right
hello everyone before I began I know I’m
the last talk so again half of you might
be sleeping
I’m surprised so many of you are still
here if I were you I would have left not
really there were engaging speakers so
I’m gonna need your help right because I
feel like talking to you I won’t get as
much but I think if we have a discussion
and a dialogue we’ll be able to get more
out of it okay so all the young people
here in this room not young at heart
actually by age young people I need you
to answer a few questions you can just
shout it out some easy some difficult I
think who is the Prime Minister of India
that’s a really hard one isn’t it uh who
named me a few are the elected member of
Parliament’s from Bangalore wait come on
a little bit louder anyone uh none come
on he’s a minister anyone else
the young people I think that’s one I’m
not from here okay so the young people
okay how about another specific question
the Indus Business Academy who is the
local MLA that represents this area okay
so here are some answers that I found
that I put down so in terms of the MPs I
put DK Suresh Anant Kumar go to PC Mohan
the MLA is DK Shiva Kumar so here is
another question how old do you think
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is you got
to get louder I have a hearing problem
65 okay how old do you think any of
those are PC Mohan Goethe okay and then
what about doc DK Shiv Kumar awesome so
they’re in the Modi is 67 those MPs that
I listed they range anywhere between 51
to 64 and these are only four they’re
older but not younger okay and then the
local MLA here is 55 years old now what
if I told you according to a survey
index done by the Indian government not
any of our services that Bangalore is
the youngest metropolitan city in India
the youngest now young is is a word
that’s kind of vague right what do you
define as as young anyone what energetic
okay open to ideas
what about ages what would you think a
young person is in terms of his age 18
to 35 anything else so for the rest of
this talk we’re gonna follow well I’ll
give you the definitions so the United
Nation defines a young person anywhere
between the ages of 15 to 24 okay the
Indian government has a slightly
different definition of what it is or
what it means to be young and that is
anywhere between 15 to 29 so since we’re
working in India we’re talking in India
we’re gonna follow the Indian
government’s definition of their age
right 15 to 29 as a young person so just
a quick question how many people do you
think can we consider below the age of
29 any number so there are one point now
2.2 7 billion people in India right 1.27
yeah what you can round up 1.3 1.3
billion people according to the census
of India the proportion of youth
population in India below the age of 30
years old is 73% of 1.3 billion people
below the age of 30 years old 73% above
that 27%
you all are in the minority so now that
we have so many people we’ve defined
that there are an incredible amount of
young people you would think that the
youth young people are doing quite well
in India right because it’s the majority
of the population seventy-three percent
of 1.3 billion people you’d think they’d
do well but statistics show otherwise
according to the Commonwealth youth
program in this development index is
0.58 which is a hundred and thirty three
out of a hundred and eighty countries we
were on the same par as countries like
Syria who have been tarnished in a civil
war for the past seven to eight years
we’re behind countries like Sri Lanka
Bangladesh Pakistan the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development
it states that thirty percent of India’s
youth are neither in education or nor in
employment we don’t count see some of
you are studying here some of you are
working somewhere but thirty percent of
the 72 percent of the 1.3 billion people
are doing neither working or getting
educated another depressing statistic
the World Health Organization reports
that India has one of the highest rates
of suicides in the world between the
ages of 15 to 24 I hate to bore you but
I’m gonna give you more statistics so
you realize how necessary this is so
currently the majority of Indian workers
nine out of ten are in the informal
sector where employment is unsteady pays
poor and Social Security is lacking
here’s another one the gross enrolment
ratio for a girl at secondary schools is
almost I think it’s seventy five point
seven I can’t tell I highlighted it so
you guys could check the link so you
know I wasn’t just saying things and the
guy for male ratios is almost a bit
but same number there’s another
statistic that says that India’s
children are almost 5 times higher than
China’s and twice than sub-saharan
Africa a staggering 75 percent of new
mothers or any make the country has one
of the lowest government expenditures of
Public Health which goes around around
1.2 percent of GDP so these are really
broad problems right so a lot of you
might be thinking like this this is
applicable to all of India right not
just the youth but you have to think it
that the majority of the country the
