My Experiments with Truth Romance of revolution died …Part 2

My Experiments with Truth Romance of revolution died …Part 2

Francis Fukuyama said in the end of history “in watching the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history. The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism.”

With my limited understanding I believe his thought process can be summarized as
“All roads will lead you towards single destination some will reach sooner than other’s however end of all culture and civilisation is westernization. It’s like a journey in a non stop train which once started will only stop at the destination, you cannot bring it to halt you can only slow it’s pace however in any case end station will remain the same. And in the journey you will loose all the differentiating factors which separated you when you boarded the train”.

India boarded this train in early 90’s and is witnessing initial struggle for berth as it happens in case of any general class compartment on any normal routine day…

History

After independence till late 80’s we remained a NAM country in our approach towards any thing foreign often looking at them with suspicion…Largely due to the fact that East India Co (1600-1857) and Crown (1858- 1947) came as a trader then started occupying our territory and finally fled after looting our national wealth…

We viewed world with glasses of suspicion for almost 40 year’s post independence and we remained closed, socialistic economy as propagated by Nehru…and as Organisations DNA is decided by the approach of its leader and people align themselves with it and long term continuity of that thought process leads to the belief that this is the only available solution…India continued a third world country growing at Hindu rate of growth for almost 5 decades after independence.

My hypothesis

I believe a lot changed for youth almost suddenly in late 90’s…

Something which we know as a generation gap was not as much evident in approach of my father (Youth of late 70’s) and my grandfather (Youth of Early 50’s) and even in approach of my uncle ( Youth of late 80’s ) as much as it is evident in my approach ( born in 80) and my cousin’s ( Born in late 80’s)…
That is the reason why I call people born in late 70’s and early 80’s as 80 confused and those born in early 90’s and thereafter as 90 infused (Will discuss it in greater details later)

So through part 2 we will try to appreciate what led to the formation of bulk of today’s youth the way they are …by youth I am only taking in consideration those born in late 80’s and early 90’s …and with Part 3 what led them to say “You are not like Us”


Time Line of Change

Youth of 1950’s (Era of Patel’s unification and bhave’s bhoodan movement)… Socialistic Approach

Youth of Early 70’s and late 80’s ( Era of JP/AASU/Mandal Movement)… still socialist but filled with anger due to failed promises (If films are representative of changing society then emergence of Angry Young Man of 70’s famously represented by Bachhan was reflection of this new reality )

Youth till 1995-96 (Born in early 70’s)…still largely socialist but s/he could sense changes; however his Approach towards life continued to match with Youth of earlier era…

However next wave of change was much bigger I have divided it in Youth living in 4 different socio-economic zones

1st 1993-96 (Metro and other big cities)… Spread of Cable TV and Change in DD’s program offerings with Advent of First Daily sop Shanti ( followed it with Swabhimaan etc) on 15th August 1995… With this Badki (of Hum log 1984-85) changed to Shanti (Illegitimate child of illegitimate relationship) and then illegitimate relationships, 2-3 divorce became part of our reel/real life…

2nd 1996-2000 (Smaller cities and semi urban centre’s)… with greater proliferation of cable TV /Advent of internet and through it cheap source of pornography … (I can Still recall that one of my first visit in early 2000 to internet café along with rahul was driven by curiosity to explore those desi*%$# websites and which ended in fiasco  as we were not aware of how to stop N number of html links which open on a continuous basis once you click a single link)

3rd 1998-2002 (Other semi urban, semi rural and rural centres)… these were primarily those centre’s which had some connectivity with urban centres and with growth in demand they started experiencing fruits of economic empowerment…

4th 1998-2004 (Villages)… though they had started experiencing winds of change in late 90’s thanks to sam pitroda with greater telecom connectivity to urban centre’s…Actual impact was understood only when some of the inhabitants who left in early 60’s-70’s started coming back with green bucks

Not all of the above mentioned zones experienced change in almost exact fashion for some it started late but then picked up as a wild fire however for it took really long to appreciate the impact of change…so some of the villages with greater connectivity to metro’s graduated much early as compared to smaller cities while some of the Urban centre’s (primarily in south) still remain in the state of intra hydrogen bond…










Tools/People/Events that bought the change in post liberalisation era

Change of Socioeconomic model (This is the base for almost every thing, which India witnessed in last 20 years…)

15th August 1947 Jawaharlal Nehru became prime minister.
1951 India got first 5 year plan and planning courtesy Nehru’s love for Stalin and communism.
On 5th march 1953 Joseph Stalin died… His country men like Khrushchev revealed the misdeeds of Stalin era (1924-1952) …
However our love for Stalin continued and it continued for 40 long years…
Finally in late 80’s Soviet union, Berlin wall and East Germany collapsed, China moved ahead of the shadow of Mao…and with no socialistic model to look at and under the huge impact (oil price hike) of gulf war of 1991 we finally changed side from communism, socialism and NAM driven politics to capitalism…

Satyanarayan Ghanshyamdas Pitroda (1987) was responsible for shaping India's foreign and domestic telecommunications policies. He is largely considered responsible for the telecommunications revolution in India and specifically, the ubiquitous, yellow-signed Public Call Offices (PCO) that quickly brought cheap and easy domestic and international public telephones all over the country.

Color TV/ VCP/VCR on rent ( Late 80’s and early 90’s) and Asian Games 1982 ( Frenzy was such that the TV industry witnessed growth of 140 % in1984-85)

Cable TV growth in urban India

Year Number of households Cabled
January 1992 412,000 *
November 1992 1.2 million *
1993 3.3 million *
January 1994 7.4 million
End-1994 11.8 million *
*Frank Small studies; the rest are industry estimates
Internet/ Y2K problem/Devang Mehta
(Advent of internet and probably 95-2000 experienced biggest brain drain ( or as per late visionary devang mehta brain gain thanks to Y2K) this was the era when india connected to the world in its truest sense. With greater avilability of information and onsite visit by small town freshers ( Just out of their mom n pop franchisee of Aptech and NIIT courses) we came closer to the world…
Mobile/PMGSY ( Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana)
With close to 400 million Telephone connection by May 2009 as per TRAI.
PMGSY started in 2000 with the objective to connect habitations with a population of 250 persons and above.
Both led to greater connectivity and better flow of information.


Changes in family structure this was outcome of change and bought even bigger change with it
Till 70’s Joint Family ( We)



80’s-90’s Nuclear Family ( My Wife My Child)



Post 2000 Individual ( I,ME,MYSELF,MYLIFE,MY CAREER)

And Economic Policies in general

Do you believe that above mentioned are the only points that led to the development of today’s youth …

With part 3 I will present my hypothesis 80 confused and 90 infused, the approach will be similar to one adopted by the author’s of Freakonomics. Till then waiting for your feedback …