When do cockroaches creep out?

The YoungGen, or the NextGen, are not cockroaches. They are a garden of blooming flowers and should be seen and treated as such. The nation needs them more than it needs the ageing GreyGen. This aspirational generation doesn’t necessarily endorse any particular political ideology or party. Students and youth are mostly apolitical. While it’s a fact that at a certain age, the youth do have a leaning towards anti-establishment thought, none of it is permanent, conscious and decisive. This phase is an evolutionary stage when there is an urge to question everything, and such questioning is rightly so – Shantanu Thakur

Let’s face facts, cockroaches have always been there, but they mostly stay hidden, seen rarely during the day, scuttling away immediately as they see humans. Their favourite hours are the dark hours. But our Bharat Mahaan suddenly seems to be teeming with cockroaches.

The YoungGen, or the NextGen, are not cockroaches. They are a garden of blooming flowers and should be seen and treated as such. The nation needs them more than it needs the ageing GreyGen. This aspirational generation doesn’t necessarily endorse any particular political ideology or party. Students and youth are mostly apolitical. While it’s a fact that at a certain age, the youth do have a leaning towards anti-establishment thought, none of it is permanent, conscious and decisive. This phase is an evolutionary stage when there is an urge to question everything, and such questioning is rightly so. Remember the hit of the seventies: “Duniya ne hum kodiyakya, duniya ne humseliyakya, hum sabkoparwakarekyun, sab ne hamarakiyakya.” Most of that generation went on to end up as responsible human beings, not cockroaches.

The young ones start life by believing in adults and with faith in parents and guardians. This belief also translates into a belief in systems. They mostly live within societal norms; they trust examination systems – systems made by others for them, systems that are crucial for their survival and movement in life. These youngsters experience unbelievable stress and trauma due to the heavy academic burden of coping with parental expectations and their own self-expectations. They follow the system, not because they admire it, but because they think it’s fair and honest, even if it’s outdated. Therefore, it should not be difficult for those in power to understand the immense disappointment and frustration that the student community feels when cheap, shady incidents like paper leaks and money scams undermine years of hard work and preparation, allowing cheats and scammers to exploit the system. Their built-in restraint may explain why the unrest hasn’t been as widespread and violent as it could have been. We must understand the angst, pain, and frustration among our youth with empathy, rather than humiliating them by branding them as cockroaches.

Things surely couldn’t have degenerated to such lows overnight. The rot must have started silently much earlier. The public education sector seems to be suffering from indifference and neglect for quite some time now. And some of it is calculated and intentional. Supervisory institutions meant to guard the sector’s sanctity are often manned and headed by individuals lacking integrity and character. Political affiliation and party loyalty seem to have worked as facilitators in gaining access to sacred positions. Many respected institutions have faced pressures and influences that lack academic intent or content. In this environment of increasing unhealthy academic suffocation, the true pests are not the youth, but rather the cheats and greedy insiders who are manipulating the system in collusion with thugs and crooks posing as academic administrators. As we see it, these youngsters are trying to cleanse the muck and get rid of the pests.

In this age of wide electronics and digital spread, the youth everywhere are exposed to the latest happenings in the world. It’s a worldwide web of their own. They are exposed to world ideas, world music, world fashion and world thought at any given time and moment. To keep them in straitjackets under covert indoctrination is harmful for the nation. One of Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite quotes was “I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed.” “I want the culture of all lands to flow freely through my house. But I remain steadfast in my convictions. The temples of learning, our academic campuses, should encourage the free flow of ideas from all over. The future of our country stands to gain from healthy citizens with positive qualities of the head and heart, not blinkered individuals.

It is also true that one sure way to stymie a nation’s future is to foment unrest among students and the youth. Student movements begin with honesty and genuine grievances, but they often play into the hands of vested interests who, in our country today, are in abundance. It is, therefore, all the more reason why those in charge of matters concerning student and youth welfare should handle their business with care. It is truly unfortunate that youth issues are often overlooked or ignored in favour of ordinary political matters. We must address the mess in the examination systems once and for all. If we fail to achieve this goal, those in charge and the broader society should feel ashamed.

(The writer can be reached at thakur.santanu@gmail.com)