More than half of India’s population is under 25 and the average Indian age is 23. The implications of this span the demographic, the economic and the socio-cultural.
More youth means more people in the workforce and lower dependency ratios leading to greater productivity and consumption. It also means greater optimism, drive and innovation. Much has been made of India’s demographic dividend, a phrase that seeks to capture the many advantages that could accrue given the youthful skew of the population. And this is the most optimistic, energetic generation seen in India in decades.
More youth means more people in the workforce and lower dependency ratios leading to greater productivity and consumption. It also means greater optimism, drive and innovation. Much has been made of India’s demographic dividend, a phrase that seeks to capture the many advantages that could accrue given the youthful skew of the population. And this is the most optimistic, energetic generation seen in India in decades.
For years, Indian youth lived in the shadow of its forefathers, forever carrying the burden of being the progressively faded reprints of a once-great country. In the India I grew up in, it was clear that all glory lay in a once magnificent past. Talk of India’s glorious heritage was a fig leaf made transparent with overuse, and the resulting sight was not pretty. Youth simmered with restless passivity, trapped between hormonal ebullience and an oppressive lack of opportunity. Growing up was a journey towards the acceptance of constraints as the natural order of things, as resentment gradually vaporised, leaving behind adults who made their peace with reality.
Economic reform has changed all that. Opportunity has created a notion of a world that expands with time and has replaced constraint as the pivotal idea around which to build one’s life. The privatisation of education has seen a mushrooming of options and a significant increase in access. In addition to education, talent is the new alchemic idea that has given young people a psychological conduit to quick and spectacular success.
However, in a country where a significant majority of rural schools do not even have a permanent structure, it is dangerous to celebrate too soon.
Santosh Desai, CEO, Future Brands
santosh.desai@futurebrands.co.in