Listen!

At Jantar Mantar

Three weeks ago, in Seventy Promises, I wrote this about listening:

“Keep Listening

“With a hearing aid, if necessary.

“After a certain age, ‘Uncles’, especially Indian uncles, think they don’t need to listen to anyone at all. They will hold forth, and if you dare to disagree, they will shake their heads violently in response, turn away, or try to shout you down. They’ve seen it all, they know it all, and the longer they’ve believed that, the less they actually contribute, because the more out of touch they are with reality.

“Besides reading voraciously, I try to listen carefully, really carefully, to young people. To meet them in their own spaces, whether coffee shops, bars, rehearsal stages or behind their microphones.”

Or at protest sites, I should have added. My wife and son had insisted that we go on holiday to mark my 70th, so we were in Albania as the CJP protests mounted. But I did manage to visit Jantar Mantar on Saturday.

We had heard that there was a shortage of drinking water on the site, so we carried 10 crates of bottled water in the trunk of our car. The nearest parking was half a kilometer from the site, and my companions wondered how we would ferry the water to the protest site. I hefted one, and we figured we could ask CJP volunteers to fetch the rest. We had barely gone a hundred paces when two young men exiting Jantar Mantar asked:

“Uncle, can we take that from you?”

I’m good, I said, but we have more crates in the car, so maybe you can help with those.

Well before we got through the barricades, spontaneous offers of help had ferried a hundred and twenty kilograms of water to the site. We’ve seen this before, my sister reminded me, the quiet eagerness to help when the times call for citizens to rally around - when the Nagarik Ektaa Manch sprung up to help victims of anti-Sikh riots in 1984, at the time of the Uttarkashi earthquake in 1991, during the Shaheen Bagh gatherings. People join in quietly, focus on what they can do - beyond organisation, beyond defined roles, in the spirit of fraternity that reaches deep into the sense of being human, of building community.

The community that had formed within the protest site was unique. On the main stage, reconstructed after the police tore it down on Monday night, proceedings were being conducted by functionaries of the Cockroach Janta Party, and hundreds of visitors were tuned into what was happening there. But at every turn, there were groups performing their own acts of resistance, invoking Ambedkar and Bhim, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, or even Che Guevara. Chanting, dancing, recording, displaying posters that were creative, moving, raucously funny. Flowing through spaces within the larger Jantar Mantar space, an architectural manifestation of the nature of the gathering - spontaneous, open, and uncontrolling.

Both playful and determined - a rare combination of attributes that was deeply striking. These kids are not going anywhere; this became clear to me within minutes of walking in. A generation that has found a unique voice, with a timbre and range that I have never before witnessed. Also deeply concerning, because less than a mile away, fortified in its sandstone seat of power, our government seemed to have dug its heels in, refusing to concede to demands for the resignation of the Education Minister.

What happens, I asked myself, when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? An explosion of energy? This could be devastating.

Before the day was out, our Education Minister announced his resignation. Why could they not have done this earlier, a friend asked me. Because seventy year olds are not good at listening. But listen we must, especially in one of the youngest nations of the world. The average age of our citizens is 29, the average age of our Cabinet is 61, and the most visible national figures are Narendra Modi, 75, Rajnath Singh, also 75, Nitin Gadkari, 69, and the mere stripling, Amit Shah, 62. These are deep gulfs in age, not to mention power. Our leaders need to find ways to listen to the young that go beyond surveillance.

Gen Z is restless, Gen Z is acutely aware of its rights. The next quarter century is going to be challenging for the global economy and the future of jobs. This will be a very difficult time for our republic if we don’t find ways to listen to the young.

In the weekly substack, Anticipating the Unintended, co-author RSJ wrote this morning:

“Governments do not have to accept every demand placed before them, and protesters do not have to be right about every issue they raise. But both sides have an interest in ensuring that the street remains the last place where a disagreement seeks resolution, not the first place where citizens believe anyone will finally listen. Unfortunately, I believe we have reached there”

I hope not. We must listen to the young.

With hearing aids, if necessary.