More than half of India is under 25, more than a third under 15. That means more than half the country does not know what Emergency meant, has never experienced a war with Pakistan and knows Kashmir only for its violence not its beauty. To nearly a third of the population, Indira and even Rajiv Gandhi are historical figures, gone before they were born. For as long as this group has lived, India has had nothing but coalition governments that changed Prime Ministers eight times in 16 years. India cannot be empowered until this youth boom feels empowered. And they approach life with the zest of a Bunty and Babli. They see themselves as capable and at least as good as any counterpart around the world. They have great ambitions and are willing to work hard to achieve them. They do not see a humble upbringing or being raised in a village or a small town as an impediment. They do not expect some authority figure to hand them something, they simply seek opportunity. This youth boom puts India at a historic moment of transition. As India adds more to the global workforce than any other nation in the world over the next decade, and as this cohort exercises its propensity for consumption, it can power India to a developed country status in just a couple of decades. US investment bankers talk about how India will become one of the world’s largest economies in a couple of decades and follow the path that Japan did in the seventies and eighties. The stock market scales new heights every day. This rosy haze can hide the fact that this success is far from guaranteed. In fact, it is quite the opposite. As the pace of reforms has begun to slow down, so has the economy, and with that, job creation. Sure the economy is growing and adding jobs, but is it enough? As this youth boom comes of age, if there is not enough opportunity for them, it is not that India will simply achieve some fractional portion of its full potential. There will be a tipping point, below which youth unemployment can create enormous social pressures, pulling the nation into the same mire that held it back, as redistribution becomes more important than creation, and the flicker of chhoti si asha is snuffed out. This means India must remove the strictures that have held back the manufacturing and traditional service industries. It takes no advisory panel or commission to determine that India needs to reform labour laws, needs to liberalize the regulations that govern application of capital particularly foreign direct investment, invest in education, healthcare and infrastructure and fund it not by running up debt but by cutting back on all the unproductive spending on money-losing state-owned enterprises and unnecessary subsidies; needs to hire enough judges to clear the decades-long backlog in the courts, and to cut the 30,000 statutes that tie down progress. India cannot make glacial progress on only a couple of these—we do not have the luxury of time. India must move quickly and now and on all these areas. Easier said than done—despite some of he world’s best leaders, progress has slowed as politicians are frozen by their concerns about balancing coalitions and bureaucrats by the dogma of the past. Economic empowerment must move away from New Delhi and state capitals to the natural mercantile energies of countless thousands of Indian entrepreneurs across small towns, large cities and villages. As the economic uplift touches every part of India, social empowerment will surely follow. Empowerment is not given—it is earned. Democracies depend on its citizens to govern themselves, to look for pratinidhis instead of netas. Self governance is not easy and takes time. If you look at the cradles of modern democracy—it took the US almost 50 years after its independence to give the vote to 3% of its population and at that time even the UK had only 3% of its population with the right to vote. In the US, it took almost 100 years to have universal suffrage. India started its democracy with a big leap granting a universal right to vote, and now with over half a century of experience, is seeing the upsurge of true empowerment of its peoples. There is a blossoming of opportunities for citizens at every level to participate in movements be they in the spreading of participative democracy, local education improvement, women’s empowerment through micro finance, land reform, etc., and each of these is making the apparatus of the state more accountable. While there are many success stories, India still needs thousands of local champions to take the leadership mantle. As the famous quote says, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Await not empowerment, but seize it and get others to do the same. This youth boom has little voice today to protect its interests, it needs us all to be activists and history will not forgive us if we waste their dawn.
