Bharat has a large and dynamic youth population with approximately 65 percent of Bharatiyas being under 35 years of age. Despite the estimated decline in youth numbers, Bharat will still remain a relatively “young” country in 2030, with 24 percent of its population in the 15-29 age group, as per various estimates.
At a time when countries across Europe and even countries like China and the US are struggling with shrinking youth demographics and an ageing population, Bharat’s youth population can be both an asset and a concern, depending on how we channel the youth and communicate with them.
If one were to go by voting patterns, Bharat’s youth is not prime facie interested in politics. Approximately 38 percent of eligible first-time voters that is 18 million out of 49 million, registered to vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as per various media reports. A report published in The Indian Express also claims that only 21 percent of first-time eligible voters in Delhi registered to vote, while the figure in Bihar was 17 percent.
These statistics tell us that perhaps none of Bharat’s political parties have been quite able to galvanize the youth politically, at least from the point of view of making them realize the urgency of the right to vote in a democratic country. But the equally worrying trend is the systematic grooming of Bharat’s youth into anarchy and wokeism by the left-liberal agenda setters.
The youth might not be interested in democratic processes like voting but if one were to go by recent trends, the Bharatiya youth is highly drawn to anarchist woke movements carefully packaged as some sort of revolutionary social movements. The young constituted a major chunk of those who participated in woke movements like anti-CAA protests and farmers’ protests. Even the India Against Corruption Movement of Anna Hazare in 2011 that led to the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party was widely endorsed by the youth.
What do these patterns communicate? They simply tell us that the Bharatiya youth is idealistic, rebellious, and eager to contribute its bit in making social and political change. But it also lives in a la la land where wokeism increasingly creates the impression that it’s super easy to be socially conscious and revolutionary; all you have to do is participate in a bunch of woke-sanctioned protests and “express yourself politically” through social media.
Wokeism draws the youth into a lull and an enticing but dangerous world of pseudo- rebellion, systematically eroding their faith in democratic processes and institutions. Thus, they start getting drawn to anarchy and becoming willing pawns in the power games orchestrated by the global deep state.
What else explains the youth on campuses in the US and across Europe going berserk over the Israel-Gaza conflict while most of them probably have no clue about what they are protesting and what the Israel-Gaza conflict is all about? Most of them perhaps have no clue that by cheering for Hamas, they are creating space for the glorification of a terrorist organization and by extension, further sanctioning the genocide of Jews. For the youth, it’s just a bit of an adrenalin rush and the chance to feel they are contributing their bit to the shaping of a better world. Their idealism might be genuine, but their list of social and political priorities is remotely controlled by a bunch of woke agenda- setters.
The opposition parties put the issue of issues like unemployment, the Agniveer scheme, and the BJP’s supposed attempts to change the constitution. All these issues resonate with the youth. Employment is a major concern for the youth that impacts them directly. Moreover, one cannot deny that despite the progress made over the past decade, Bharat still has a major employment problem. There exists a huge mismatch between degrees and employment opportunities; thus, we have a huge problem of highly educated youth who is unemployed.
The BJP failed to offer the youth a strong counter-narrative to the opposition narrative on rising employment. Similarly, the opposition created a sensational woke narrative around the Constitution insinuating that the BJP would change the Constitution if it managed to cross the 400 mark. The BJP again failed to effectively counter the opposition narrative on this, thus further enabling the opposition propaganda about the Constitution and the credibility of democracy being in danger.
The global woke narrative created against the Modi government echoed by both the opposition and the Western media hinges on a couple of buzzwords – “Hindutva majoritarianism”, “right-wing fascism”, “democracy is in danger “, “freedom of speech is in danger”, “minority rights are being suppressed”, “secularism is in danger” etc. It’s pretty much around these buzzwords that the whole premise of the woke narrative against the Modi government is built.
It is in this context that one needs to look at the Bharatiya youth’s indoctrination into wokeism. The woke lobby combines a bunch of meta-narratives into an overarching global narrative. This overarching global narrative and the subsequent meta-narratives are then repeatedly fed to the youth through both the mainstream woke media and social media.
