This generation doesn't know how to respect elders”, “They don’t know
the meaning of commitment and relationships”, “This generation is losing our
cultural values”, “They are following western culture” and many more statements
we here every day from our older generations. Let me explain further.
This generation has the highest number of people who are moving back
after completing their education in other countries. In past, most people
returned at their retirement age or they permanently settled there. This is the
generation who think we need to get skilled and utilize it to change the fate
of our country.
This generation has the guts to follow their heart, breaking the social
norms, challenging the caste system and religious ambiguity and animosity. Men
are openly coming out in favor of feminism while women are coming out against
the misinterpretation of feminism. There are people who are coming out for
social and economic equality. There are people who are showing support against
every kind of appeasement to any section of the society.
I know people made perception what is served to them by mainstream media
and social media. Society was never in a perfect balance. There was never a
golden period. There were always some superior and some weaker sections and
that still exist.
When we have no logic left, we come up with the shield of culture and
religion. Now, let us take these issues one by one.
We do know how to respect elders. But many of us stopped giving respect
based on age, caste and class. You have to earn it. We can love you
without any hesitation but we can’t respect just because you are older. After
seeing uncles molesting girls of their daughter’s age, trying to lower girl’s
marriage age, asking women to stop trying to be equal to men, daughters-in-law
throwing their in-law out of the house, mother-in-law forcing the new girl in the
house for the sex-determination test, what kind of reaction you expect from us?
Many men from this generation understand the drawbacks of patriarchal
society so they know how much important it is to empower the women. This
generation understand the consequences of oppression. We are facing the
consequences in terms of reservation system and appeasement policies. We are
fed up with this religion, caste and gender based norms.
Moreover, what is happening today (all the crime, violence, cruelty,
crime against women) is because of some people who are still not accepting the
change which is in its initial phase. We are a transition generation,
coming generations will make sure what has started should reach its
destination.
Now, let us talk about relationships and commitments. As I always
say no society is perfect. Not all people from previous generation were loyal
or committed, same thing exists now. The only difference is that now people
don’t force themselves into relationships. They give time, they put efforts, if
it is not working then preserve your self-respect and just leave. No more
abusive or forced relationships.
I heard somewhere this line which I believe is true “If nobody is
forcing you to stay with someone and you still stay it means you really want to
be there”. Forcing people into marriage (physical/mental abusive) just for the
sake of pride/social norms, is not at all acceptable.
And now comes the best part. This generation is losing cultural values.
And who is responsible for that? Which culture? Which worship Radha-Krishna but
kill couples who dare to marry their choice, that worship goddess (females)
and have the record rate of female foeticides, sex-ratio, rape cases?
And the irony is whenever anything like this happens you have solutions
like Reduce Girl’s minimum marriage age; don’t let girls out after 6pm. In
short, humiliate the victims so that they will never dare to vocal about it.
Give us something to proud and we will follow but we are not going to
follow anything blindly. We do love our regional languages, food and music. We
read Ramayan, Mahabharat, Gita , Swami Vivekananda, Buddha and much more.
We were a nation of seekers and not believers. We will follow
that culture and not what is convenient to you all. We will question everything
that is being taught to us, we will read about it, search and research.
And don’t worry many of us still are blind followers, login to twitter,
facebook and you will feel better. They are leading your culture.
We are not following western culture. We have become global citizen.
Like you changed our ancient culture according to your convenience, we will
take best of other cultures because we have to compete with the world.
We are the generation who believe in playing the game and win. If someone
will brag about their latest technology and good laws, we will no longer reply
with the comeback like but we have better culture than you (Which is such a bad
argument. No culture is good or bad. It may be different from our culture). We
will show them we also have latest technology (if you get my point).
Give us guidance, give us ground to return back in case we go too far,
show us how great you were but don’t force us to blindly follow. We are ready
to make our previous generations proud but our elders should also respect our
choices and decisions.
