Youth, Social Change and Politics in India Today: An Introduction to the Delhi Studies

Events in many parts of the world over the last decade – starting with protests in Greece in December 2008, following the death of a young student at the hands of the police, and continuing through the Arab Spring, the movement of Los Indignados in Spain, the Occupy Wall Street Movement, then widespread demonstrations in Brazil and Turkey in 2013, and other protest events – have thrown into sharp relief the significance of young people in contemporary as having played a vital role in the India Against Corruption movement (IAC), associated with Anna Hazare in 2011-12, then in the wave of protests over the Delhi rape case of December 2012, and in the meteoric rise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2013. Observers have noted some commonalities amongst these events: the central, though not exclusive role played by young people; the extensive use in them of social media; that they have mostly been characterised by spontaneity and the absence of hierarchical leadership (though this is not true in the case of IAC); they have been directed against existing political systems, entrenched elites and political corruption (most explicitly so in the case of IAC), but without presenting an entirely coherent alternative (as in the case of AAP); and they seem, commonly, to have been motivated by some combination of concerns about unemployment, austerity, the deterioration of public services, inflation or increasing inequality. It is suggested that they reflect a common experience of precariousness, felt especially amongst young people, and including those with high levels of education who cannot be sure, nonetheless, of building desirable identities and careers, as well as those relying on uncertain informal employment.