family holds over young students today isn’t vastly different. And it is time that we, as parents, educators, and responsible adults bringing up a new generation of Indians, thought about this, and provided an opportunity to young India, to decide what’s politically correct for them, themselves; evolve a generation of Politically Present Students!