An article stating different segments (Bharatiyas, Indians and INglodians...as discussed earlier in this blog) of Indian youth and their various aspirations...
The young surge
Thu, 16 Apr 2009 India Today
Those looking for a reflection of India's youth in the gleaming glassfronts of its malls and the dazzling multitude of its multiplexes, be warned. The real Youngistan lies elsewhere, away from the Prados and pub-hops, the Gucci shoes and the GMAT tests, in the no-name villages with bad roads and worse sanitation where 68.9 per cent of youngsters between 12 and 35 live.
With another 18.6 per cent living in small towns, it is clear that big city youth may have the mojo, but they don't necessarily have the majority.
For ageing leaders, who have suddenly discovered the joys of blogs and Facebook, of Flickr and Twitter, this may come as a rude shock as they try to woo young voters with the ostensible tools of the young. But 97 per cent of young India does not have access to the Internet and 41 per cent never watch television. What's more, the urban young population, which has benefited the most from liberalisation's often chaotic choices, has fallen by 4.1 per cent in large and small towns since 2005, signifying the gradual ageing of urban India.
The visible youth are a minority, with just 3.4 per cent of urban youth between 12 and 35 being skilled workers and 0.3 per cent businessmen/industrialists. In the villages, where the silent majority lives, the professions are largely dictated by the accident of birth or coincidence of circumstances.
About 9 per cent are landowners, 7.8 per cent are farm labourers and 7.4 per cent are in jobs other than agriculture, while 25 per cent are studying. Yes, 44.2 per cent contribute to a money-generating activity, but they are caught in a heartbreaking cycle of poverty, says Suresh Nimbalkar, vice-president of Hansa Research, who compiled the data based on IRS 2008 Round 2.
Numbers that count
* 521 million of the population is between 12 and 35, with 268 million men and 253women
* 31.1% live in urban India 12.5%live in big towns and 18.6% in small towns while 68.9% live in villages
* 53.4% of those between 12 and 35 are married. 63% of young women are married compared to 45% of men
* 67.9% are unaware of the Internet
* 86.9% don't go to movie theatres, 76.8%never listen to the radio, 4.1% read English newspapers while 17.9% read Hindi dailies
* 40.9% never watch TV while 44.2% watch it once in seven days
* 25% of those between 12 and 35 are studying, while 7.8% work as agricultural labourers and 7.4% work in jobs other than farming
What does all this mean in an information era that seems to be witnessing unprecedented mobilisation among young people, a realisation that they are not just a passive market for FMCG goods, but participants and indeed kingmakers in the politics of their nation? We may overestimate the exposure or even the access of young people across the nation to mass media, but we should not underestimate their ambitions.
Young people, for long viewed as needing supervision, as sociologist Lata Narayan says, are increasingly asserting themselves against their typecasting. Western accounts of India have made it fashionable to perceive the globalised MTV urban youth as part of a gigantic universal melting pot, whose interest in politics is peripheral.
But as the election of the first rock star President in America has shown this is not true even in the home of MTV. Youth turnout in the US increased to 52 per cent, and voters under 30 accounted for 60 per cent of the overall increase. In India, as these 40 snapshots of Indians under 40 show, young people are not just involved in furthering their own careers, but also their causes as citizens.
And the hunger is in the villages and small towns, where electricity is an infrequent visitor and colleges are hubs of often malefic political activity. No one is content any more to do what his or her parents did. Boxing, labelling, and sorting out by caste, age, gender or ethnicity are giving way to the desire to dream and do unencumbered by old identities.
So Ernakulam district in Kerala has a woman panchayat leader, Susan Thankappan, who has stood against the state's powerful land mafia to protect paddy fields in her area. Ernakulam is also the birthplace of actor Asin, who is at ease in Tamil potboilers as she is on the cover of glossy fashion magazines. Then again Surat in Gujarat has sent a young girl, Prachi Desai, to Balaji Telefilms to become a soap star but Gujarat is also where an MBA from San Fransisco State University, Rahul Gala Shah, has returned to become a successful farmer.
In young India, there is no one truth, this or that, either or. There is one Youngistan that watches MTV Roadies, another has a student leader, P.K. Biju, who wants a paved road to make the 2-km trudge to his school easier. There is one Youngistan that thinks Buddhism is a fashion statement, and another couple, Shruti Nagvanshi and Lenin Raghuvanshi, who embrace the faith as a protest against untouchability. These are men and women who have chosen the rough and tumble of politics, set up unusual businesses, returned from the West to work in India, and used their talents to entertain and amuse. They are a microcosm of the vast young nation they belong to.
