More than 50% of India’s current population is below the age of 25 years and over 65% is below the age of 35.
Approximate 600 million youth under the age of 25 will be added to India’s population by 2030
According to UNFPA projections, India will continue to have one of the youngest populations in the world till 2030. India is experiencing a demographic window of opportunity, a “youth bulge” that will last till 2025.
India’s National Youth Policy emphasizes ‘empowering the youth of the country to achieve their full potential and through them enable India to find its rightful place in the community of nations’
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar would be the youngest state (median age 20 years) in 2026
India hosts the G20 Presidency as we celebrate Amritkal, or 75 years of independence. It’s also a time when we honor and commemorate all of our freedom fighters, social change leaders and icons who have shaped India with their thoughts and actions. If we act as the carriers and agents of their message and proudly and clearly repeat it, their fight for justice and oppression against imperialist, colonial mindset, social evils within the country and society can inspire the entire globe. Such major international events have often only taken place in Delhi. However, the government has decided to broaden the event by holding 200 meetings in 56 sites throughout India over the coming few months. This has created a wide range of opportunities for each state and especially its youth to participate and amplify the diverse but inclusive and unifying message of Bharat to the world- Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (trans: The World Is One Family)
The Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry has launched the themes of the upcoming Youth 20 or Y20 summit which marks the first time that India will be hosting the Y20 summit, which is the official youth engagement group of the G20 and provides a platform for young people to share their ideas and vision on G20 priorities.
The themes for the Y20 summit, which will be held in November of this year, include the Future of Work, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction, Peacebuilding and Reconciliation, Youth in Democracy and Governance, and Health, Wellbeing and Sports. Each of these themes will be the focus of Pre summits that will be held in the lead-up to the final Y20 summit, over the next eight months.
Youth in India is one of the buzz word and much spoken constituency in today’s context and also as the future of India that needs special attention and enabling factors to transform India into an empowered nation. The Central Government has given this process a major boost with the allocation of Rs. 3397.32 crores to the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry for 2023–2024, which is sure to also give a fillip to the broader youth-centric environment in the country. Major initiatives like Khelo India and institutions like the Sports Authority of India, the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, the National Sports Federations, and the National Service Scheme of the Ministry have seen a significant increase in funding, which is certain to transform the nation’s current sports ecosystem. The main goals of this funding allocation are to identify talent at the grassroots level, establish infrastructure, support athletes, develop a general sports culture, and give women, the divyang, and youngsters from remote locations equal chances..
A Yuva Leadership Portal is also planned to reach out to youth and engage them in various activities so as to improve their leadership skills, inculcate a greater sense of responsibility towards society, increase their income-earning ability and by connecting them with various urban and rural local bodies, small businesses, farmer-producer groups and cooperative societies.
The young population comprising 27.5% (15-29 yrs) of the total population of India and if we look at it from social category lenses, more than half of India’s population is comprised of Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Notified and De-Notified Tribes (NTs/DNTs), Other Backward Castes/Class and Muslim communities whom we largely know as socially excluded and discriminated groups based on their “identity, social location and economic deprivation”. Women and girls, additionally, face gender-based exclusion and restrictions.
Socially excluded communities are among the poorest in both rural and urban areas, continue to face discrimination in education, lack access to economic opportunities, and are denied personal growth with dignity and a sense of equal citizenship in all spheres of their lives. Over 70% of boys and girls who enroll in grade 1 drop out by grade 10 or 12 with a very few of them entering into higher education. There are various reports of their neglect and discrimination in schools/colleges, and this is corroborated by experiential anecdotes on ground. They have little skills, limited access to higher education or employment opportunities. The majority falls back into daily wage, casual and migrant labour. Some also get into bonded (slavery like) labour. The families and communities do not have adequate social or economic capital to guide them and the public education or engagement do not provide them adequate space and opportunities to explore their life and career trajectory based on their lived experiences.
Our engagement in the field provides evidence that children and youth from socially excluded communities have little recognition, limited opportunities and find it difficult to explore their aspirations, human personality and talents. Being an invisible category while living in extreme poverty and insecurity, they are unable to influence their communities also. Except for a few young people, the large majority continues to fall back into traditional employment such as manual labour, scavenging and family occupations within the “forced” social and economic framework. It is important to build additional equity measures and support them to escape the vicious cycle of poverty and exclusion.
It is in this context that empowering youth in India must be recognized and include the two dimensions of ‘youth development’ and ‘youth for development’, integrating and interweaving into each other. With the highest youth population in absolute numbers as well as population proportion, youth development must take center-stage to ensure that all young people, with special focus on socially excluded youth, are equipped with the necessary information, knowledge, skills and attitude to deal with the challenges they face in their growing adolescent years and adulthood. Youth for development involves all those engagements and interventions that youth contribute towards the development of their community, society and nation at large.
The GoI has been already running several programmes/schemes to harness the young talent in the country and could be seen in the form of multiple young professional fellowship programmes by different ministry, scholarships for higher education including increase in overseas scholarship and various public-private partnerships to enhance the participation of young people in country’s development and in engagement in community services. In fact, civil society and various private players are also running multiple fellowship and capacity building programmes to prepare young people for development and nation building.
One such programme run by American India Foundation (AIF) for the past 20 years as Banyan Impact Fellowship (BIF). This particular fellowship has invested and built capacities of over five hundred young people to enter into the social sector, become entrepreneurs and build capacities to become social leaders/entrepreneurs who are currently engaging in community services across India. This uniquely designed fellowship also fosters an exchange and partnership building with young US citizens to come together and design some pathbreaking community-based projects to contribute in the areas of education, health, climate justice and livelihood. AIF also partnered with hundreds of local NGOs improving the lives of India’s underprivileged, with a special focus on women, children, and youth. AIF does this through high impact interventions in education, health, and livelihoods, because poverty is multidimensional. AIF’s unique value proposition is its broad engagement between communities, civil society, and expertise, thereby building a lasting bridge between the United States and India.
Even if the world’s population is aging, our diverse younger demographic profile can be useful both domestically and in a broader global perspective. India’s G20 Presidency provides India’s youngsters with the highly sought-after opportunity to serve as ambassadors for global causes. The G20’s Y20 or Youth 20 engagement group will harness the power of young people to forge a worldwide consensus on issues that are challenging for humanity. Recognizing the challenges faced by a large number of socially excluded adolescents and young people in India and evolving equitable measures in all aspects of Y20’s thematic areas will certainly show the path towards making India an inclusive and empowered nation led by such a diverse group of young people!
References-
- The Y20 is an official engagement group of the G20, composed of young leaders from the G20 countries. Y20 India will act as a platform for dialogue and negotiations among young leaders in India and around the world, who will come together to address the challenges facing our generation and strive to make a positive impact on the world (https://y20india.in/call-for-collaboration/)
- Data from https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1895711#:~:text=Ministry%20of%20Youth%20Affairs%20and%20Sports%20receives%20Budget%20allocation%20of,11%25%20over%20FY%202022%2D23