“Modi government is dangerous for democracy”, “Modi’s politics is divisive and a threat to secularism”, “Israel is torturing innocent civilians in Gaza while Hamas is fighting for their legitimate rights”, “left-wing is good and progressive, right-wing is bad and bigoted”, “Hindutva means calling for the oppression of minorities”, “Islamophobia is legitimate but Hinduphobia is an imaginary construct of the Hindu right-wing “, etc. are some of the meta-narratives created by the woke ecosystem. When the Bharatiya youth gets exposed to an avalanche of these narratives through media and popular culture, it gets much easier for the likes of Congress to run their propaganda of “BJP is destroying the constitution “and “BJP is harming secularism”. The woke ecosystem has already done the groundwork for this and all that the opposition has to do is amplify these meta- narratives and supplement them with some local mini narratives.
The issue with the BJP is it hasn’t been quite successful in creating its own strong counter-narratives for galvanizing the youth. Although efforts have been made to involve the youth in tasks of nation-building and Bharatiya cultural renaissance through engagement with young Bharatiya entrepreneurs and social media influencers, these are minuscule compared to the kind of grip the left-liberal ecosystem has on Bharatiya youth. I am saying this from experience. The higher education system of Bharat, especially the humanities and social sciences has been majorly hijacked by the leftists. Their dominance still goes vastly unchecked. In many prominent universities of Bharat, the kind of speakers invited, and the topics of the talks and seminars organized, all feeds into the narrative of the left-liberal ecosystem. The Bharatiya youth is subtly but steadily groomed into internalizing an anti-Bharat and anti-Hindu thought process through the web of leftist networks that permeates academia and civil society.
Even cultural and literary spaces in urban Bharat have been hijacked by the leftists. You see similar kinds of events being organized, the same set of speakers being invited, similar set of ideologies being reinforced at multiple events and talks held at cultural centers, civic spaces, cafes, etc. Sustained exposure to only a certain kind of viewpoint is what has made the Bharatiya youth even more vulnerable to leftist woke propaganda.
Nationalist organizations need to create a pro-Bharat ecosystem to engage the youth. The youth is naturally drawn to excitement and rebellion, so it has to be innovatively packaged that way. The young Bharatiyas wouldn’t quite relate to the conventional approach of top-down lecturing and virtue signaling that they should be like this and that. Such an approach would be counterproductive and draw them even further into the vortex of the leftist woke ecosystem. Rather, they need to be challenged and invited to participate in Bharat’s cultural reawakening and nation-building in out-of-the-box and creative ways.
The Modi government during its first two terms took an excellent initiative by encouraging the pro-Bharat and pro-Hindu Dharma social media influencer ecosystem; these influencers have indeed played a significant role in making the youth of Bharat aware of Hindu issues and the proud Vedic cultural heritage of Bharat. However, the issue is the social media ecosystem is controlled by global elites. As we have already seen through many case studies, social media has been found to nurture a deep anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat bias. Thus, Bharat needs to develop its indigenous social media ecosystem, if it is serious about the idea of drawing the youth into a strong narrative of Bharatiya culture and civilization and taking them off the woke leftist anti-Bharat narrative.
The BJP should also perhaps rope in the expertise of the RSS, which should rightly reclaim its position as the cultural ambassador of the Bharatiya civilization. The RSS should become more proactive in connecting with the youth, and organizing meets and programmes at bustling urban spaces like cafes, art galleries, etc. The literary and cultural festival ecosystem is also still vastly hijacked by the leftist ecosystem.
During its third term, the BJP under the leadership of the NDA government should focus majorly on further checking the hegemony of the left-liberal lobby in Bharat’s educational, cultural, and social spaces. The educated Bharatiya youth of today creates its perception and opinions from three major sources – social media, educational establishments, and informal spaces (events organized at cafes, art galleries, etc.). The BJP along with RSS and other like-minded stakeholders must work seriously in the direction of offering a proactive Bharatiya cultural and civilizational narrative to the youth before it’s too late.
