Is Indian Politics Motivating Enough for the Youth to Join?
July 9, 2015
Published in elections.in (http://www.elections.in/blog/is-indian-politics-motivating-enough-for-the-youth-to-join/)
What sets the likes of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora, Omar Abdullah, Akhilesh Yadav, Hemant Soren, Agatha K Sangma and Arvind Kejriwal apart is that they are not only young but well educated, too. Today they all play a leading role in shaping the politics of the country. They have tasted success early in their respective political careers and already held important positions such as that of union ministers or state chief ministers. They are young and dynamic. Yet, barring Kejriwal, they all inherit the political legacy of their fathers or forefathers. A big plus is that they chose politics over any other job that they could easily have got because of their educational qualifications. But would that have been possible if these youth had no political background?
Of course among the above mentioned, only Kejriwal is an exception who has no political background. In recent times, if there is any other such example, then that could be of the Meghalaya Chief Minister Dr. Mukul Sangma, a medical professional who just turned 50 and is already a CM for the last five years.
As it is, one can count on fingers the number of educated youth, who, in recent times, could really make a mark in politics . Why so? It is often argued that politics is the domain of those wily old foxes that refuse to make way for the young blood – that, politics is a dirty word and ‘good’ people prefer to stay away from it!
True. For long, politics in the country has remained in the clutches of those largely tainted politicians, who have made it their fiefdom. In no way are they prepared to shun their authority and they use all fair and unfair means to remain in power.
A case in point to illustrate this fact is that 34 per cent of the members of parliament in the 16th Lok Sabha face criminal charges. The percentage was only marginally lower at 30 in the 15th Lok Sabha. A majority of them are those old satraps who wield enough political influence by hook or by crook. Consider that the present Lok Sabha has only 69 MPs in the age bracket of 25-40 while it has 346 members who are above 50 years of age. While 58 is the retirement age in government jobs, this does not apply to our politicians. At present, 166 of our MPs fall in the 61+ age bracket!
It is not, therefore, difficult to fathom why the 16th Lok Sabha has earned the distinction of having the largest ever number of MPs who are above the age of 55 years in a country where, of the 81.45 crore voters, 2.31 crore belonged to the age-group of 18-19 years!
Obviously money and muscle power of the ‘bahubali’ politicians prevail over youth power and education. Just consider that the average asset of an MP more than doubled from about Rs. 6 crore to Rs. 14 crore in the 16th Lok Sabha, where more members face a criminal case pending against them than the previous House!
In this respect, a study done more than a decade back by the Public Affairs Centre in 2004 still holds good. The analysis showed that the lesser educated MPs who were undergraduates or below, were not just wealthier with an average value of assets close to Rs. 2 crore as compared to less than 1.4 crore for the more educated, but they were also ahead in their criminal record as 30 per cent of them had criminal cases against them compared to 21 per cent of the rest. The study clearly showed that money and muscle power, not educational degrees, was required to bring in the votes. It, therefore, makes a sound logic for the political parties to woo these politicians as they compensate for their low education with their economic and criminal clout.
Yet, things did look rosy before the 2014 general elections as the BJP under its Prime Ministerial aspirant (now Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and the Congress under its Vice President and Gandhi scion, Rahul, strived to infuse a generational shift in their respective parties. The advent of Kejriwal—a graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, too, made many aspiring educated youth look forward to his Aam Aadmi Party as a political platform for them.
Modi’s ‘Yuva Shakti’ mantra though, only proved to be nothing more than a vote catcher and a clever ploy to sideline the ageing warhorses such as Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, while Rahul’s efforts invited the expected protests from the Congress old timers and opened him to more criticism within his own party fold. Finally, while the BJP fielded merely 12 per cent candidates from 25-40 age-group, the Congress was only marginally higher at 14 per cent! The AAP despite fielding about 31 per cent candidates who belonged to the 25-40 age bracket, made a disastrous electoral debut as it could win only four seats. (Refer to http://www.elections.in/blog/indian-politics-lack-of-youth-representation/).
Educational qualification yet again went for a toss as in Modi,after winning the election, went on to appoint ministers based only on political considerations. At least seven of his ministers never went to college. His education minister, Smriti Irani, who at 39 was the youngest minister in the Modi cabinet last year, now faces a court case over providing alleged false affidavits on her educational qualification. She is allegedly not even a graduate!
Ostensibly, these statistics all the more dissuade educated youth join politics. There is even a marked drop in the education profile of candidates – Only about 75 per cent of the MPs elected have at least a graduate degree, which is four per cent less than the previous House. At the same time, the percentage of MPs who do not have a matriculate degree is significantly higher in the new Lok Sabha (13 per cent) compared to three per cent in the 15th Lok Sabha.
The question thus emerges that how can they be motivated to get into politics? However, it would be wrong to assume that youngsters are not interested in politics at all. Their participation in school level student council elections, as well as in college and university elections show they do want to be there at the summit. Their active participation in last year’s general election as they became the driving force for the large voters’ turnout prove the educated youngsters realize the importance of electoral politics in a democratic set up like ours.
Yet, politics can never be a lucrative career unless one makes it big in the fray and gets entitled to hefty emoluments by virtue of being an elected representative. Surveys time and again have shown that many youngsters feel one could not make money ‘legally’ in politics! This perhaps is the logic which is fundamentally wrong. Bizarre it may sound that one needs to take lesson from a popular Xbox game, The Lost and Damned, where Politics is a mission — the first mission given by Thomas Stubbs III to the protagonist Johnny Klebitz. Yet, unlike a game where a mission needs to be accomplished, the fine line in real politic is to serve selflessly.
Mark the last word. It is here where our politicians have erred grievously. They have made politics a vocation than a mission. Here it would be rather apt to quote the great ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who in fact went on to claim that that politics, along with philosophy, was one of the two most choice-worthy callings for those persons who are most ambitious with a view to virtue.
A reason why politics globally is in considerable disrepute, it is time that the politicians demonstrate virtuosity and set examples. Remember how educated youth had participated in politics during the freedom movement with a selfless zeal. The average-age of the MPs in the country’s first Lok Sabha was only 46.5 years and it remained below 50 years till the fifth Lok Sabha. That was the time when political degeneration started and educated youth started distancing themselves from active politics. To motivate the educated youth to return to politics again, what is required is the cleansing of a degenerated political atmosphere. And this is a tall order
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