Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing the World by Snigdha Poonam.

Pedro_P

A perceptive account of the challenges India faces in dealing with the aspirations of its growing young population.

In 2014, in the 16th general election since winning independence from Britain in 1947, Indiavoted for a new leader. The choice was a relatively simple one. The election pitted the centre-left Congress party, whose de facto candidate for prime minister was Rahul Gandhi, the lacklustre scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, against the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, a polarising but charismatic rightwing activist turned politician from a poor provincial family.
Covering the election for theObserver, I travelled from Delhi, the Indian capital and my base as South Asia correspondent, to Meerut, a small city an hour or so north, to attend a Modi rally. The meeting was vast, with tens of thousands hanging on the BJP leader’s every word. He promised a national regeneration, an India that stood up to its neighbours, was proud of its Hindu heritage, and which offered a hand-up to those who worked hard but had little sympathy with anyone who expected a hand-out.
Before the meeting I spent time with the local branch of the RSS, the Hindu nationalist organisation with which Modi had started its career. Officials and activists told me how the Muslim and British occupiers followed by socialist “sickularists” – a pun on “secularist” – had ruined their country. Now they told me Modi was going to win it back.
In the end, Modi and the BJP won a  landslide. Of the 814 million Indians eligible to cast a ballot at 930,000 polling stations, 120 million were first-time voters. At the time of the election, a third of the population was under 15, more than half under 24; every third person in an Indian city today was between 15 and 32; the median age in India was 27. Their votes were critical to that victory.They are the most global young Indians ever, but with the narrowest ideas of what it means to be Indian
Among them was the founder of WittyFeed, a company in Indore staffed entirely by twentysomething Indians who have never travelled overseas but who succeed in enticing hundreds of millions of people, many in the US but elsewhere too, to click on worthless lists of banalities and thus generate colossal revenues.
Snigdha Poonam, a writer for India’sHindustan Timesnewspaper, opensDreamerswith a long passage about these young editors. One says their job is “feeding American curiosity”, which is arguably something India and Indians have been doing since the late 1960s. Another says: “Everyone here is an entrepreneur. Everyone wants to be something” – a statement that would be as relevant in the small towns across India where they are all from and which feature heavily in this perceptive, useful book on an important topic.
IfDreamersis slightly given to hyperbole – “the world’s future” does not “depend on young Indians meeting their aspirations” – Poonam is clear-eyed on the challenges the youth of the Indian population present. At the moment, she writes, less than 17% of India’s graduates are immediately employable. Only 2.3% of the Indian workforce has undergone formal skills training (compared with 80% in Japan and 96% in South Korea) and India will therefore need to educate about 100 million young people over the next 10 years, a task never before undertaken in history. At least 1,000 universities will need to be built over this period and nearly 50,000 colleges. Around 117 million people need to be absorbed into new and more productive jobs. The growing gap between jobs and jobseekers may lead to what the International Labour Organisation calls a “scarred generation”.
These young people are hitting adulthood with the cultural values of their grandparents – socially conservative, sexually timid, God-fearing – but the life goals of American teenagers: money and fame, Poonam points out. They are the most global young Indians ever, but with the narrowest ideas of what it means to be Indian, based on language, region, religion, and an exaggerated notion of the country’s precolonial glories.
Meerut is a city of 42% Muslims and 58% Hindus, and has long been classified as “riot-prone”. Its first sectarian riot was well before Partition, in 1939, and its most recent in 2015. Kumar, who doesn’t like “girls” after being spurned a few years before, spends days harassing couples, assaulting those who come from both communities. This gives him an opportunity to counter two perceived threats to his own social and economic position: the increasing emancipation of women in India, and minorities. It also brings him, he says,izzat, or status and honour.
Kumar already feels anxious about the future – he can’t go back to being irrelevant. There is only one way for him to go and he knows it. “I am thinking of politics,” he says.
Poonam, who is lucid on her own status as an educated, independent, professional and metropolitan woman, also meets 26-year-old Sachin Ahuja, one of thegau rakshaks(cow protectors) who “are the most feared men in India today”. The official logo of the Cow Protection Army, an organisation of extremist Hindus dedicated to preserving the lives of the holy animals, is the gilded torso of a cow flanked first by a pair of swords and then AK-47s.
From 9am to 6pm, Ahuja sells insurance schemes; from 7pm to 8pm, he lifts weights; and from 9pm onwards, he protects cows. This is not only because he thinks they are tied to his Hindu identity but, like Kumar in Meerut, because the position ofgau rakshakbrings him what young men in his situation most crave: respect. “People listen to you,” he says.
This craving for respect is replicated at every level, and it is this which may have more of an impact on India’s place in the world in coming decades than any economic success the country might have.
“This is the most desperate generation of Indians since Independence… but also the one most bent on world domination,” Poonam writes. “No matter how poorly placed they find themselves now, they make up the world’s largest ever cohort of like-minded young people, and they see absolutely no reason why the world shouldn’t run by their rules.”
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somi

But the reality is INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM SUCKS

Pedro_P

somi 5-2-2018 11:55 AM
But the reality is INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM SUCKS

Because it is? What are the positive and negative aspects of the Education System in India?