population the demographic is young
people so these base fundamentals that
we’re talking about education health
they have to they’re really pertinent to
young people so I wanted to give another
case study right this has less in stats
but to just give you some practical
value India has the third largest rate
of HIV and AIDS third largest number the
Center for Disease Control estimates
that India has 19 new million new cases
of STDs sexually transmitted diseases
every year with almost half half of 19
million being between the ages of 15 to
24 half of 19 million every year suffer
through says STDs you know what the
Indian government is doing they ban
condom ads in the morning two days ago
so only at night between 10:00 to 6:00
a.m. you can the condom ads will be able
will be playing on commercials other
than that because it’s not what they say
in our culture since car whatever but
are those STD rates also in our sense
culture yeah I bring this up because in
America where I got my education where I
went to college we have something called
Planned Parenthood doesn’t
know what Planned Parenthood is so it’s
basically a private organization funded
by basically the government public money
and what it works on is trying to
provide kind of raise information levels
of things like this so what they’ll do
is they’ll go into colleges every
college is mandated in their restrooms
and their locker rooms to have basically
a free vending machine where you can get
condoms where women can get access to
sanitary napkins pads tampons for free
without the judgement of others without
having to go to a medic shop to ask an
uncle sanitary napkins here that Planned
Parenthood wasn’t started by someone old
doctor started by someone in college who
thought that it was necessary to control
the rate of raise it rising rates of HIV
s and AIDS in the 70s so now that I’ve
shared some depressing statistics you
might be wondering like who actually
controls this who’s responsible for this
we do have someone responsible we have
the Ministry of Youth Affairs and sports
right so basically most of you might
know this but the youth Department and
the sports department are coupled up
because somehow Youth and Sports are
synonymous
India’s latest youth minister not the
one right now right the latest Minister
was 64 years old thankfully we have a
younger one I think he’s around 49
but 64 years old as a youth minister our
oldest youth minister was in the UPA
time in 2008 when he was 76 years old 76
year old governing a country of 1.3
billion people where 73 percent of those
people are below the age of 30 on top of
that it’s one of the lowest staff
departments in the entire government
but that’s not all see according to the
2017 budget India’s youth department had
one of the lowest budgets of the year it
was allocated five hundred crore rupees
now you might be thinking five hundred
crore rupees is a lot of money so think
back at two facts one again 73% of 1.3
billion people right and secondly its
comparative so I listed a few ministries
out the gully rejuvenation ministry has
a budget of 6,200 rupees
the ministry of yoosh you know the yoga
ministry has 1,300 gourd rupees the
tribal affairs ministry has 5329 gourd
rupees the culture ministry has 2700
crore rupees so there’s obviously a
difference now I’ve been telling you all
these facts and I thought I might be a
little biased because I deal with this
issue so I thought wait you know what
let the government of India tell you
what they think the problem is so the
Ministry of Youth Affairs is supposed to
release an annual report right of what
it calls the national youth policy the
last one again an annual report but the
last one was in 2014 what they reported
and these are not my words their words
and I’m gonna I’m gonna read this out
verbatim youth organizations in India
are fragmented and there is little
coordination between the various
stakeholders working on youth there’s no
systematic channels for engagement
between the government and young
citizens and no mechanisms for the youth
to provide inputs to governments there
has been no concentrated effort to
identify the rage of stakeholders
working on youth development analyze the
impact of their activities and determine
how these stakeholders can be aligned
and leveraged to more effectively
support the youth so again these are not
my words it’s the government admitting
and if that was way too complicated for
you I’ll simplify it the government just
admitted that they’re doing a really bad
job
does anyone recognize this guy not many
of you so our Prime Minister started his
campaign in 2014 well in 2013 at the
shri Raja College of Commerce was this
great coming to aid speech and I picked
up one line where he said this I want my
country to not only see the youth as a
new age voter but has a new age power
sadly we hear that rendition that line
over and over again from the local sir
punch to now the Prime Minister but
who’s actually doing something how do we
become a new age power see the Indian
youth isn’t a catch-22 how are we
supposed to recognize problems and fix
them you know having that problem well
