BCCI President and former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly said Wednesday that his 18-year-old daughter Sana’s Instagram post criticising the Citizenship Amendment Act was “not true”, adding that “she is too young a girl to know about anything in politics”. Uttar Pradesh DGP tweeted this week that “parents are also requested to counsel their children”, in light of the ongoing protests.
ThePrint asks: UP DGP’s request, Sourav Ganguly tweet: Should parents filter political views of children?
Parents not wrong to filter political ideas of children if it’s with intent of bringing them closer to reality
Himani Chandna
Special Correspondent
It is common for family members to share similar political inclinations and social ideologies.
Gallup’s 2005 Youth Survey showed that in the US, 7 in 10 teens (71 per cent) have the same “social and political ideology” as their parents’.
But the parental effect starts diminishing once the child gets exposed to local leanings andis influenced by others’ beliefs. Parents must keep track of how their children are reacting to daily affairs and, eventually, what political ideology they are sliding towards.
I don’t think it is a bad idea for parents to filter the socio-political views of their impressionable children. Doing so is all right if it’s with the intent of bringing one’s child closer to reality.
When it comes to politics, teenagers often have a reputation for being “rebellious”. They believe in Bollywood-style, “Rang De Basanti” kind of protests where a revolution is built and won from the confines of a radio station.
As the old man, Polonius — a character in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet — told his son, “…don’t be too quick to act on what you think. Be friendly to people but don’t overdo it. Once you’ve tested out your friends and found them trustworthy, hold onto them…Don’t be quick to pick a fight, but once you’re in one, hold your own.”
Parents filtering children’s political opinions is like encroaching upon their fundamental right to free speech
Bismee Taskin
Journalist
Parents should shape, and not filter the political views of their children. Sourav Ganguly may be trying to protect his 18-year-old daughter from online trolls and harassment. He would not want her to undergo what student activist Gurmehar Kaur had to experience a few years ago.
But Ganguly needs to understand that Sana is an educated adult who should be allowed to express her opinions, especially at a time when there are student uprisings against political wrongdoings in India.
We live in an era of protests, something which Chile, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Sudan and India are witnessing. In India, it is students who have led the biggest protests and chanted the best slogans. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that times have changed, and students are now more socially and politically aware than their parents and other adults.
Parents filtering political opinions of their children is like encroaching upon their fundamental right to free speech and expression. It suggests that parents are being regressive by influencing their children’s thought process and understanding of a political situation. This could also insinuate that once children become adults, parents may also want to influence their voting decisions, which is no different from political leaders trying to sway voters.
Parents must understand that their ideologies are not ‘legacies’ that need to be passed down uncorrupted. Parents must hold discussions with their children with a broader and flexible mindset and not sabotage their political perspectives.
Fearless ‘Dada’ is also a concerned father. He did what Indian parents do: worry about future of their children
Soniya Agrawal
Video journalist
Indian parents often go the extra mile for their children by ‘taking care’ of them and worrying about their future. This is exactly what Sourav Ganguly did.
One has to understand that Ganguly is now shouldering responsibility for India’s cricket administration and liaisons with a number of organisations and people. There are also speculations about his entry into politics. Given these settings, one can argue that he wasn’twrong to ask the media to stay away from his daughter.
At the end of the day, the fearless ‘Dada’ is also a concerned father. He wouldn’t want to risk losing his job and would also never want to see any harm come to his daughter because of his work or because of her honest opinion about politics; in this case, the Citizenship Amendment Act. Teenagers are often unable to see the ‘big picture’, which is understandable because they have relatively limited knowledge of ground realities compared to their parents.
However, what the father-daughter duo could now possibly face is the ‘celebrity paradox’. They are influential public figures, but they do not have the absolute freedom to express themselves.
It’s not just the UP DGP, or Sourav Ganguly, or even your parents — even the Indian state acts like a paternal protector
Neera Majumdar
Senior copy editor, ThePrint
It’s not just the DGP of Uttar Pradesh, or Sourav Ganguly, or even your parents — even the Indian state acts like a paternal protector (‘for your own good’, of course).
Take the case of Hadiya — her father, the Supreme Court, the High Court of Kerala, WhatsApp groups all joined in to decide if an adult medical student had the right to marry someone of her own choice and convert. The Kerala High Court had even annulled her marriage and ‘handed over her custody’ to her father.
In the same vein, Sourav Ganguly decided that his Oxford-going daughter Sana did not know too much about politics in India, as the country rages over state brutality, NRC and CAA.
The root of all this is India’s obsession with the father figure — let’s call it the ‘tu jaanta nahi mera baap kaun hai’ syndrome. It’s an authority figure who should not be questioned.
Obviously, this leads to the infantilisation of any form of protest or rebellion — whether at home or in the streets. Protesters are accused of being brainwashed and unthinking — no matter how well-read or intelligent. That’s why the UP DGP deems it fit to ask parents not to let their children join the marches.
It’s time Indian parents realise that their child is not a property but contributors to society. Give them a library membership, not a one-way monologue on politics.
Also read: Millennial parents will shape the workplace of the future
By Kairvy Grewal, journalist at ThePrint
18 year old are adults, so they have independence on their actions. Parents should definitely not force their kids into anything. I had very different political and social opinions than my parents when I was a teenager. But teenagers are blooded with less maturity and exposure in general. @Bismi, your conclusions about “young people being more aware because times have changed” has some deep flaws. Awareness of what? Are these young people showing responsibility and good judgement in how they might be using social media (inadvertently) to spread unrest when calm is needed. Please do not compare India to the list of countries you have mentioned….there is no comparison. India has some very deep issues like poverty, lack of education, lack of justice, corruption. Let’s protest against that. All the ore other stuff are red herrings peddled by politicians!
Children can be kept out of harm”s way only if adults say no to divisive agenda. Fire ,once lit will engulf children as well.
In the normal course, all parents would share DGP UP’s concern that children should be kept out of harm’s way. With the caveat that if they are taking part in a peaceful protest against a law that seems divisive, against the spirit of our nationhood – whether it is violative of the Constitution is for the apex court to determine – then their parents should not stand in the way. The future belongs to the young, they cannot sit by if they fear it is being blighted. 2. An eighteen year old girl intelligent enough to be studying at Oxford knows the facts of life. Probably deeply content if her toast is buttered on only one side.