Whither Indian Youth

The old uphold traditional values, conservative ideologies and customary outlook. The young represent the emerging patterns, newly adopted ways of life and the nascent tendencies. If the old are proud of their accumulated wisdom, which has been tested and verified through experience, the young are confidently ambitious of winning their goal, which they have conceived and modeled according to the new fledged hopes. The younger are liberal in outlook, plastic in their thinking, energetic and adventurous in their actions. The older are conservative in their ways, cautious in their approach and worldly in opinions. Consequently the younger generation is more sensitive to social maladjustments, political exploitations and the economic difficulties. Their involvement in the national affairs is emotional so their reactions are also emotional. There is no sobering influence of intellect in the case of the young and they register their grievances through violent protests. It is perhaps wrong to say that the youth is always rebellious and the unrest among them is the symptom if a deeper malady than a usual dissatisfaction with the ideal. We may deplore the agitations but equally condemnable is the authority’s tendency to over-react. It is foolishness to argue that students should remain insulated from what is happening around them; they will not refrain from participating, in bringing about changes which they consider necessary for social betterment. They may, of course, be persuaded to think independently and to act according to their own judgment and not to be led by political forces with partisan axes to grind.

The rebellious attitude of the younger generation is pregnant with serious and far-reaching implication. Apart from the setback, which their education may receive, they create law and order problem. The orgy of violence let loose may even generate general dissatisfaction. A common man is more interested in security of life and property that is in peaceful atmosphere for discharging one’s responsibilities. The random actions of the younger contribute to social distemper and political instability. Howsoever we may camouflage it, violence is the effort of one group of people to impose its will by inflicting even death and destruction upon others. Is it not undemocratic? Democracy demands the spirit of adjustment, understanding and reconciliation. Russell has correctly said, “This world has suffered much pain and cruelty from doing what we believe to be right, rather than doing from what we know to be wrong.” Our attitudes harden and we hold dogmatic faith in the correctness of our own line of thinking. Our approach is not constructive; the government is out to suppress the agitations even at the cost of lives whereas the agitators have no desire to adjust. In fact the more deeply and abuse is embedded in the social system the more difficult is it to rouse men’s conscience against it. The uprooting of basic ideas, of fixed mental habits with emotional associations is a painful process. So political corruption, abuse of power and exploitation might be the legacies of the colonial rule and people might be used to it, but the new awakening, may be among a few, cannot tolerate it. Human nature is essentially plastic and changes with moulding impact of a change. We must recognize evil, which is present in our institutions and this will become a prelude to advancement. Philosophers like Spengler may think that making life intolerable is the inevitable element of human nature: “Man is a beast of prey ….. All the paragons of virtue and the social moralists who want to get beyond this are only beasts of prey with broken teeth ….”. But human behaviour is largely acquired and not instinctive; so man becomes beast because the environments make him so. So in order to make the young to conform to ethics of social or political code, favourable conditions will have to be created. Apart from recasting the educational structure, social milieu has to trimmed.

The rebellious attitude of the youth is a global phenomenon and its causes must lie in the environmental maladjustments. Social life, at large, encourages spirit of adventure, fosters love of novelty, and affords enjoyments of spare moments. Man has more confidence in himself than he ever had; triumphs in science have added glory to man. The pace of development has been so quick that every moment we feel fed up with the prevailing system and crave for a better one. This implies that we are quicker to seize the weaknesses of a system of an idea or philosophy. On the other hand educational systems, social structures and even political organisations have been traditional, authoritarian and almost worn out. Clearly there is a big gap between the life and circumstances at the educational institutions and life, at large. Education, as it is available, does not allow the students to be adventurous, novel, and even eccentric in acquiring knowledge. There is authoritarianism, which evolves personality cult, there are laws to be remembered and theories to be accepted. The personality of the individual is coloured and is not allowed to have its flowering; why should it be thrust upon the pupils that democracy is the best form of government? Why should they be asked to accept the experiences of their elders as authoritative? Education thus, suppresses the self of the young and more so if it becomes a hand maid of the politicians. This variance brings a split in the personality which results in accepting instigation of vested interests as stimulus to free thinking. We will have to bring education in harmony with the social and political developments rather with the trends of possible developments. Fitches laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have lift school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters have wished. He thought so because he felt that even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves to be happy because the government will tell them that they are so. Are human beings to be chiseled and shaped to suit the political system? Political institutions are meant for human beings and human beings are not meant for those institutions. It is here that the education goes wrong, it is here that the young discovers an unbridgeable gulf between the life at home or club and the life at the educational institution and vice versa. The boy who has been taught at home that it is wicked to swear, easily loses his belief when he finds that his school fellows whom he most admires are addicted to blasphemy. Similarly those students who are taught to pass critical judgments on Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Aristotle and others find it difficult to criticize their parents, teachers or superiors. Human beings have capacities for spontaneous enjoyment and instinctive reactions and education should develop this capacity instead of moulding it into a pattern. This gap has been increased by the parent’s preoccupation with their business and the consequent indifference towards their children. In the absence of the parents’ shaping influence, students imbibe much from the social milieu as he explores it while travelling in a bus, sitting in a theatre or dancing in a club.

Moreover, in our day-to-day life, we are heading towards easy and comfortable life. Diseases have been less painful, the inclemencies of the weather leave us no more uncomfortable and have innumerable sources of entertainments and diversions. The attention of a young man is claimed by so many absorbing affairs and he cannot give single-minded devotion to his studies. Consequently their intellectual make up is of a strange type. They are not trained to withhold judgement in the absence of evidence and are often led astray by cocksure prophets. In the 20^th century there are many slogans, which have a ring of certainty about it, for example” “Liquidate the Capitalists and survivors will enjoy eternal bliss” or “Exterminate the Jews and every one will be virtuous” or “kill Croats and let the Serbs reign” …. These can be called bloodthirsty nonsense. Otherwise also they refuse to accept the exacting norms of education. Consequently there are strikes to protest against stiff questions, against restrictions to maintain discipline and against the lack of amenities like bus service, etc.

In their unconscious mind lurks the fear of unemployment. It education does not qualify them to become earning members of society after finishing academic career they are sure to become frustrated. When education is not purposive and meaningful it will be thrown into the remote corners of human thought. So the students take education as something accessory and side-track of human life. As their education makes them aware of their rights and duties, they think that the authorities which do not provide them with jobs, have not discharged their functions. The germ of the revolting spirit is born.

Politicians, in a growing democracy do not shed their selfish interests, for them politics is the spring board to jump to power. They have no scruples to lose, no ideals to realise if they are able to come to power. So they exploit the young, who are immature in thinking, for their personal ends.

Still we should not forget that students are `not a social class’ and that any theory which seeks to analyse the students’ situations according to the norms valid for groups organised on the basis of economic interests is either mischievous or naïve. True education in effect, pools the intellectual and emotional resources which then are turned on problems arising out of his membership of a society. Thus a student will meet his obligations to society in two ways: first by finding out for himself the factor that perpetuates distortion in social life and accounts for avoidable privations to individuals and secondly by acquiring, after analysis of social conditions the means to affect desirable transformation. The students should set themselves against obstructist practices like dowry or unabashed exploitation and economic inequality which pervade our social life. So their energies are to be harnesses and channelized for social gains; they should be “forces of change” and not “reinvigorated conservatism”.