GEN ZEE : COMING OF AGE

The term  “Gen Zee” has recently been added to the vocabulary of almost every Indian today. This can be counted as one of the achievement of this generation, apart from having secured the resignation of Mr Dharmendra Pradhan. The naming of generations is essentially an American phenomena, we had the Lost Generation (those born before 1900, fought in the First World War), Greatest Generation (those born till the Great Depression of 1929 and fought the Second World War), Silent Generation (born after 1930 and involved in the reconstruction after the war), Baby Boomers (mid twentieth century, baby bloom as the name suggests), Gen X (most of us belong to this generation born after 1964, Millennials (1990 onwards until early 2000s) and then the proverbial Gen Zee. It is to be followed by Gen Alfa and Gen Beta. Since this whole concept is American, obviously there is no method in the madness, we have alfa beta following zee. May be they expected an armageddon hence zee was supposed to be the last and final one. But now that we have survived and outlived that era, they have had to come up with the next generations.

I don’t think period depicting a “Generation” today, can be two or three decades. In the last about two decades or so, the world is on a blitzkrieg,  everything is on a fast track, so even a period of a decade or may be less may qualify as another generation altogether. Generations are normally determined by technology, demography, society  and even historical events. Obviously the American and Western generations will not conform with the Indian and Oriental generations, as in all the factors listed above there was a huge gap between the two types of societies. However with the advent of internet and the digital era, they are tending to converge and the Gen Zee probably is the first one where the two worlds are similarly placed as both are born and brought up in the Information age. 

This is as far as the nomenclature goes, now coming to the typical traits of a generation, the initial generations were involved in the two world wars, and the Great Depression. Naturally they were fighters and survivors having been through a living hell, seen their comrades die in  front of their eyes, they treasured life, friendship and lived by a value system. India during that era had just one generation probably, as though we were effected by the global events, even fought in the wars but were under subjugation struggling for our own independence. Our post independence generation was in a way similar to the Western ones as both were working towards building infrastructure and scientific innovations although from different starting blocks. We were impoverished and illiterate too, whereas they were already way ahead. In Indian context the Silent, Baby boomers and Gen X are probably again a single generation, as the value systems and technology wise we did not encounter any tectonic shifts.

While the older generations look upto the younger ones for growth and progress in all the fields, the latter normally look down upon the former as losers. The recent protest in a way proves this point amply. Even middle class households are witnessing a clear divide in their views between parents and children. Parents are concerned about the values, language, public decency, respect for elders and decorum, while the youngsters believe the oldies can’t hide behind these pretensions and they need to wake up and see the elephant in the room. Parents do understand the issues and are peeved with the situation, but the anarchical solutions being propounded by their progeny is what worries them. We are a young democracy and such protests have been a norm here, since similar protests played a major role in throwing off the yoke of imperialism too. In the 70s too the youth had revolted and were instrumental in bringing about a regime change, but decorum was always maintained, elders were given due respect,  even though they were on opposite sides of ideology. Gen Zee must censor their own brethren, something which their leaders could have laid down as a ground rule. Grievances are genuine and naturally the government of the day has to address the issues in right earnest. Mr Pradhan’s resignation and the setting up of a Task Force headed by none other than Mr Nandan Nilekani is a step in the right direction, but that alone is not going to be enough. A de novo look at the Education system as a whole is the need of the hour, we need to cease doling out these degrees, as most are not even worth the paper they are printed on. We need to educate our youth, where cheating in the exam ought to be an anathema and not an aspiration. Gen Zee will then probably  truly come of age.