The Hindu Business Line : Harnessing youth for nation-building

In my last column, I drew attention to the dangerous implications of neglecting the aspirations and expectations of the youth population constituting nearly a quarter of the total. This is an issue that does not concern the Central and State Governments alone, because the looming threat to social stability and possible violent explosions in the form of militant movements will leave no section of the population untouched. Whatever initiatives are taken to ward off the threat by means of innovative and aggressively implemented schemes and plans, they are bound to take time to take off in the desired measure. It is essential to ensure that in the meantime, avenues are provided to youth to involve themselves in nation-building activities. Promoting youth volunteerism, with perhaps a modest stipend attached as an incentive, can be one answer.

The earliest example that comes to mind is the Peace Corps launched in 1961 during the Kennedy presidency. During the period of its existence to the present day, it has been able to serve as an outlet to the energies, idealism and sense of curiosity of American youth. Young boys and girls willingly offered to spend months and sometimes years in different countries in very strenuous conditions all over the world, working in village communities sensitising them to the importance of literacy, education, sanitation, hygiene, health care, maternal and child welfare and the use of local resources for economic betterment.

The January-February issue of the Span magazine has given good coverage of similar organised efforts at mobilising youth. The pre-eminent among them is the AmeriCorps national youth service organisation founded in 1994. It is said to have inspired 500,000 young Americans from all social strata to dedicate two years of their lives to working for subsistence wages in the poorest parts of their nation.

Bala Janagraha

Ms Susan Stroud, the founder, who recently visited India and took stock of the situation here, made some very pertinent observations: "We need to recognise that there already programmes in India. There is the National Cadet Corps (NCC), there is the National Service Scheme (NSS) with 5000 national service volunteers deployed round the country. But why isn't it a million, given the employment issues, the community needs? Why not mobilise young people to really address this? There are very strong traditions, Gandhian traditions, just to name one, religious traditions, the sense of generosity that could easily be built on in terms of creating large scale programmes."

As part of innovations for civic action, she had started Bala Janaagraha in India in 2002, with 170 children from five schools for a two month period; it has since grown to over 6,000 participants. The programme is stated to be based on the concept of "Practical Civics" — students learn a sense of ownership over their local area, understanding both the process of local governance and their role in it as citizens. Students also develop team-work skills by learning alongside their peers and connecting with community members through activities for the development of their ward.

The Vajpayee Government's National Agenda for Governance sought to establish a Nation Reconstruction Corps as a channel for youth power (yuva shakthi), but nothing more has been heard of it. There are organisations such as the New Delhi-based Sweccha and Pravah, working with students and teachers to create awareness of civic responsibilities and bring about social regeneration. There are too few of them, though. Plenty remains to be done to engage youth in nation-building activities. The immediate aim should be to raise the membership of the NSS and the NCC, at the minimum to a million each.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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