Young Turks (Turkish:
Jön Türkler, from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) was a political reform movement in
the early 20th century that consisted of Ottoman exiles, students, civil servants,
and army officers. They favoured the replacement of the Ottoman Empire's
absolute monarchy with a constitutional government. Later, their leaders led a
rebellion against the absolute rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in the 1908 Young
Turk Revolution. With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish the
Second Constitutional Era in 1908, ushering in an era of multi-party democracy
for the first time in the country’s history. Source: Wikipedia
Turkey – a melting pot, a country where two continents, two diverse
cultures unite. India as a country is not very different. Today we are a blend
of Hindu, Mughal and British cultures intertwined in ways that sometimes it is
not possible to do an attribution analysis and understand which part of our
culture owes its roots to which tradition.
Now coming back to the main point of the argument – India today
is seeing a deep social upheaval. On one side is the traditions and practices
which have been followed since Independence. Till a few years ago, the group of
people – for the lack of a better word – let’s call them Gen Ind (generation
that was born and came to power post-independence) were the ones ruling the
roost. Gen Ind grew up in an India which was poor, still feudal and in which
the “Gora Sahibs” had been replaced by the “Brown Sahibs”. While in between,
many movements emerged like the JP movement et.al. they could never really
defeat Gen Ind.
So then what changed? Two very significant things happened
in India in the 90s. First, in 1991, country went bankrupt and economic reforms
had to be ushered in and which lead to global television suddenly streaming on
our idiot boxes so far fed on a DD diet. Second, in 1995, the internet arrived in
India!
Give a few years here and there, here is my thesis – people
who had already started working in the late 90s or earlier, were still deeply
influenced by Gen Ind. But those who were still students in late 90s and beyond,
were suddenly exposed to ideas and thoughts which were absolutely different and
radical. Let’s call these people Gen Int (for internet). Today the Gen Int
comprises people in age group 20 – 40 (again roughly). Since Gen Ind was very
liberal with birth rate, Gen Int is a pretty large group. As per http://www.livepopulation.com/country/india.html
roughly 400 mn Indians are in this age group.
Now let’s go back to what was happening in India in 2011.
2G, CWG, Coal allocation scam – these were the headlines and suddenly out of
nowhere emerged a movement largely supported by Gen Int and lead by Anna
Hazare. We all know what happened after that – a volcano of anger erupted
against the Congress govt. and two extremely smart politicians, Modi and
Kejriwal emerged who tapped into this anger to decimate Congress (read the
biggest patron of Gen Ind) and come to power.
Ok but here’s the deal – while that anger found an outlet
against Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, it has not died down. For Gen Ind are
still in power everywhere. Whether it is in the corporate world (examples-
Ratan Tata etc.) or whether it is top IAS, IPS officers – they are not willing
to let go so easily.
So here is my prediction – next 5 years is going to see the
anger of Gen Int grow as their dreams remain unfulfilled in a still grossly
inefficient India. And this anger which is steam-rolling Congress right now,
will soon start turning towards bureaucrats and corporate chieftains ruling
India.
If you are smart like Modi, you will think how to use this
anger to your advantage. Or you will face some very tough times as poor Rahul
Gandhi is facing!
As your well-wisher, I am forewarning you! It’s time to
change. Gen Int is angry, impatient and does not like authority. So change or
perish!
Comments
Post a Comment