Forming one’s impressions at long range from books and magazines, one would imagine that the youth of England now belong to one of two categories, namely, those who are angry, and those who are bored. Often the two categories overlap, for the Welfare State seems to induce in the young alternate reactions of anger and ennui. The chief feature of youth’s predicament over there is perhaps that the element of adventure has passed from life.
A young Indian who watches all this modish agony cannot help feeling envious. It is more than likely that he would whisper to himself, ‘I wish I had half his complaint.’ Even in England, those who are old enough to remember the ‘Distressed Areas’ of the 1930s, and the long lines of the unemployed, are not likely to have the same disdain for the amenities of the welfare state as these latter-day Lucky Jims who do not know their luck. Anyone who lived any part of his adult life during those pre-war years would know that the search for employment lacks some of the thrills of a search for adventure.
The cynicism of youth—which has close affinities with the present malaise—is not a new phenomenon in the West. Bertrand Russell wrote an essay on it in 1929, and contrasted it with the earnestness of youth in countries like India and China. ‘In India,’ wrote Russell, ‘the fundamental belief of the earnest young is in the wickedness of England: from this premise, as from the existence of Descartes, it is possible to deduce a whole philosophy.’
I remember reading this as an undergraduate and feeling annoyed at the glib simplification. For it was evident that the philosopher did not consider ‘the intelligent youth of India’ to be very intelligent. As in so many of Russell’s bright observations, however, there was a useful half-truth in the statement. For, during the years of the national movement for freedom, youth was inspired, however partially, by a purpose other than that of merely getting on in the world. Even the self-seekers and the careerists liked to openly admire those who made sacrifices in the fight against alien domination. All shared vicariously in this heroism.
Unrest among students was one of the prices that the country, quite needlessly, paid for freedom. To preaching that students should not take part in politics, the reaction among students was one of defiance. It was argued that, after all, England called upon students in time of national emergency, as for instance, to fight in the World War, and to man trains and buses during the General Strike. In India, the freedom movement was such a national emergency, and it was not to be confused with the humdrum politics of vote-catching.
While there was truth in this, it was not the whole truth. For, most strikes and other disturbances in colleges and schools were not inspired by any irrepressible urge for national freedom. At their best, they were an expression of the youthful love of excitement and an outlet for the high spirits for which the educational institutions themselves found no use. At their worst, the disturbances were a conspiracy of the indolent and the incompetent against the more capable students; for strikes and stoppages of work helped to level the good student with the bad.
That unrest among students had developed a pattern of its own, unconnected with the national movement for freedom, and has been established by the experience of educational institutions since 1947. In recent years, students have walked out of examination halls because question papers were difficult. They usually destroy some furniture on these occasions to indicate the vigour of their feelings.
The same gingerly quality is always to be seen in the manner in which public men refer to any wrongdoing by the young. They do preach perfervid sermons on the subject of indiscipline, but these sermons come during the quieter intervals between one disturbance and another, and never when trouble is actually rampant. What they prefer is to win the acclamations of students with the solemn cliché: ‘You are the hope of the country!’ If they were honest, they would more often say, instead: ‘You are very nearly the despair of the country!’
Meanwhile, during periods of trouble, the teachers withdraw into their shells of facile cynicism, and too willingly surrender their natural leadership of students. Two factors have made it seem a matter of indifference whether students attend to their studies or not. One is that the nature of the studies is half-hearted, and the other is that at the end of the studies waits unemployment or unsuitable employment.
The nature of the studies in colleges was described by one of the more waggish professors who said: ‘We pursue learning all right, but always at a safe distance, taking good care not to overtake her.’ The examinations, which set the pace for studies in college, have become so stereotyped and in many cases such an unmeaning test of ability, that the average student does not have to devote any considerable part of his abilities or energy to passing them. As for the pursuit of learning for its own high sake, such an idea does not easily get past the cynicism of the teachers and the indolence of the students.
