Letter to Youth



Shashank Vikram Pratap Singh
Ph,D Scholar
Department of Commerce
Delhi School of Economics
University of Delhi


My Dear Young Friends and Future of India
Chilled Cold December 29, 2019 Morning Greetings to All of You
The subsequential parliamentary, judicial and executive activities in last six months and youth responses over these activities, instigated me to write this piece to express my concern which is purely my personal opinion.
In the parliamentary democracy, debate, discussion and free expression of  opinion, is indispensable part of a Republic Nation so is the case with our great Nation- India. Youth’s participation in national dialogue is equally important. We as the youth of this great nation have demonstrated our participation overwhelmingly through different ways, in many national dialogues, be it issues of Uri, Balakot Strike, 2019 General Election, Rumors of EVMs hijacking, Tripple Talaq, Abrogation of Article 370, Ram temple, NRC and CAA. After Anna Hazare’s mass agitation for Jan Lokpal Bill some more than five years ago, we have not witnessed any such mass movement except recent one on NRC and CAA which is not the subject matter of this conversation. The matter of the conversation here is issues of informative ambiances surrounding youth. My personal observation is, the informative environment where we are living  has deeply divided into Pro and Anti which is highly dangerous for the wholistic betterment of all of us and the nation as well. We youth are being served highly ideologically biased information. Although, its correctness and validity are unquestionable up to some extent. In social science nothing is right and nothing is wrong, it’s the context that decides what is wrong and what is right. But the way it is being served, is highly dangerous for all of us, because we all are in our growing stage, we should not  sway ourselves to only one school of thoughts. We should have the obligation to know the other aspects, it is equally important for us. After having the wholistic view of the subject matters, forming our own opinion seems to be much better than knowing only one aspect of the subject matters. But unfortunately, we youth have become highly ideologically skewed and there is a huge gap of strong sense of coherence. We have reached at a level where some are labeled as Bhakt or pro government and others as anti-government by each other. It’s very painful to say that it has become our identity in our social groups. Even in our universities, the blindness for one aspect has deeply penetrated among all of us. The level and intensity of this penetration can effortlessly be sensed that, the moment we start putting our view against any issues we are categorized as anti and the moment we start putting our view in the favor, we are labeled as Bhakt or pro government, without completely listening his/her opinion. The institutions and society are losing the basic essence of constructive and intellectually imbibed discussion.
In all these scenarios the role of social networking sites and print and electronic media can not be ignored. Social media has deeply penetrated in every nook and corner of India with negligible regulatory mechanism. Not only this, it is also playing the dominating role in our good or bad state of being. If my friends have not posted my photographs on his/her WhatsApp status on any of my auspicious occasions, most of us start feeling bad. Look at the power of these social networking sites, even the depthless and intensity of our personal and private relations are being measured through the activities on these sites. It is the classic example of prosumer where we are the content creator and content consumer without any limits and negligible restrictions. So, the people having their own agendas keep on feeding us on such platform and we become victim of it. More than 70 percent of our young friends (18-24 years old) in India have no privilege to enroll for higher education and less than one percent have privilege to enroll for highest academic degree (Ph.D).
These days media are being highly criticized and accused for being biased and highly skewed towards political parties. Even in the news media industry which is called forth pillar of democracy, we have made the distinction between pro and anti. None of us have any data to substantially prove that, what I think that media industry of our country is following the capitalist model for successful operation of their business. They are riding on popularity of individuals and taking the huge advantage of adamant deep division among us and according serving the news to enchant their viewers. Thus, increasing their TRP.
Dear friends we have to be highly conscious with the kinds of development taking place at a platform where we are spending lots of our precious time. In such a highly skewed world, we need to understand the difference between their jobs and our jobs, their duties and our duties. Whatever they are, whatever they do, how they think; it’s all their identity. They are known for it and doing so is the sources of their bread and butter. It may not necessarily become our identity till the time we are at the growing and academic learning stage.  

Note. Inspired from Deepika Ma'am, Delhi School of Economics...provided lots of data for the same.

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