And they are citizens at a time when the world is watching how they will exercise their rights in the world's largest democracy. Everyone's eyeing the 180 million people under 35 who are going to vote this year, and the 43 million of them who will be first-time voters. Will they cold-shoulder convention or cave in to it? They are the future of India, but on their decision may well depend the India of the future.
with Purvi Malhotra
Source: http://in.elections.yahoo.com/articles.html?feed=http://in.news.yahoo.com/248/20090416/1604/top-the-young-surge.html
About INgene blog : First ever Indian Youth trend Insights blog
About INgene : First ever Indian Youth trend Insights blog:
This blog explores the detailed characteristics of Young-India and explains the finer & crucial differences they have with their global peers. The blog also establishes the theory of “adopted differentiation” (Copyright Kaustav SG,2007) and how the Indian & Inglodian youth are using this as a tool to differentiate themselves from the “aam aadmi” (mass population of India) to establish their new found identity.
The term youth refers to persons who are no longer children and not yet adults. Used colloquially, however the term generally refers to a broader, more ambiguous field of reference- from the physically adolescent to those in their late twenties.
Though superficially the youth all over the world exhibits similar [degree of] attitude, [traits of] interests & [deliverance of] opinion but a detailed observation reveals the finer differential characteristics which are crucial and often ignored while targeting this group as a valued consumer base. India is one of the youngest countries in the world with 60% of its population less then 24 years of age and is charted as the most prospective destination for the retail investment in the A. T. Kearney’s Global Retail Opportunity Report, 2007. With the first ever non-socialistic generation’s thriving aspiration & new found money power combined with steadily growing GDP, bubbling IT industry and increasing list of confident young entrepreneurs, the scenario appears very lucrative for the global and local retailers to target the “Youngisthan” (young-India). But, the secret remains in the understanding of the finer AIOs of this generation. The Indian youth segment roughly estimates close to 250million (between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five) and can be broadly divided (socio-psychologically) into three categories: the Bharatiyas, the Indians & the Inglodians (copyright Kaustav SG 2008). The Bharatiyas estimating 67% of the young population lives in the rural (R1, R2 to R4 SEC) areas with least influence of globalization, high traditional values. They are least economically privileged, most family oriented Bollywood influenced generation. The Indians constitute 31.5% (A, B,C, D & E SEC) and have moderate global influence. They are well aware of the global trends but rooted to the Indian family values, customs and ethos. The Inglodians are basically the creamy layers (A1,A SEC) and marginal (1.5% or roughly three million) in number though they are strongly growing (70% growth rate). Inglodians are affluent and consume most of the trendy & luxury items. They are internet savvy & the believers of global-village (a place where there is no difference between east & west, developing & developed countries etc.), highly influenced by the western music, food, fashion & culture yet Indian at heart.
This blog explores the detailed characteristics of Young-India and explains the finer & crucial differences they have with their global peers. The blog also establishes the theory of “adopted differentiation” (Copyright Kaustav SG,2007) and how the Indian & Inglodian youth are using this as a tool to differentiate themselves from the “aam aadmi” (mass population of India) to establish their new found identity.
The term youth refers to persons who are no longer children and not yet adults. Used colloquially, however the term generally refers to a broader, more ambiguous field of reference- from the physically adolescent to those in their late twenties.
Though superficially the youth all over the world exhibits similar [degree of] attitude, [traits of] interests & [deliverance of] opinion but a detailed observation reveals the finer differential characteristics which are crucial and often ignored while targeting this group as a valued consumer base. India is one of the youngest countries in the world with 60% of its population less then 24 years of age and is charted as the most prospective destination for the retail investment in the A. T. Kearney’s Global Retail Opportunity Report, 2007. With the first ever non-socialistic generation’s thriving aspiration & new found money power combined with steadily growing GDP, bubbling IT industry and increasing list of confident young entrepreneurs, the scenario appears very lucrative for the global and local retailers to target the “Youngisthan” (young-India). But, the secret remains in the understanding of the finer AIOs of this generation. The Indian youth segment roughly estimates close to 250million (between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five) and can be broadly divided (socio-psychologically) into three categories: the Bharatiyas, the Indians & the Inglodians (copyright Kaustav SG 2008). The Bharatiyas estimating 67% of the young population lives in the rural (R1, R2 to R4 SEC) areas with least influence of globalization, high traditional values. They are least economically privileged, most family oriented Bollywood influenced generation. The Indians constitute 31.5% (A, B,C, D & E SEC) and have moderate global influence. They are well aware of the global trends but rooted to the Indian family values, customs and ethos. The Inglodians are basically the creamy layers (A1,A SEC) and marginal (1.5% or roughly three million) in number though they are strongly growing (70% growth rate). Inglodians are affluent and consume most of the trendy & luxury items. They are internet savvy & the believers of global-village (a place where there is no difference between east & west, developing & developed countries etc.), highly influenced by the western music, food, fashion & culture yet Indian at heart.
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