It has been argued that since there aren’t jobs waiting for all, the very fewness of employment opportunities could be expected to induce in the students a spirit of emulation and hard work. If the fittest alone survive in the search for good jobs, would not everyone want to be at the top of the form? This, again, is a plausible half-truth. In actual experience, however, it will be found that the theory works only if the number of good jobs have a reasonable relation to the number of competent people that the colleges can train up. If, on the contrary, one job is to be tried for by a hundred graduates, the result is not competitive emulation, but discouragement and despair. And besides, it is not unknown that the best jobs do not always go to the best qualified.
In this predicament of youth, induced by an education that does not educate, and by the strange phenomenon of a backward country that cannot find a proper use for its trained personnel, there is an opening for the propagation of desperate evangels. The Communists are said to have won the allegiance of a large number of students in certain regions. I have a suspicion that this allegiance will at the moment be found to be tenuous. The intellectual temper of our seats of learning is such that discussion hardly gets beyond mere verbalism; and loyalties are formed, not out of intellectual conviction, but out of resentment, envy and such other reactions to temporary vicissitudes. The climate is indeed favourable to the spread of Communism. But so far, its triumphs have been of uncertain durability.
The danger is not one of Communism winning any straight battle for the mind of youth, but of moving in to fill a vacuum created by misery and despair. If free institutions cannot free us from want and hunger, why not give the other way a chance?
One of the functions of higher education in a democracy is to train leaders for the community. In terms of active politics, our colleges and universities have more or less ceased to perform this function. The fault, this time, is not the fault of colleges and universities, but of economic conditions and of certain features of contemporary politics. Who among the young products of our universities can afford to go into politics?
There was a time, during the national movement for freedom, when fine young men renounced all their chances of advancement and followed the lead of Gandhi. That spirit has not been handed down to the present generation, for the spirit was killed by these erstwhile ‘political sufferers’ themselves, who, since 1947, have been insisting on their virtue being rewarded in the shape of ministerships and jobbery of various kinds.
What has been happening to the Congress Party has a tremendous effect on the morale of India’s youth. Twenty years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that the white khaddar clothes and the white cap of the Congressmen would ever be other than symbols of austere and single-minded dedication. Today, the Congress, having ceased to be a national movement, does not even have the qualities of a real party. It is internally torn by faction fights; only the love of power and the fear of Nehru’s displeasure keep the disparate elements together.
The youth of India have been watching this unedifying spectacle for quite a while. They are also intrigued by the strange love affair that goes on intermittently between Nehru and Communism. The Chou-Khrushchev-Nehru camaraderie and Nehru’s envious admiration of China’s economic achievements produce a greater impression on the young than his protestations of adherence to democratic ways, and his tepid disapproval of totalitarian atrocities.
Meanwhile, the Communist technique in India is to attack Nehru’s Party, but to extol him personally. Only recently, when Central Government employees threatened to strike, and the people were feeling that the proposed action was rash, Hiren Mukherji spoke in the Lok Sabha, commending the spirit of Nehru’s broadcast speech to the nation on the subject, but added: ‘One wonders what the Prime Minister is doing in the company he keeps!’ This wooing may not deceive Nehru, but it does deceive a lot of other people in the country.
When one considers India’s many problems and the ambitious plans that are being made to solve them, one should expect this fact to inspire youth with enthusiasm and ardour. To the extent that the Five Year Plans provide more jobs, youth is interested in the Plans. The young who get good jobs are pleased, and the others are angry and sullen. One looks in vain for any pride in being partakers, in however small a role, of a great adventure. Or, in more unpleasant terms, real patriotism seems to be withering away in the exigencies of individual privations or of individual self-seeking.
That this should be so is due to a number of reasons. One is that youth is being launched upon life with inadequate equipment, both intellectual and moral. Secondly, there is too much and too premature talk of the Welfare State which is at the moment but a distant prospect. (In England, the reality of the Welfare State seems to have become a bore; in India, the prospect of it is working like an opiate) And thirdly, the grown-ups are setting such a bad example.
This essay is part of a series from the Indian Liberals archive, a project of the Centre for Civil Society. This piece is excerpted from the Quest Magazine, titled “India’s Lost Generation: The Predicament of Youth”, published in 1958. The original version can be accessed here.