Gen Z

 

Gen Z, aspirational youngsters aged less than 28, went on rampage in Nepal. Restless youth, no longer comfortable with inherited stagnation in power structures breeding the same problems in the name of solutions.

The digital natives, experts in online activism and itching to resist systemic misuse of authority, went out seeking accountability, questioning power structures. A tsunami: terribly disruptive and revolting against entrenched norms and hierarchies.

The youth face scores of problems popping out of everyday lived realities. The generational frustration spills over and a leader-light, post-ideological, narrative driven movement bursts forth. The hordes of animated and hope-infused youths go on rampage. It’s a cross-class cutting across caste, class and ideologies. It hijacks the system under a strange sense of moral urgency.

The native fuel is there for the fire; but the trigger is managed by the vested interests from outside. As they say, there will be no fire without the local fuel however hard the outsiders try.  

Inspiration instilled perspiration casting a hypnotizing cloud over the non-conformist, transformational generation seeking opportunities and demanding structural change.

Normalcy is illusory now. It’s a randomly creative and chaotic crux. A fuming flux. Millennial strides of the youth clamoring for governance and public good. Silvery magic of civic minded layer over the typical youthful brashness to just fall into mischief and vent out unspent, unguided energies.

An outburst against the preposterous undertakings of the old political order. The moth-eaten democracies trying to drag the deprived masses into the seductive quagmire of mediocre (that too illusionary) triumphs.

I know there are deeper conspiracies apart from what they say—the young people boiling with anger over the ban on social media applications.

Earlier it happened in Bangladesh. The discontent fuelled by the cocktail of economy, polity and religion.

It happened in Sri Lanka. Gubernatorial hype of Rajpakshe clan with their imposing lies about nationalism that was smartly sold out to China.

It keeps happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan now and then in slightly varying colors. In Pakistan, there is a persistent attack on democracy. The exceedingly titillating cocktail of theology and military always brewing nefarious broth to throw it like acid-attack on the beauty and growth of India. No wonder, the institution of democracy there has been spiritlessly mediocre.

There is a ring of fire around India—the fire of discontentment and disenchantment with politicians. It affects the entire political sphere in the subcontinent. Normal procedural slip-ups (stage-managed) prove disastrous in the long term.

In my humble opinion, the Indian politicians should now be careful. They can’t take things for granted. The ring of fire around us can creep in with mischievous pampering by big powers on either side of the block.

Only sound democratic norms in practice, and not just hypothetical lip service to the constitution, can save the fire from creeping in. Only the coolant of constitutional norms in honest practice will douse the fire.

We have to stay vigilant because the idea of fire and arson is contagious in these social media driven times.