Comment

True confession: I am not a great admirer of the current thinking that young people know more than everybody else and should therefore be deferred to on all counts.

Just because they’re in the majority numbers-wise, should we become victims to the worst kind of majoritarian thinking? Besides, I have a vested interest here, not being a youth myself. The older, with their experience and expertise, have more to offer than callow youth.

I’ve had the good fortune over the past couple of months, to be part of an inter-college debate on the problems of the criminal justice system in India and need for police reforms.

Over 20 Mumbai colleges took part and they all researched the subject thoroughly and came up with strong arguments. They were enthusiastic, intelligent and young enough to want to change the world they are ready to enter.

If they picked up their newspapers on the past couple of days, this is what they would have read.

Raj Thackeray: “Though he (Amitabh Bachchan) has become a star in Mumbai, his interest is in Uttar Pradesh. That is why he was trying to be an ambassador of UP rather than Maharashtra.”

Jaya Bachchan: “Who is this Raj Thackeray? I only know Balasaheb, who is like a father figure to me and Uddhav who is like a son.”

Amar Singh: “Mumbai does not belong to anyone’s father.”

Shishir Shinde (MNS): “When in Maharashtra they should behave like Maharashtrians. They (SP) must adopt our way like saying Mumbai not Bambai.”

Raj: “Chhat puja is a drama.”

Lalu Prasad Yadav: “He will suffer for what he has said on Chhat. Raj Thackeray is a child in politics.”

The ‘childish’ Raj Thackeray rakes up an old issue, which is unconstitutional, untenable and completely impossible to implement in law, and wow, what a high-thinking top class debate we have got from our politicians, with lines which will not even get them jobs as scriptwriters in our third-grade television soaps. If those enthusiastic college students wanted to understand a little more on the issue of outsiders, what would they have got?

Sadly, nothing. Obviously, no one wants a sensible debate. We want breathless jingoism as demonstrated to us by television news channels. Or we have heavy ponderings on the Indo-US nuclear debate. We have no middle ground for political discourse. We careen hysterically from one screaming issue to the next.

Hindutva, minority-bashing, outsider-bashing, these are all attention-getters or, some hope desperately, vote-getters. They are smokescreens to divert us from the real issues.

No, you don’t want me to repeat them surely? The lack of trickledown from 9 per cent growth, the dismal condition of agriculture, the abysmal standards of health, education, gender and caste equity… Closer to home, farmers’ suicides, the non-implementation of the Justice BN Srikrishna Commission Report, the loss of FDI to neighbouring states, the uneven progress of infrastructure projects… boringer and boringer, right?

This is much more fun:
“How dare Amitabh Bachchan live here?” “I will name every school in the country after Aishwariya.” “God will punish you for talking like this!” “In Maharashtra you can only do Ganapati puja.” “Outsiders get out!”

And all this at and around a Desh Bachao rally held in Mumbai on Sunday. Now who is supposed to bachao this desh from whom exactly? I now think that perhaps the young people will have to save the country. They can’t do any worse than this.

Email: b_ranjona@dnaindia.net