we don’t necessarily have a voice to
change that to fix to act on those
issues so I do a lot of research in this
at Oxford this is basically what I focus
on especially the young demographic of
India so how do you ensure India’s youth
the country’s largest demographic is
integrated to its India’s political
social and economic systems I was
basically the the hypothesis that I was
working in see what we came up with is
that India’s driving social economic
force is its youth and yet India’s
greatest resource is politically
underrepresented so we believe that if
it was represented correctly or an
increase in representation that we would
utilize this great resource that we have
now I flew in from Ahmedabad and I was
there for about two and a half weeks and
some of you might have heard about the
Gujarat elections right here’s a picture
of a rally
in Gujarat here’s another picture of
another alley you know who these rallies
are done by this kid a 24 year old
hardik Patel 24 years of age is giving
competition to the Prime Minister of
India they’re in there Modi in his home
state this 24 year old is giving
competition to the president of the
largest political organization and the
oldest the Indian National Congress this
24 year old cannot run for office and
represent the millions of people that
are supporting him and good jobs because
of an arbitrary age set by the
government of India 24 years old
so there’s 670 million people this is a
statistic from the census of India
calculated from 2011 to a verge for the
six years that have passed by 670
million people below the age of 25 so
let me get this straight why then if you
want to run as a Member of Parliament
for let’s say the register ba you have
to be thirty years old why then if you
want to run for Member of Parliament in
the Lok Sabha you have to be 25 year old
why then if you want to run locally as a
member of Legislative Assembly you have
to be 25 years old when you already have
six hundred and seventy million people
below the ages of twenty five there’s a
stipulation you have to be at least 25
years old to run here’s some other facts
16th Lok Sabha is the oldest Parliament
elected till date which was elected by
the youngest average age of voters ever
so the youngest voters came out to elect
the oldest Parliament the average age of
a parliamentarian is 56 years old in
India 56 again I hate saying this again
and again but 670 million people are
below the age of 25 so a lot of people
believe in stats statistics etc and this
is a business school so I thought I
would give you somewhere I would try the
youth contribute contribution so we’re
talking about anywhere below the age of
below the age of 29 right in India
contributes 34 percent to the gross
national income 34 percent correlating
to that to the representation of Lok
Sabha in 2014 it was 2.2 4 percent and
sadly this was in 2014 now there are
only two members of parliament that are
below the age of thirty one is 31 is 29
so what we think is that the lack of
youth representation
results analytical little political
priority to serve the needs of the youth
and the needs of the youth are very
broad
see there’s this age bias that is
preventing India’s progress by
suppressing the voices of the youth so
what we do is what we’re trying to
decrease the age of candidacy of an MP
or MLA from 25 to something much more
representative now everywhere I go a lot
of people love to compare India to other
countries right so I thought I would do
that alright so I’m not gonna put up the
grid I don’t know if you can see it
right but on the left side it’s the
medium age of population and now you can
see India on the far left left or right
whatever on the light blue has the
lowest average age of a population and
I’m comparing developed countries like
UK Australia Germany and to get a wide
range of countries I even put Brazil and
Russia right lowest average age but we
have the highest age of Canada see the
highest look at the UK 18 Germany
Australia Brazil 18 are the the United
Kingdom not developed as Australian I
developed Germany not developed
so what’s the plan exactly so there’s
three really quick three simple steps
that we’re trying to do well not so
simple kind of complicated first to
approach the Supreme Court with a public
interest litigation we’ve done that
second to lobby with parliamentarians
across party lines so bipartisanship to
sponsor a bill to amend article 84
article 173 and section 36 now that’s
easier to type than done but you get the
gist and then obviously to Bobby with
those parliamentarians we need a
grassroots level campaign a campaign
from the electorate’s from the young
people from the old people who agree
with this to help support us but as I do
this as I research more there’s a lot of
doubts and that’s what I really want to
focus on not the campaign but exactly
what people’s doubts are so people say
young people are not mature enough or
young people are too inexperienced
enough as an Indian citizen you can
enroll in the Indian Army at 16 and a
half in the Navy
17 and in the Air Force it’s around 17
and a half to 18 so let me get this
