लीव मिनट में प्रकाशित युवा वोटिंग पर एक आलेख

The Indian Youth
YP Foundation - Monday, April 13, 2009 12:36 PM
This article has been written by Saurabh Ganeriwala. Saurabh is currently doing his B.Comm(H) for Hansraj College, New Delhi and has been a member of The YP Foundation for the past two years. He also volunteered in the "What Does Your Vote Want?" voter registration drive and has written this based on his observations.
I read an article in the paper today describing the end of an era, describing how a number of senior old-school statesman would not be featuring in the race to the Lok Sabha this time around. In fact, in the run up to Elections 2009, political parties across the country have focused on trying to bring down the average age of their candidates in an attempt to project their party as having a more youthful portfolio. It probably stems from the fact that the role and presence of young politicians in the arena have been more than highlighted in recent months, that in itself the result of a general consensus going around that the youth can relate better with young politicians. With so much attention therefore focused on a very young demography of the polity, it raises the interesting question - How did the significance of the ‘youth vote' stand prior to 26/11 ( For I am inclined to believe that much of the hype regarding the ‘youth vote' emerged only after the 26/11 terror attacks )? But, that raises other questions - Is the ‘youth vote' really that significant in terms of absolute numbers? And, in that light, should political parties be focusing on the much hyped ‘youth vote'?
I took part in an initiative of a student organization based here in Delhi to encourage young people to come out and vote. As part of our voter registration drive, we compassed numerous colleges of Delhi University and proceeded to set up registration desks at various public places in our attempt to reach out to the youth. The result, again in terms of absolute numbers, by the end, was heartening. However, I must mention that it was not easy.
As part of an initial survey that we conducted with our target audience, we asked them- "What does your vote want? Action on which pertinent issue would convince you to vote for a particular party? Have you voted earlier and if not, why so?" And out of the lot of the people who took the pain to fill out our survey sheets, an astounding 45% of them responded that they simply couldn't care less.
In the course of the registration drive itself, I was to find that a fair portion of the people we'd end up registering would just so happen to be friends to our friends and I do wonder if they would have registered otherwise. Also, one particularly distasteful experience comes to mind which I must retell. It was this occasion when I made an impassioned appeal to a group of 4 people that I came across in a college. I requested them to come by our desk and register themselves arguing that it was about time that the youth took charge and had a greater say in who should be running our government. In all the time that it took me to spill my guts out, they didn't say much at all. I couldn't read their reactions either. And I walked away not knowing what to expect. Would they turn up? Would my sincere yet brief appeal be enough to overthrow 18 years of home-bred conviction that the issue was not relevant to them at all? And to my greatest delight, it was. Minutes later, all 4 of them came by our desk looking to register themselves. They were then informed that for the purposes of submitting residential proof they would have to get a Letter of Declaration signed by their Principle verifying their current place of residence, a minor but necessary formality. And surprise-surprise , all 4 of them turned around and walked away! They thought that all they had to do was a fill out a form and be done with it!! You can imagine my shock that all it took was the burden of writing one measly little letter to convince them to turn their backs on us and on the issue. Does that not make it that much more difficult to imagine the youth taking time out of their lives to come out on a scorching summer day and to wait in line just so that they can vote?
And this leads me to my greatest objection with this entire farce, I say that I find it repulsive to hear others say that the 26/11 attacks have helped foster a new wave of patriotism in our country. And this is because of the simple fact that i do not see such high talk being matched by concrete action. As Indians, we have always inherently found it easier to talk rather than do and I see this following the same progression. We managed to register 3000 and I repeat only 3000 students from the whole of Delhi University and it was not due to a shortage of resources, effort or outreach! My disgust at such a hypocritical show of patriotism, where love for one's country is only about the talking, knows no bounds and I would even go so far as to suggest that if the 26/11 attacks had inspired more terror than it did such ‘patriotism' then it would have done our country far more good as I have seriously begun to ponder that terror may in fact be the better motivator of the two...
...But my patriotism deceives me yet again. My patriotism tells me that even this 3000 is enough. My patriotism tells me that even this is an improvement, a step forward, perhaps the most critical step yet... perhaps the first baby steps taken by a new generation of Indian Youth in its march to redeem our politics, our systems of governance and in turn, our country.