Adult members of society are so used to being surrounded by the young that they often forget how different the young actually are. They think differently for a variety of reasons their parents don’t take seriously. For one thing, the young carry a different sense of history. Even if parents and teachers tell them what all happened before they were born, this knowledge stays marginal to their consciousness. What is central is the history they have seen unfolding since they were about 10 or 11 — the age when awareness bursts forth, and the intellectual capacity to make sense of the world starts to move to a new level.

Many speeches made by young participants of the recent protest carried the fury that collective presence in a crowded, narrow space allowed to erupt. The cramped and winding space itself became a symbol — of the absence of comfortable dialogue with the adult world despite its claims of concern for the future generation. While the nation dreams of making every nook and shrine tourist-ready, its own children have slipped from attention. Many speeches conveyed a sense of betrayal. This was further confirmed by the state’s use of brute power.

Parents have long known how difficult it is to win and retain the trust of their progeny after adolescence sets in. Then onwards, children rely on their own sense of things. They seldom articulate their deepest queries and concerns as they are convinced they will neither be understood nor appreciated. By the time they are 14 or 15, they begin to dismiss adult........

© Indian Express