The Standpoint

Of Youth and Ideas on Changing India

By

Anukampa Gupta

A New India. A Reformed India.

An India that is a not a mere Nation of states but is a Nation of People, Nation of Citizens.

The youth can do it; yes, they can. You can. I can.

For together, we are the energy which emanates from the Sun, we are the mettle of the Earth, we are the ferociousness of the Wind, we are the will of the Mountains, we are all that constitutes a Thunderbolt- we are the unrelenting and undeterred agents of change who are born in an ‘Independent’ India to Free India.

Free India of poverty, injustice, wildlife crimes, environmental degradation, flesh trade, child labour, rape, corruption, farmer suicides, rural-urban divide, farcical education system. You name it.

Prior to understanding how to change India it is important to categorize which youth can change India. The youth who can, and will, change India needn’t be a product of public schools, she needn’t be a speaker of English, she needn’t be an Oxford or IIM graduate- she shouldn’t be. She will instead be the one who has been tested by the toil and soil of Mother India, she will be the one with roots deep in reality and an understanding of India which can only be achieved by toiling hard in the corners of Bharat. She will be the one who proves her mettle in the last village of this country.

And she will be a leader; she will understand issues as they are; she will define national interest as it should be defined; she will rise up and shine.

Importantly, she needn’t worry about the enemies of India, she can handle them well but she better be wary of elitist forces (in her own countrymen) - from the coke drinking and English speaking hunks and babes- who consider themselves the sons and daughters of the soil. They will be her most difficult detractors. For they will judge her by the brands she wears, by the colour of her skin, by her fluency in Angrezi, by her mannerism, as best defined, for and by, the ‘sophisticated, civilized and educated’.

In his call to the youth of this nation, Gandhiji said, “Break away from the citadels of slavery- schools and colleges, for it is far better to remain unlettered and break stones for the sake of liberty than to go in for a literary education in the chains of slaves.”

To change India, therefore, the youth of this nation will first have to break-free from their colonised minds and thoughts. For at the moment, we are all Angrez. We will have to become Indians again. And then we can change India.