By Sushil Kutty
Jignesh Mevani’s Yuva Hunkar Rally hoped to rally the millions of youth in India against the Narendra Modi government for failing to create jobs and for creating divisions in the body politic of India. But the rally in Delhi, which was to be followed by hundreds of rallies across India, failed to draw even 300 young.
That begs the question: who are the youth of India? India’s population is said to be around 125 crore. Of this nearly 70 percent are under 35 and everybody under 35 is a youth. The Yuva Hunkar Rally was about jobs and the Constitution. How many of the 70 percent are unemployed? How many jobs are created every quarter, year? How many of the youth are Dalit, Mevani’s core constituency? How many have an inkling of what is in the Constitution?
Answers to these questions will determine Mevani’s reach and effectiveness. The Congress Party has thrown its lot behind Mevani, who himself has been accused of being a Congress stooge. For Mevani, the Constitution is a weapon to beat Prime Minister Modi with and his caste his armour as well as the honey that draws the powerful to him. Take his caste away from him and Mevani will have nothing to cry or crow about.
On January 8, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi told the Indian diaspora in Bahrain that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was playing havoc with the Constitution. Both Rahul and Jignesh share another trait. They believe in doing politics with love. Rahul stated it on the day he was crowned Congress president and Jignesh affirmed it on January 9 at the Yuva Hunkar Rally. Most important both of them have PM Modi in their crosshairs.
The points of convergence between Rahul – who is a young 47 and maybe double the age of Mevani – and Jignesh are already out in the open. A few more and it would not be long before Rahul and Jignesh are joined at the hips. That said, now it remains to be seen if the Congress president’s post will keep Rahul young. Five years of carrying the burden of running the Congress will age him faster than leading a life in poverty.
Anybody who has seen a Dalit Holi will attest that it is no holds barred. Everything goes into the Holi, from colours to sewer water. Recent incidents of violence in which the Dalit was attacked or he had gone on the attack proved that the Dalit can give as good as he can get.
If Jignesh Mevani is an example then the Dalit has gone on the attack along with comrades-in-arms – human rights activist Akhil Gogoi and student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Umer Khalid and Shehla Rashid. Mevani will say he swears by “love” but recent incidents have shown an aggressive attitude ingrained itself in the Dalit psyche.
Mevani, Gogoi, Rashid, Khalid and Kanhayia Kumar were all at the Hunkar rally to “train their guns” at the Modi government but the “many others” who were supposed to join them were not there. There were more empty chairs at the Hunkar Rally than there were people to hunkar. More slogans were heard than words of substance on the issues the rally championed.
If Shehla Rashid, Umer Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar are youth icons, then the only compound they will be able to fill with youth will be the JNU Campus. They are of an ideology which is on the wane. The likes of Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un and Pinarayi Vijayan are not helping. Slapping every other youth leader opposing Modi with the Che Guevara tag will also not help. There is no more fertile ground for firebrand communist leaders, not even in the Americas.
In the very short term, Jignesh Mevani might benefit from his proximity to Shehla, Umar and Kanhaiya. But in the long run, his association with the left hardcore will dent his Dalit identity unless it is a Dalit takeover of the entire country. Neither Ambedkar nor Kanshi Ram or Mayawati lived that pipedream.
And to return to the question, who are the youth of India, only a very small section of them are communists though a sizeable lot are left of centre. But those who are left of centre are either Congress or supporters of regional parties. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, the youth are either with the DMK and the AIADMK or in the fan clubs of superstars Rajinikanth or Kamal Hassan. In Kerala the youth vote the Congress as well as the Left Front depending on whose turn it is to rule.
The problem is the youth of India are not one single block thinking the same thought, living the same lives, feeling the same for each other; India’s yuva are divided the same as the middle-aged and older fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters – divided in ideology, in castes, in religion, language and region.
The yuva of India are not a mish-mesh, they are a mishmash. Only an issue that catches the imagination of the entire country, that angers and hurts all of them irrespective of caste, religion, station, language and region, can bring all youth on the same page. It has happened before: Bofors and scams of the Manmohan Singh regime. Job creation is a pan-India, the need of the hour.
If Jignesh Mevani stops attacking individuals and carries out a year and a half long campaign – right up to 2019 general elections – on the one issue of a ‘Casteless India’, he will find resonance in all of India, among all the youth. Left to themselves, the majority of the yuva of India would prefer to move out of the restrictions of caste.
The smartphone and Social Media are breaking caste barriers at the core ‘youth’ level. Unfortunately, Jignesh, Hardik and Alpesh are all caste leaders, their own castes. They may deny it but they are. And that is the truth and the only truth. (IPA Service)
The post Who are india’s yuva and what do they ‘hunkar’ for? appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
