The Indian Express ·
A politics of the young needs to open up and include, speak to new — and old
Opinion A politics of the young needs to open up and include, speak to new — and old
Over the years, attempts have been made to sidestep the hardened lines of Mandal and Mandir, and forge new communities across them, on the basis of ideas that are unifying or overlapping. They recognised that the older mobilisations were exhausted, and that the people, or a section of them, were looking for a way out of a predetermined politics.
Something seems to be changing since the Jantar Mantar sit-in became a movement that forced the Narendra Modi government to listen, and bend. If that change is not just a short-lived excitement that fizzles out before the next election comes, if it is to go beyond the selfie-style vertical videos starring Prime Minister Narendra Modi, or the curated stage of Rahul Gandhi’s “Chhatron ki Goonj” that makes space for his young audience’s stories, or the Instagram duel between Congress and BJP — what would it be? Is there a new politics of the young that will survive, after young protesters’ voices, amplified by social media, have faded?