straight you’re not mature enough to
represent people but you’re mature
enough to go kill people at age 21 you
can take the Union public service exam
the UPSC
perfect public’s commission at age 21 so
you can become an IAS IPS IFS officer by
let’s say if you’re really really added
by twenty one end of twenty one twenty
two so you can bureaucratically manage
an entire districts districts that have
millions of people but you can’t
represent those same people and make
policy for them because you’re not
inexperienced or mature enough a lot of
people say it’ll encourage dynasty
politics in India hardik patel doesn’t
have a political background that’s one
case prime case study of someone young
coming out to challenge this current
government the current system
and secondly this will engage a lot of
college leaders think about it you
graduate by 21 when you’re in college
and then you have that four-year gap
India has a strong institution of
college electoral systems we have
amazing college presidents vice
presidents etc and this entire election
system that goes on but then that
four-year gap right that that that
basically gap that comes in between
makes them lose that public support
so technically as a 22 year old 21 year
old if you can run we can have that
youth demographic that youth vote bank
that they can run from in contests so
some more dots there’s no need to lower
the age we have many more problems and
then everyone is the same argument
honestly I’m not gonna I’m not gonna
kind of like go into these arguments
because I feel it it’s just not right
now I want to make it clear the idea
isn’t to make our Parliament or our
assemblies a daycare where we have young
parlor politicians going in and getting
elected that’s not the issue that’s not
the goal the goal of this campaign is to
make our politicians recognize that
there are needs and there are desires of
young people that are being fulfilled
and currently until now they’ve been
able to get away with it if we have our
own elected politicians our candidates
that are our age that get our ideas they
can contest and they then can make those
stalwarts those political leaders that
have already been in office for forty
thirty years recognize the potential of
the youth and that makes them take us
seriously so what I’m asking you today
is let’s try to get rid of this ageism
this bias against age that exists you
know our goal again is to make the young
demographic so for the future I’m asking
you to question
why twenty-five thank you
[Applause]
hello everyone before I began I know I’m
the last talk so again half of you might
be sleeping
I’m surprised so many of you are still
here if I were you I would have left not
really there were engaging speakers so
I’m gonna need your help right because I
feel like talking to you I won’t get as
much but I think if we have a discussion
and a dialogue we’ll be able to get more
out of it okay so all the young people
here in this room not young at heart
actually by age young people I need you
to answer a few questions you can just
shout it out some easy some difficult I
think who is the Prime Minister of India
that’s a really hard one isn’t it uh who
named me a few are the elected member of
Parliament’s from Bangalore wait come on
a little bit louder anyone uh none come
on he’s a minister anyone else
the young people I think that’s one I’m
not from here okay so the young people
okay how about another specific question
the Indus Business Academy who is the
local MLA that represents this area okay
so here are some answers that I found
that I put down so in terms of the MPs I
put DK Suresh Anant Kumar go to PC Mohan
the MLA is DK Shiva Kumar so here is
another question how old do you think
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is you got
to get louder I have a hearing problem
65 okay how old do you think any of
those are PC Mohan Goethe okay and then
what about doc DK Shiv Kumar awesome so
they’re in the Modi is 67 those MPs that
I listed they range anywhere between 51
to 64 and these are only four they’re
older but not younger okay and then the
local MLA here is 55 years old now what
if I told you according to a survey
index done by the Indian government not
any of our services that Bangalore is
the youngest metropolitan city in India
the youngest now young is is a word
that’s kind of vague right what do you
define as as young anyone what energetic
okay open to ideas
what about ages what would you think a
young person is in terms of his age 18
to 35 anything else so for the rest of
this talk we’re gonna follow well I’ll
give you the definitions so the United
Nation defines a young person anywhere
between the ages of 15 to 24 okay the
Indian government has a slightly
different definition of what it is or
what it means to be young and that is
anywhere between 15 to 29 so since we’re
working in India we’re talking in India
we’re gonna follow the Indian
government’s definition of their age
right 15 to 29 as a young person so just
a quick question how many people do you
think can we consider below the age of
29 any number so there are one point now
