BHUBANESWAR: Author and former director of the Nehru Centre and minister for Culture and Education at the High Commission of India in the UK Amish Tripathi on Sunday advised Gen Z to protest within constitutional limits, cautioning that while the Indian State can be “very soft” when protests remain within the law, it can be “very hard” when those limits are crossed.
Speaking at the session ‘Dharma in Daily Life: The Morality Question’ on the second day of Odisha Literary Festival on Sunday, Amish said, “As long as the protest is within constitutional limits, it’s okay. But, when you cross a line, in India, the State will be very hard on you, regardless of the party.”
Referring to the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest in July, Amish said parts of the movement had turned anarchic due to violence, but maintained that the protesters had legitimate demands. “They have the right to protest that exams should be clean and they should have jobs. They have achieved stuff because they remained within the constitutional limits,” he observed.
He pointed out that a committee had been constituted to look into the examination-related concerns. He also cited the announcement of a free online coaching scheme which, in a way, would address the challenges of the high cost of coaching being faced by students.
Amish also called for greater regulation of social media, and said it caused tremendous chaos among both children and adults. Responding to criticism that Gen Z was particularly aggressive or disrespectful, he said younger generations were not necessarily worse behaved than previous generations. “Gen Z is a little more aggressive, but not as crazy as Gen X and Boomers were,” the popular author said. Amish said the Naxal movement was an example of the far more extreme nature of political rebellion in earlier generations.
“All that these guys (Gen Z) did was make Reels,” he said.
However, the author cautioned Gen Z that the consequences of public misbehaviour were far greater in the age of smartphones and social media.
“The cost of bad behaviour on Gen Zs is far higher than on us. These days, just some bad words of even three seconds in a three-hour protest, becomes your story for life, because everyone has a mobile phone,” he said.
Advising young people to be careful about their actions in public, Amish said, “Be careful of what you do in public. And this is not just about protest, I tell Gen Zs that we live in a social media world. Don’t do something stupid because the internet never forgets.”
Speaking about his recently-released children’s book Dhruv and Tara: The Great Indian History Quiz, the author said one of its central purposes was to highlight historical facts that he believes have been overlooked in conventional accounts of Indian history.
Citing the example of the Balijatra festival in Cuttack, Tripathi said Indian traders had developed a sophisticated understanding of monsoon winds and maritime trade routes centuries ago. “Balijatra has been going on in Odisha since many centuries, long before Vasco da Gama reached Kerala,” he said, adding Indian traders used the northeast monsoon to sail out during winter and returned with the monsoon around July-August. “There are so many aspects like these which have been hidden from our history textbooks,” he said.
Amish noted that there was no impediment to decolonising textbooks other than hesitation. “My idea was to do whatever I can to communicate this history till decolonisation of textbooks takes place,” he said.
The author clarified that his approach was not to portray India’s past as flawless, but to highlight aspects of the country’s history that deserved recognition.
The session ended with a short pop quiz on history, with Amish asking five questions to the audience. The winners, Bharti Balodia, Bikash Meher, Srishti Thakur, Yashi Singh and Komal, received signed books from Amish.