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| Promoting Rural Youth Empowerment | | |
Dr. Banarsi Lal
Every year 12th of January is celebrated as the National Youth Day in India to commemorate the birth anniversary of great spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda and create awareness on the importance of youths for the development. Many schools, colleges, universities and various other organisations across the nation celebrate this day and various programmes such as speeches, seminars ,processions, recitations, debates, music, youth conventions, sports competitions etc. are organized. Swami Vivekananda was a great religious leader whose ideals inspired the country’s youths. He was called as the National Saint of India because of his continuous and rigorous efforts to boost the youth’s potential. He believed that a person could attain anything if he has courage to see beyond what it is and what he desires to become. This day is celebrated to honour his principles and ideals. On this day, we commemorate his revolutionary ideas that have utmost importance for us. His motive was to channel the energy and potential of the youths into concrete ideas. He aspired to lead the vision of youths and transform them into reality. Swami Vivekananda was born on 12th of January, 1863 at Kolkatta, India. He was a spiritual leader and great reformer whose endeavour was to put humanity to its best use. He was a Hindu monk and the main disciple of the mystic Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. He was a great philosopher, poet, writer and orator. He always inspired the country’s youths for better education, work and dedication. He was an instrumental in introducing the philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world. He published number of books from 1887 until his death on 4th of July, 1902. Swami Vivekananda was extremely patriotic and is considered as a hero for his contributions to the philosophies of India. He was a voracious reader and used a wide range of subjects including the philosophy, religion, history, social science, art and literature. After his 1893 speech at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, he was called as the “Messenger of the Indian wisdom to the western world”. His speech captivated everyone. The words spoken by him at this conference immortalized everyone. A newspaper portrayed him as an orator by divine right and undoubtly the greatest figure at the Parliament. Consequently, he was offered to give speeches across the globe. The zeal and wisdom poured by him into the minds of millions are still remembered. His thought provoking lectures, quotes and writings have been a subject of study and a great source of inspiration for the youths. The revolutionary ideas put forth by Swami Vivekananda are still recited by the students that prompt them to walk in his footsteps. He glorified India’s image and made us proud. Government of India declared the celebration of National Youth Day in 12th of January, 1984.
India is a young country and rural youths constitute about 41 per cent of total population of India.Youths are the building blocks of the country. They are considered as the greatest asset of any nation as they decide the future of the nation. They are full of innovative ideas and enthusiasm. Their importance should be acknowledged and their commendable contribution should be appreciated. The youths fill the country with energy and zeal and boost the country in many ways. Development of any nation depends on the development of its youths. Youths are more creative, energetic and innovative. It is highly important for any nation to encourage and support the young generation. Rural youths have indomitable energy and enthusiasm for the rural change. Migration of rural youths in urban areas in search of employment has risen fastly. This has resulted a decline in workforce in the agricultural sector in rural areas. The advent of free market has been able to generate employment opportunities in the private sector which requires highly skilled workers. A majority of rural youth may not meet the criteria of private sector for a variety of reasons, like lack of advance technical expertise, inadequate trainings etc. The globalization process has brought certain changes whose implications for the rural society and the rural youths need to be thoroughly understood.
As per the United Nations, youth is defined as a person in 15-24 years of age group whereas the census of India treats people in the age group of 15-29 years as youths. According to Baizerman (1991), in the third world countries youth have not been able to play a vital role in the developmental process and has remained a marginalized group. The participation of the rural Indian youth can be more impressive if more attention is paid on them. Mass media does not pay more attention on rural youths. Due to their proximity to institutions like universities, colleges, institutions of mass communication, political centres and by virtue of being an integral part of modernisation process like developing a rational outlook, adopting different sub-cultures and promoting cosmopolitanism, the urban youth continuously remains in the limelight. Rural areas are slow in their socio-economic development, slow pace of modernisation, industrialization, overpowering presence of powerful but retrogressive social institutions, inequitable distribution of land and most significantly and underutilisation of human resources. The stereotype of rural youth is gullible, conservative and he himself tries to fastly change but cannot escape from the adverse impact of the aforementioned problems.
Present era is an era of information. Communication network has combined the world into a cyber-frame. The transaction in all the sectors is now being carried through computers. The rural youths in this field are left behind their urban brethren. The urban youths have access to computer education while the exposure of youth to computers in rural areas is still limited. The 1990s witness a rapid expansion of television networks. The cable and satellite television made a mark in India and television emerged as the most effective medium of entertainment. It plays a key role in dissemination of information and entertainment even in the far-flung areas. In some of the rural areas still the rural youths miss the opportunity to view the informative programmes. Even in some of the downtrodden rural areas still the youths lack the information through print media. The latest information should be reached to the rural youths of these remote areas. Now-a-days social media is playing a major role in dissemination of information in the rural areas.
It has been observed that increasing population, overexploitation of biological resources, construction activities and changing consumption has led to the loss of bio-diversity. For all this rural population cannot be held responsible for excessive consumption as it is the youth of urban areas whose consumption levels reached new heights leading to enormous pressure on the natural resources. The industries release untreated effluents contaminating the water reserves which will expose the nearby rural population to waterborne diseases. The toxic wastes of the industries are dumped in the waste lands on the outskirts of the urban areas or nearby villages which poses a serious impediment to the wasteland development projects. Watershed development is a major agricultural activity. It is the youth of village who take the responsibility in the success of watershed projects like construction of check dams and water tanks. The educated rural youths can prevail on the rest of population to take steps to preserve ground water resources. Joint forest management is another dimension of environment protection. The youth in the villages can be mobilised to take care of illegal felling of trees and make social forestry programme successful. There is need to motivate the rural female youth to take part in her decision making. With the implementation of employment generating schemes, efforts should also be made to sensitise the rural youths on various social issues. The mass media, whose influence on society is quite significant, should be prevailed upon to increase the focus on developmental issues and social concerns. More employment should be generated in the rural areas during the off season of the year. Development in rural areas can stop the rural migration and may reduce the pressure on the urban areas. In order to avoid the rural migration emphasis should be given on the rural based industries. |
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