2.2 7 billion people in India right 1.27
yeah what you can round up 1.3 1.3
billion people according to the census
of India the proportion of youth
population in India below the age of 30
years old is 73% of 1.3 billion people
below the age of 30 years old 73% above
that 27%
you all are in the minority so now that
we have so many people we’ve defined
that there are an incredible amount of
young people you would think that the
youth young people are doing quite well
in India right because it’s the majority
of the population seventy-three percent
of 1.3 billion people you’d think they’d
do well but statistics show otherwise
according to the Commonwealth youth
program in this development index is
0.58 which is a hundred and thirty three
out of a hundred and eighty countries we
were on the same par as countries like
Syria who have been tarnished in a civil
war for the past seven to eight years
we’re behind countries like Sri Lanka
Bangladesh Pakistan the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development
it states that thirty percent of India’s
youth are neither in education or nor in
employment we don’t count see some of
you are studying here some of you are
working somewhere but thirty percent of
the 72 percent of the 1.3 billion people
are doing neither working or getting
educated another depressing statistic
the World Health Organization reports
that India has one of the highest rates
of suicides in the world between the
ages of 15 to 24 I hate to bore you but
I’m gonna give you more statistics so
you realize how necessary this is so
currently the majority of Indian workers
nine out of ten are in the informal
sector where employment is unsteady pays
poor and Social Security is lacking
here’s another one the gross enrolment
ratio for a girl at secondary schools is
almost I think it’s seventy five point
seven I can’t tell I highlighted it so
you guys could check the link so you
know I wasn’t just saying things and the
guy for male ratios is almost a bit
but same number there’s another
statistic that says that India’s
children are almost 5 times higher than
China’s and twice than sub-saharan
Africa a staggering 75 percent of new
mothers or any make the country has one
of the lowest government expenditures of
Public Health which goes around around
1.2 percent of GDP so these are really
broad problems right so a lot of you
might be thinking like this this is
applicable to all of India right not
just the youth but you have to think it
that the majority of the country the
population the demographic is young
people so these base fundamentals that
we’re talking about education health
they have to they’re really pertinent to
young people so I wanted to give another
case study right this has less in stats
but to just give you some practical
value India has the third largest rate
of HIV and AIDS third largest number the
Center for Disease Control estimates
that India has 19 new million new cases
of STDs sexually transmitted diseases
every year with almost half half of 19
million being between the ages of 15 to
24 half of 19 million every year suffer
through says STDs you know what the
Indian government is doing they ban
condom ads in the morning two days ago
so only at night between 10:00 to 6:00
a.m. you can the condom ads will be able
will be playing on commercials other
than that because it’s not what they say
in our culture since car whatever but
are those STD rates also in our sense
culture yeah I bring this up because in
America where I got my education where I
went to college we have something called
Planned Parenthood doesn’t
know what Planned Parenthood is so it’s
basically a private organization funded
by basically the government public money
and what it works on is trying to
provide kind of raise information levels
of things like this so what they’ll do
is they’ll go into colleges every
college is mandated in their restrooms
and their locker rooms to have basically
a free vending machine where you can get
condoms where women can get access to
sanitary napkins pads tampons for free
without the judgement of others without
having to go to a medic shop to ask an
uncle sanitary napkins here that Planned
Parenthood wasn’t started by someone old
doctor started by someone in college who
thought that it was necessary to control
the rate of raise it rising rates of HIV
s and AIDS in the 70s so now that I’ve
shared some depressing statistics you
might be wondering like who actually
controls this who’s responsible for this
we do have someone responsible we have
the Ministry of Youth Affairs and sports
right so basically most of you might
know this but the youth Department and
the sports department are coupled up
because somehow Youth and Sports are
synonymous
India’s latest youth minister not the
one right now right the latest Minister
was 64 years old thankfully we have a
younger one I think he’s around 49
but 64 years old as a youth minister our
oldest youth minister was in the UPA
time in 2008 when he was 76 years old 76
year old governing a country of 1.3
billion people where 73 percent of those
people are below the age of 30 on top of
