Young India is fuelled by agency but is being failed by structure

Young people are doing their bit. Lagging policy needs to catch up with them to drive the country's demographic dividend

- RAMA BIJAPURKAR & MATHANGI KRISHNAMURTHY

India is experiencing the first, heady tranche of its demographic dividend, amply visible in the performance and growing influence of a shining sliver, a small fraction, of young India. But to call victory and assume that the rest of young India is poised to automatically follow suit in time is hasty. Our study, 'Drivers of Destiny,' takes a deep ethnographic dive into the large 'mass' or mainstream of young India, pivotal to India's future over the next 50 years. With the belief that a deeper understanding of them will enable policies that deliver better demographic dividends, we sought to understand, from the inside, how young people act, think about their lives and make sense of their world.

The segment chosen for the study represents leading-edge young people from urban 'middle India'. Drawn from 12 big and small cities, and belonging to modest income families in the middle and lower middle-income groups of India, this is a group of college-going or college-educated men and women across a variety of institutions and educational courses, quite a few being first-generation college-goers.

Our overarching conclusion from 100-plus interviews can best be described through the yin and yang lenses that social scientists use to understand the world—structure and agency.

'Structure' is about the broader terms and conditions handed down to us (identity, institutions and discourses) that we live within. Yet, generations with varying capacities for enterprise, action and impact make their way in the world. Such a capacity constitutes 'agency'.