Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech was striking not simply because he spoke so much about India’s youth, but because of what that emphasis revealed about the political challenge facing his government. After weeks in which young people had taken to the streets over examination failures, educational grievances and wider anxieties about their future, Modi offered a distinctly forward-looking answer: free online coaching for competitive examinations, artificial-intelligence training for one crore young Indians and a wider promise that youth would be the principal beneficiaries of a developed India. These are not insignificant measures.

The cost of coaching has become a serious burden on middle-class families, while technological change will require millions of workers to acquire new skills. But the political significance of the announcements lies elsewhere. They suggest that the government has recognised youth discontent as a problem that cannot simply be ignored. Yet recognition is not the same as acknowledgement. The speech offered young Indians opportunities for the future without directly confronting the institutional failures that had........

© The Statesman