Click to play videoIndians know the value of money; Indian parents try to be friends to their children and marriage is a relationship of trust and sharing to Indians.
These were the key finding of CNN-IBN’s State of the Nation survey conducted by the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in partnership with the DNA newspaper. In the fourth and concluding part of the series, the survey focused on the relationship between old and young Indians.
As many as 88 per cent older Indians feels the younger generation is more materialistic, says the survey. As many as 78 per cent older Indians feel that the young are self-centered, but 80 per cent of them also say that the young are smarter than them in worldly matters.
Has the relationship between the older generation and the young in India changed? Is India now youth obsessed? CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose asked to a rainbow panel of guests comprising of varied professions: Malishka, who hosts a show called Morning No. 1 on Red FM 93.5, advertising guru and filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar, actress Pooja Bedi, columnist and writer Jerry Pinto, Sathya Saran, editor of Me magazine, and Kamala Ganesh, who teaches sociology at Mumbai University.
“The young generation is a very loud generation; they want everything instantly—instant coffee, instant money, instant fame. As for being smart, they have access to lot more information. There are lot more TV channels than before, on politics, lifestyle, value systems, the East and West. I think the current generation has immensely benefited from this,” said Bedi.
The young are not to be damned, said Saran. “They have foreknowledge of things which we had to learn the hard way. Perhaps that gives them a know-it-all attitude,” she said.
There is so much happening in the world and there is so much it has to offer and it’s nothing wrong if the youth want it all. “It is not of a generation which went to work, returned home and considered that life. It is generation that wants more and needs more—there is nothing wrong in that,” she said.
“There is nothing wrong in wanting more. The question is what you want more of,” said Pinto. “There is much more information but little processing. There is much more knowledge but little wisdom. There is much more ambition but little conscience. But if there is problem with the youth blame the parents,” he said.
Pinto faulted parents—the generation deprived of everything and which waited in queues for all the needs of life—for creating a “Frankenstein generation that wants everything regardless of the cost”.
Are parents giving their children too much? Are they trying to make up for the poverty of the past? The problem is not greedy youth or fawning parents but lack of dialogue between them,” said Kakkar.
“A very important strength of the Indian family was that at least one meal in a day was eaten together. That was important because there was a discussion there; there was impartation of values, there was debate on issues. That has broken down,” said Kakkar.
Money, old and new
When asked ‘can we shape our destiny by hard work or is our destiny pre-ordained’ more young people said they can shape their fortunes. As many as 69 per cent young said they believed they can shape their destiny and 55 per cent of the older generation said so.
“The younger generation is not fatalist. We have put tradition in our back pockets, we hold our heads high and we can talk on any platform. Today’s youth is very focussed and they know what they want,” said Malishka.
Marriage, sons and daughters
Over 80 per cent of the respondents, old and young, in the survey said life is incomplete without marriage. Forty-four per cent of the young said every family must have a son and 56 per cent of the younger generation believed in the same.
“I think it (desire to marry) is a human emotion and it has nothing to being old or young. It is wanting a perfect partner to share your life with,” said Bedi.
The survey shows that young Indians are conformists, said Ganesh. “This generation is not as rebellious as the previous. They are a more conforming generation and though they may differ in attitude to money and work and freer in expressing sexuality but ultimately I think ultimately they come down to marriage,” she said.
Indians’ true friends: the family:
Over 80 per cent of the both the young and older say they would turn to their family if they were in trouble. Is the family still the greatest bond in the Indian society?
“All of us carry in our heads a nation of the ideal Indian family, which is partly and partly mythical. But because we have that notion we measure everything in terms of that. A lot of changes are happening but I don’t think family or marriage itself is being replaced,” said Ganesh.
“The family will remain. It might be a different kind of family: of stepfathers and stepchildren; it could be the nuclear family or the extended family. It could be even the office, when you spend eight hours in the office it becomes your family,” said Saran.
“Family is suffocating—it would be very good in terms of human progress that but there is seems to be no alternative to it,” said Pinto.
“I think the greatest strength this country has is the family and the support system it offers young people,” said Kakkar.
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