DC Edit | Gen Alpha Joins Gen Z In Questioning Policy Of Govt
The BJP may have started showing the signs of losing to battle to control the larger political narrative which it has been peddling quite successfully for more than a decade for good reasons
The reported plans of the BJP to send a Union minister to a university every day to “interact directly with students and understand their concerns” can be seen as a response to the perceived failure of the party to reads the young minds but the mantris on the mission will do bear in mind the rebuke a vice-chancellor in Kerala received while trying to push the governmental agenda. The attempts by Mohanan Kunnummal, the vice-chancellor of Kerala University of Health Sciences, to extract an answer from students gathered at a function to honour them for their performance in the Class 10 and Class 12 examinations to the effect that they are not “cockroaches” were met with deafening silence. Repeated prodding by Dr Kunnummal to say that they are, in fact, “lions” failed to move them.
The BJP may have started showing the signs of losing to battle to control the larger political narrative which it has been peddling quite successfully for more than a decade for good reasons. The party had started on a winning note against the then United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre. The theme was the alleged massive corruption under the government and the “development history” of Gujarat under Narendra Modi, then the state’s chief minister. After three successive elections to the Lok Sabha and running the government for the last 12 years, the party is now facing tough questions on governance.
Lack of quality education and employment opportunities used to be items on the agenda of political parties during elections till now, but they have lately become the sole agenda of the youth brigade. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) which successfully ran a campaign for the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union education minister for his failures has called for a social audit of government-run schools in all states. The party says it has got massive response from all over the country. There are reports from several states about students hitting the streets demanding better infrastructure for their schools. The poor education facilities in the country are not the responsibility of the BJP alone; it is the collective failure of all the parties which are and were in government. But the BJP may be held answerable because the Generation Alpha has seen the party in power at the Centre and in most states during the larger part of their life.
The real challenge for the BJP will be its inability to flash the communal card as a panacea for every ill in this case; the signs from the youngsters till now have been that they are unwilling to take that bait. They are also unlikely to subscribe to the hate campaign the right wing often unleashes when questioned. The youth ask basic questions on education, healthcare, housing and decent infrastructure and will be satisfied only if they get convincing answers. Narratives that take birth in IT cells and are propagated through WhatsApp may die their natural death soon for actions on the ground alone can see the BJP through. The party should not expect the silence of the students in Kerala everywhere; this bunch can turn vocal in their disagreement with the official story.
