Kids who were 10 years old in 2010 have turned 20 now. They are eligible to vote. The dislikes on ‘Man ki Baat’ proved that the brains of today’s students are working independently of their parents’. The politics of divide and rule that came after Independence and politics of hatred that encountered it are likely to fail in this generation.
Politics of performance is the new thing. Not fake performance enforced by PR and loudly promoted by the media. But Performance with results.
As result oriented and ambitious as this generation is, towards careers, as pragmatic as it is in assessing the environment around; they don’t care about who the king is. For them, if it suits them you get a hi5 and if it doesn’t you get a slap.
In another 5 years, this generation would fail the entire IT setup and marketing setup of political parties. As much as I understand them, till they have results in their hands you are not getting their trust.
Talk to them and they surprise you with the amount of knowledge they have about the subjects of their interests. They don’t care about what their parents, teachers or social mediums say, unless they have research in their hands.
I feel happy when I look at this mindset of teenagers and youth. Most of them are not seeking change like their elders. They believe in being the change. So if any party wants to win over them they can’t apply the same ages-old tricks. The new politics needs educated leaders who are performance-oriented, or else survival of political parties will be difficult.
This generation would choke you with the same hand it fed you. Give them 5 years and they will change the demands from politics. They are not the ones to sit and cry over past, history or the bygones; thus blocking all the ways of pocketing votes on history. Religion is also not something that attracts their attention, for it hampers their right to freedom of living life their way.
Their minds are totally occupied with stuff that gives them peace, and so anything that is not “readily available”, be it healthcare, education or employment, shall be replaced without a second thought.
Old political parties, if willing to survive in the long run, need to start focussing on spending money on result-oriented welfare of the nation instead of marketing, PR and IT. Right now, the politics of sword might be hot in fashion, but it is likely to come down soon, as is evident from the fact that the primitive school of thoughts have already become memes.
(I am not passing a verdict but simply assessing the situations based on mundane interactions with youngsters age grouped from 14 to 25 which is a part of my job.)