that it’s one of the lowest staff
departments in the entire government
but that’s not all see according to the
2017 budget India’s youth department had
one of the lowest budgets of the year it
was allocated five hundred crore rupees
now you might be thinking five hundred
crore rupees is a lot of money so think
back at two facts one again 73% of 1.3
billion people right and secondly its
comparative so I listed a few ministries
out the gully rejuvenation ministry has
a budget of 6,200 rupees
the ministry of yoosh you know the yoga
ministry has 1,300 gourd rupees the
tribal affairs ministry has 5329 gourd
rupees the culture ministry has 2700
crore rupees so there’s obviously a
difference now I’ve been telling you all
these facts and I thought I might be a
little biased because I deal with this
issue so I thought wait you know what
let the government of India tell you
what they think the problem is so the
Ministry of Youth Affairs is supposed to
release an annual report right of what
it calls the national youth policy the
last one again an annual report but the
last one was in 2014 what they reported
and these are not my words their words
and I’m gonna I’m gonna read this out
verbatim youth organizations in India
are fragmented and there is little
coordination between the various
stakeholders working on youth there’s no
systematic channels for engagement
between the government and young
citizens and no mechanisms for the youth
to provide inputs to governments there
has been no concentrated effort to
identify the rage of stakeholders
working on youth development analyze the
impact of their activities and determine
how these stakeholders can be aligned
and leveraged to more effectively
support the youth so again these are not
my words it’s the government admitting
and if that was way too complicated for
you I’ll simplify it the government just
admitted that they’re doing a really bad
job
does anyone recognize this guy not many
of you so our Prime Minister started his
campaign in 2014 well in 2013 at the
shri Raja College of Commerce was this
great coming to aid speech and I picked
up one line where he said this I want my
country to not only see the youth as a
new age voter but has a new age power
sadly we hear that rendition that line
over and over again from the local sir
punch to now the Prime Minister but
who’s actually doing something how do we
become a new age power see the Indian
youth isn’t a catch-22 how are we
supposed to recognize problems and fix
them you know having that problem well
we don’t necessarily have a voice to
change that to fix to act on those
issues so I do a lot of research in this
at Oxford this is basically what I focus
on especially the young demographic of
India so how do you ensure India’s youth
the country’s largest demographic is
integrated to its India’s political
social and economic systems I was
basically the the hypothesis that I was
working in see what we came up with is
that India’s driving social economic
force is its youth and yet India’s
greatest resource is politically
underrepresented so we believe that if
it was represented correctly or an
increase in representation that we would
utilize this great resource that we have
now I flew in from Ahmedabad and I was
there for about two and a half weeks and
some of you might have heard about the
Gujarat elections right here’s a picture
of a rally
in Gujarat here’s another picture of
another alley you know who these rallies
are done by this kid a 24 year old
hardik Patel 24 years of age is giving
competition to the Prime Minister of
India they’re in there Modi in his home
state this 24 year old is giving
competition to the president of the
largest political organization and the
oldest the Indian National Congress this
24 year old cannot run for office and
represent the millions of people that
are supporting him and good jobs because
of an arbitrary age set by the
government of India 24 years old
so there’s 670 million people this is a
statistic from the census of India
calculated from 2011 to a verge for the
six years that have passed by 670
million people below the age of 25 so
let me get this straight why then if you
want to run as a Member of Parliament
for let’s say the register ba you have
to be thirty years old why then if you
want to run for Member of Parliament in
the Lok Sabha you have to be 25 year old
why then if you want to run locally as a
member of Legislative Assembly you have
to be 25 years old when you already have
six hundred and seventy million people
below the ages of twenty five there’s a
stipulation you have to be at least 25
years old to run here’s some other facts
16th Lok Sabha is the oldest Parliament
elected till date which was elected by
the youngest average age of voters ever
so the youngest voters came out to elect
the oldest Parliament the average age of
a parliamentarian is 56 years old in
India 56 again I hate saying this again
and again but 670 million people are
below the age of 25 so a lot of people
believe in stats statistics etc and this
is a business school so I thought I
would give you somewhere I would try the
