India will have the youngest demographic by 2020 – more people on the cusp of adulthood, more youth engagement, more eligible voters. Ideally, it should mean that existing structures will also have to undergo a change.
But, youth activism and its relation to social media comes with a heavy dose of skepticism in India. Words like ‘hashtag activists’, ‘armchair activists’, ‘slacktivists’, ‘fingertip activists’ form a part of the political lexicon. The fear that activism, in the general sense of the word, stops after a tweet (or after a share) might not be entirely unfounded. There is indeed a generation of supposedly ‘woke millennials’ who whine over the problems from the comfort of their homes without ever doing anything about it, or even attempting to get in touch with the realities of the same issues they so often feel indignant about.
But, at the same time, there is another group of young people who question existing cultures of power every day – who do not cower in fear, and instead, fight back when they are relegated to the sidelines or are called ‘political pawns’. Their outrage isn’t just limited to the buttons of the keypad. So wherein lies the problem? It’s in the common perception that youth is a homogeneous community. The absence of the voices of marginalised communities in spaces that cater specifically to an intellectually-superior class of Indians further strengthens this disparity.
We have all discussed the perils of social media at some point or the other. In common parlance, everyone is an activist on Facebook and Twitter. Every other person shares articles from Huffington Post and The New Yorker in a bid to appear ‘woke’ enough. Alternate forms of journalism are gaining momentum. Social media has caused people to expect results at the drop of a hat, notwithstanding the fact that the campaigns are just a step, not the whole procedure itself.
The thinking that the campaigns are entirely unsuccessful is based on wrong perceptions of what activism looks like. Young people use social media as a conversation-starter, as a safe space for the back-and-forth of information. They use it as mobilising tool, which later transforms into physical procedures. Campaigns such as MeToo, NoPlaceForHate, BlackLivesMatter, etc. did at least bring people to stand in solidarity, to take account of their behaviours, and called them out after years. Actually bringing about change in power structures is a long battle, and creating inclusive spaces for dialogue is only the beginning. Dissing all this as a means to seek attention discredits these efforts and also shows a form of denial in accepting these ‘less-than-traditional’ narratives.
As a somewhat privileged person, I was not so socially and politically aware until my early teens. Part of the reason for this was the lack of resources and the absence of healthy dialogue in the environment I grew up in. The issues that now seem so outrageous seemed trivial back then, when I took pride in my convent-educated soul and turned my nose up at people who could not speak English fluently. When I started feature writing, it required me to deal with copious amounts of information – some very contrasting to the ideas I had been instilled with. The lack of contemporary ‘youth literature’, especially from under-resourced communities, in a language I understood, frustrated me to no end. That’s when I realised that in a country that thinks its youth incapable of having their own political opinions, the voices need to find a new place and have to come out in new ways. That certainly wasn’t possible through outlets that functioned as mouthpieces of the government.
Recently, I undertook a project for Youth Ki Awaaz where I was required to cover a feature story on the artisans of a dying craft. The experience was the single most daunting and eye-opening one for me. It made my understanding of privilege do a complete 180. When I started, I was suffering from a hero complex that I, as a much more educated, more socially conscious person, will be the one to turn these people’s lives around. But, as I delved deeper, I was so shockingly made aware that the people from these marginalised communities do not need voices; they already have their own very distinct and powerful ones. They don’t need saving. It’s just that no one thinks that they say anything which should be heard.
What we can do, as a privileged class, is create spaces for them. Arm them with adequate information and resources. Stand by them. Things that make us culturally and intellectually superior is just a matter of access to resources. It is not that these people are unwilling to learn. The information today is more refined, more linguistically rich. It appears intimidating to people who have never encountered it in its true sense. Moreover, eminent people who have hoards of knowledge are guarding it with their lives, refusing to even cede an inch of the space they occupy. The four months I spent on the story made me more aware of the importance of why we, as youngsters, need to demand our rights to these resources.
During the course of the project, I also met some older people in positions of power. They would turn up their noses, amused, that someone so young was bothering with these people, instead of talking about issues like how I should be grateful that my palette and heart was being monitored by the government. This double standard – where the youth is expected to be the harbingers of a revolution, but at the same time, the refusal to listen to them as soon as they express even a small amount of dissent – is both absurd and frustrating to me as a young person who is passionate about social change. We young people will have to resort to unconventional means to get the work done.
Many successful legislations have been jump-started by young people talking about these issues and by wanting things to change. I believe that youngsters today are much more aware than they were a few decades back. They are gradually discovering that the ideas instilled in them (or shoved down their throats) are all lies. They are angry, dissatisfied with the current trends. They must discover for themselves, be ready to un-learn and re-learn the very foundation they stand on.
Creating inclusive and stable communities is a big part of that. Platforms like Youth Ki Awaaz, which place this power in the hands of people and which actually give them a sense of responsibility, are a good way to go at it. Constantly making easily corroborable information available – about the rights of people, how to demand them, the proper and legal ways to do so – is an added benefit. I have learnt here that you do not need to show your linguistic acrobatics to speak about issues that plague the society. It is important that people speak up and demand to know things as their right – in whatever language they are most comfortable with.
Dismantling hierarchies isn’t easy. In an environment that censors and puts a damper on all efforts to bring about change, we need to get more creative. We need to let others speak too, and sometimes, just listen. We need to harness the power of each and every voice that shouts or speaks or whispers. Voices unfamiliar to us, voices we don’t normally hear. We need to speak till the foundations we stand on are forced to tremble, shatter, and then re-build themselves.
_
Featured image used for representative purposes only.