Youth and Experience in Politics

So you're a young politician. We saw protests in Jantar Mantar.

Where do you think is the disconnect?

Because we saw the Prime Minister taking to Instagram.

This was a party in twenty fourteen which had holograms, which

was on top of its

game, uh, as far as social media was concerned.

Now he's given directions to his ministers to be on social media.

Is there a disconnect between-

I would not speak to the mind of the Prime Minister because I was not in cabinet

and neither were you. I will only say if there was a disconnect,

then we would not

have the Prime Minister on Instagram, would you?

And it is not that the Prime Minister is new to Instagram.

It is just that you were a bit taken aback to the fact

that he would put

out a story or a video maybe at eleven in the night or twelve in the night.

That is a Prime Minister that has his hand on the pulse of the

people.

That is a Prime Minister that is responsive.

But the whole ageist value that this particular discourse brings to

us

compels me to ask one question in the room.

How many of you are below the age of twenty-nine?

Could you please help and stand?

All of you who are below the age of twenty-nine,

could you look at everybody else in the room and tell us,

are we redundant as human beings because we are not twenty-nine?

Are we not relevant because we are not twenty-nine?

So relevance has no retirement age.

If Tukaram Omble was going to look at his age, at fifty-four he would not have

tried to catch Ajmal Kasab. He would have said,

"Let somebody from Gen Z come and

catch the terrorist." That is not how institutions work.

We are sixty-four crore Indians who go to vote.

We all do not vote for the same party.

We all do not vote for the same individual.

We all do not conform to a particular ideology, a particular political thought,

but

we all believe in the institutions of India.

We do not abuse our institutions. We do not claim it's a utopian state.

We say it is a democracy at work.

So if these twenty-nine and below aged youngsters think we are not

redundant as human beings, then nobody at Jantar Mantar shouting

abuses at me can make me believe that as well.

You cannot go to Kargil and shout down men in uniform in the

Indian Armed

Forces and say, "I pay tax."

Go and say that to Vikram Batra's mother who will say, "I will give you your money.

Give my son back."

But do you need to-

You cannot say to any ASI like Tukaram Omble, "I will beat you

because you wear a uniform."

So-

So a country

needs the impatience of the youth for its future,

but it also needs the experience of those who know what is the

cost that we pay to be a democratic country where every

citizen, irrespective of age, region, and religion, has a voice and has a

right to be respected.

So you need the impatience of the youth, but also you need the experience of

those who have lived long enough to know what it takes to build this

country.