A nationwide survey on youth attitudes, conducted by Childrens Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA), a Bengaluru-based non-government organisation has uncovered shockingly regressive attitudes towards gender, diversity and social issues. An incredible 44% college students believe women must accept some violence, while 51% college students believe women must mainly take care of the household and bring up children. More than half – 53% of college students favour military rule in India for some years, indicating that their faith in democratic governance is fading.
As a country, we are a political democracy but as a society we are not, said Dr Manjunath Sadashiva, director, CMCA, offering his analysis of the disturbing data. The focus of CMCA, is to nurture democratic values among young Indians.
The study conducted by the NGO- called Yuva Nagarika Meter (Youth Citizenship Meter), was conducted in association with the Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB). Field research for the survey was spread across 11 states and covered 10,542 students: 6,168 students from 9th standard and 4,374 college students from first year undergraduate courses.
The study, reported to be one of the largest ever, revealed that youth in non-metro cities such as Guwahati, Lucknow, Patna, Jaipur and Bhopal, appeared more progressive than in metro cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.
According to Dr. Sadashiva, One of the most disturbing findings of this survey has been the negative and undesirable attitude of young people towards gender, diversity and social issues. 65% of college students disapprove of boys and girls from different religions meeting in public places. Almost half of those surveyed believe domestic workers do not have the right to a minimum wage, and more than a third of female college students and more than a fourth of male students believe giving and taking dowry is acceptable.
Despite data proving that 22 married women die every day in India from dowry-related disputes, the custom of giving and taking dowry is acceptable to as many as 36% girls and 44% college-going boys.
72,126 riots were reported in 2013 alone in India, yet, there is a strong bias against diversity. Among college students, 65% do not want boys and girls belonging to different religions to meet in public places.
The youth do not appear to value equality. Among college and school students, 49% agreed that household domestic workers do not have the right to demand minimum wages and other facilities.
The disdain for the concept of social equality appears linked to the notion of democracy that itself appears to be rather fuzzy among this demographic. The data shows that a shocking 65% school children dont know that they are citizens of India, and only 35% of school students consider themselves Indian citizens. Civic knowledge, and exposure to the concept of democratic governance appears extremely low, reflected in a score of only 19% among college students.
A very large number of college students support dictatorial or authoritarian form of government, which is represented by minus 11% score on attitude towards democratic governance.
The preference amongst more than 53% of college students for military rule in India for at least some years, reflects the waning belief in democratic governance, owing to large-scale corruption, scams, lack of policy implementation and poor governance.
Young people lack the understanding of the true meaning and value of democracy. What is most disturbing is the education system that we have today is not really equipping young people with critical thinking skills which are crucial for democracy, Dr. Manjunath said. They are being prepared to become economic or market actors rather than critical thinkers.
Students scored an abysmal 15% and 10% on the issues of civic rules and laws- reflected in the widespread violation of laws by citizens and government officials in real life, through bribery, breaking traffic rules and not paying taxes.
An important lesson that comes out from the study, according to Dr. Sadashiva, is that unless we transform the institutions we will not be able see the change.
As a country, we are a political democracy but as a society we are not, he said. There is a huge gap. Therefore, one of the primary objectives of this research was to impress policy makers with the need to reform citizenship education, Dr Sadashiva said.
The only issue on which students do not appear to have regressive attitudes is the environment. For instance, more than 70% believe it is important to collect rainwater and protect lakes. Environmental conservation was in fact the highest-scoring domain in the survey, attributed to large-scale awareness programmes and campaigns on global warming and climate change in schools and colleges by NGOs. Academic inclusion of environmental science as a subject is also believed to have contributed to positive attitudes in this area.
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