Young India sees consumption as an activity, not identity marker

The pursuit of material goods does not underpin this generation's aspirations. Peace and quietude make up its dreamscape

- RAMA BIJAPURKAR & MATHANGI KRISHNAMURTHY

Discussion around youth consumption in India has been largely focused around observed purchasing behaviour. Despite its enormous value in guiding marketers, two key questions have been left to the realm of assumption rather than data-led insights: one, the larger and more foundational question of where consumption is located in the overall canvas of life aspirations, dreams and emotions of 'mass' or mainstream young India. Two: the 'state of mind' or zeitgeist that fundamentally shapes the lives of this cohort. This is the territory of our last column in this series.

Taking the second question first and drawing on what has been discussed in our previous columns: Despite being a cohort that is tired and entropic from pitting large amounts of agency in the face of an unsupportive structure, rebellion is not its state of mind. Young people do not feel betrayed by national systems. Instead, they accept an opaque and faceless 'market' as being the arbiter of jobs, even as progress in the nation is interpreted as the development of market conditions for work. They do not have a mind state of frustration either (so far). This is, we argue, because of their 'waiting room to a better place' nature of hopeful living in the tough present, while planning for a stable and secure low-pressure future. Increasing individualization along with the lack of a strong collective peer culture, leading to loneliness and emotional fatigue, is an area of felt pain, though. Also, the leitmotif of young India is a mind state of fragmentation, echoing as it does the fragmented and fraught nature of their everyday lives.