youth contribute contribution so we’re
talking about anywhere below the age of
below the age of 29 right in India
contributes 34 percent to the gross
national income 34 percent correlating
to that to the representation of Lok
Sabha in 2014 it was 2.2 4 percent and
sadly this was in 2014 now there are
only two members of parliament that are
below the age of thirty one is 31 is 29
so what we think is that the lack of
youth representation
results analytical little political
priority to serve the needs of the youth
and the needs of the youth are very
broad
see there’s this age bias that is
preventing India’s progress by
suppressing the voices of the youth so
what we do is what we’re trying to
decrease the age of candidacy of an MP
or MLA from 25 to something much more
representative now everywhere I go a lot
of people love to compare India to other
countries right so I thought I would do
that alright so I’m not gonna put up the
grid I don’t know if you can see it
right but on the left side it’s the
medium age of population and now you can
see India on the far left left or right
whatever on the light blue has the
lowest average age of a population and
I’m comparing developed countries like
UK Australia Germany and to get a wide
range of countries I even put Brazil and
Russia right lowest average age but we
have the highest age of Canada see the
highest look at the UK 18 Germany
Australia Brazil 18 are the the United
Kingdom not developed as Australian I
developed Germany not developed
so what’s the plan exactly so there’s
three really quick three simple steps
that we’re trying to do well not so
simple kind of complicated first to
approach the Supreme Court with a public
interest litigation we’ve done that
second to lobby with parliamentarians
across party lines so bipartisanship to
sponsor a bill to amend article 84
article 173 and section 36 now that’s
easier to type than done but you get the
gist and then obviously to Bobby with
those parliamentarians we need a
grassroots level campaign a campaign
from the electorate’s from the young
people from the old people who agree
with this to help support us but as I do
this as I research more there’s a lot of
doubts and that’s what I really want to
focus on not the campaign but exactly
what people’s doubts are so people say
young people are not mature enough or
young people are too inexperienced
enough as an Indian citizen you can
enroll in the Indian Army at 16 and a
half in the Navy
17 and in the Air Force it’s around 17
and a half to 18 so let me get this
straight you’re not mature enough to
represent people but you’re mature
enough to go kill people at age 21 you
can take the Union public service exam
the UPSC
perfect public’s commission at age 21 so
you can become an IAS IPS IFS officer by
let’s say if you’re really really added
by twenty one end of twenty one twenty
two so you can bureaucratically manage
an entire districts districts that have
millions of people but you can’t
represent those same people and make
policy for them because you’re not
inexperienced or mature enough a lot of
people say it’ll encourage dynasty
politics in India hardik patel doesn’t
have a political background that’s one
case prime case study of someone young
coming out to challenge this current
government the current system
and secondly this will engage a lot of
college leaders think about it you
graduate by 21 when you’re in college
and then you have that four-year gap
India has a strong institution of
college electoral systems we have
amazing college presidents vice
presidents etc and this entire election
system that goes on but then that
four-year gap right that that that
basically gap that comes in between
makes them lose that public support
so technically as a 22 year old 21 year
old if you can run we can have that
youth demographic that youth vote bank
that they can run from in contests so
some more dots there’s no need to lower
the age we have many more problems and
then everyone is the same argument
honestly I’m not gonna I’m not gonna
kind of like go into these arguments
because I feel it it’s just not right
now I want to make it clear the idea
isn’t to make our Parliament or our
assemblies a daycare where we have young
parlor politicians going in and getting
elected that’s not the issue that’s not
the goal the goal of this campaign is to
make our politicians recognize that
there are needs and there are desires of
young people that are being fulfilled
and currently until now they’ve been
able to get away with it if we have our
own elected politicians our candidates
that are our age that get our ideas they
can contest and they then can make those
stalwarts those political leaders that
have already been in office for forty
thirty years recognize the potential of
the youth and that makes them take us
seriously so what I’m asking you today
is let’s try to get rid of this ageism
this bias against age that exists you
know our goal again is to make the young
demographic so for the future I’m asking
you to question
why twenty-five thank you
[Applause]
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