As 21-year-old Arya Rajendran is set to be India’s youngest Mayor, the young nation needs more youth in politics
Arya Rajendran, a 21-year-old college student, is very likely to take office as the Mayor of Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram soon which will make her the youngest ever Mayor in the nation. While she is still too young to hold an office in either a State or Central legislative body, by taking up the top post available for any municipal councillor, she has set a new benchmark for young Indian politicians and should inspire many more young people to make it to office. The gradual decline in the standards of student politics in India over the past few decades has meant that youth have found it difficult to move into politics over the years and, even in most municipalities, the councilmen and women are quite old. In a country where demographics favour the young, the move by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) should be commended and maybe other political parties would do well to take note of it. Maybe it is time where an upper age limit for politicians in municipal and panchayat bodies is set so as to encourage those between the ages of 20-40 to apply for such posts. Electoral and political experience that the youth thus gain will hold them in good stead as they rise through the political ranks. The lack of youth in India’s politics is startling; most ‘younger’ politicians are almost always scions of political dynasties and have little interest in changing the status quo. After all, nepotism is as nepotism does.
While top leaders — from Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi — want to involve the youth into their politics, they should ideally get their political parties to revitalise their youth movements, the BJYM and the IYC, respectively, both of which have become social media activist forces rather than actual activism, although one expects big things from the BJYM’s new face, Tejasvi Surya. Having young and articulate spokespersons and political leaders will hold both national parties in good stead and help them in future elections. The CPI(M), for decades the party of dyed-in-the-wool, septuagenarian leaders who are considered to fight shy of letting the younger generation take charge, has taken the lead and while the communist movement will remain moribund outside Kerala, this is an idea that the other parties would do well to copy. India has more than 50 per cent of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65 per cent below the age of 35. It is expected that, at the turn of 2020, the average age of all Indians will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan. Across the world too, there is a generational change in politics. Even in the United States, Joe Biden’s Presidency will be the last hurrah of his generation. By giving those under 40 a political voice, the Government and political parties will pre-empt any possibility of any trouble occurring later because if you do not give the next generation members their rightful share of policy-making, they will take it by force later on. And that may lead to things turning quite ugly indeed.
Monday, 28 December 2020 | Pioneer