Rhett_Bassard

I found the article hard to read and went thru it several times to be fair in my review.
My confusion began immediately with the picture:
- what's with the V-signs?
- have they achieved victory by what appears to be their very early 20s?
- have they just watched some movie from the 60s and are now flashing hippie peace symbolism?
I'm also confused about the need for 1000 universities and 50,000 colleges:
- during my 4 years in Chennai, Bangalore, Cochin, Mumbai, Pune, etc, I saw higher education institutions on almost every street corner.
- 1:50 is a huge differential between academic levels. The author needs to clarify the roles of the schools, what they teach, and the reality of career paths upon matriculation.
The author appears to make rash judgment on a small sample of people "changing the world":
- consider that these young ones featured in the article are in the dubious biz of generating click-bait and that speaks to their character, morality, and empathy towards how the world changes.
- there doesn't appear to be representation from other parts of the world contributing hard labor, military defense, political finesse or humanitarian relief.
If Kumar the fear-monger goes into politics, or Sachin the cow-protector remains most feared, I suspect the world changes not to my liking.

Pedro_P

Rhett Bassard 7-2-2018 11:11 PM
I found the article hard to read and went thru it several times to be fair in my review.
My confusio ...

In my university days, the symbol of the V was to ask the bartender two bottles of beer... Jokes aside, certainly, the writer describes a reality that contrasts with the experience and availability of opportunities for the education of young Indians... From my own experience, I have only met two people of Indian origin in this part of the world and they definitely seemed to come from wealthy positions since they had studied in foreign universities, that situation made me believe that India was originally that idyllic place that documentaries and magazines described. But, reality always surpasses fiction, at least in these cases. And the truth is that India still maintains situations typical of the Middle Ages.
I can not politically question what happens there, but I can infer and affirm that the degree of evolution of a society is expressed in the prejudices and intolerances that still exist and that are fed by ignorance. The only way to combat ignorance, the one that generates prejudices and intolerances, is precisely with a good quality education, where the reason is above belief or myth.
In spite of the deficiencies or difficulties, only the young people and new generations have the opportunity in their hands to change a reality. But with a limited access to quality education, the changes will take a long time to occur.

somi

Pedro_P 8-2-2018 01:00 AM
Because it is? What are the positive and negative aspects of the Education System in India?

Class 8, chapter: Human reproduction system.


Western teacher: This is an important chapter not only for your test but for your entire life.

Do not hesitate to ask even the silliest of doubts. Make sure you return home with a better understanding about your own body & the changes puberty has brought to it.

Indian teacher: Kisine bhi text ke bahar ke fisul questions puche toh sidha principal office le jaungi. Mai exam oriented topics sikhaungi.

Wo male reproduction ka diagram important nahi, skip karenge wo. Female reproduction ka diagram 10 marks ke liye ayega wo karke jana.

Menstrual cycle ka short note last 5 saal se nahi aya, wo karne ki jarurat nahi. STDs ka concept time consuming hai, hum uske sirf match the columns dekhenge.

(Translation
Indian teacher: If anyone asks a single out of text question, I’ll drag him/her to principal’s office. I’ll cover all the important topics. Male reproduction diagram ain’t that important. We’ll skip that & study female reproduction diagram which is asked for 10 marks.

Menstrual cycle’s short note isn't asked in exams since last 5 years,we’ll skip that too. STDs[1] is a time consuming concept. We’ll also see the important keywords that’ll get you full marks in match the columns.)

Enough said I guess!

Pedro_P

somi 8-2-2018 06:38 AM
Class 8, chapter: Human reproduction system.

That happens when education is in the hands of belief, instead of being in the hands of reason and science... I think I have said many times before, ignorance is the mother of prejudice and intolerance, but nobody encourages, promotes, it cultivates and spreads ignorance as much as religion does. And that affirmation is valid for almost all the religions of the world. Ignorance is fought with quality education, and quality education is the terror of religions, a free and educated person, is dangerous for those who are not free and for who seek to subdue man. And for education, he did not refer me only to academic degrees and university degrees, but to the development of a critical thinking sufficiently developed and evolved as, to have the capacity of self-determination and independence and freedom of thought.

somi

Pedro_P 8-2-2018 05:25 PM
That happens when education is in the hands of belief, instead of being in the hands of reason and ...

Hope this generation Kid will no the difference and proceed to change it.

Pedro_P

Sensible_1 29-3-2018 09:58 AM
is there a link to this book available?

Unfortunately, the book has not been shared. I hope that some user can share it.