Artha J Soc Sci, 15, 1 (2016), 1-25

ISSN 0975-329X|doi.org/10.12724/ajss.37.1

Angry Youth in South Asia and Socio-

Political Implications: A Soliloquy in Dark
Times

Dev N Pathak*

Abstract
In the decade of 1970s, Bollywood, one of the prodigal
cinema industries in the region of South Asia,
popularized the image of „angry young man‟. It is another
matter that the imagery had precedence in the western
theater and fiction. The South Asian version of „angry
young man‟ however propelled sociologists in the region
to theorize youth subculture where deviance was
depicted as social (re) action in the wake of volatile
democracy. The volatility of democracy seems to have
added a new lease of velocity to youth activism in the
region. In other words, it means yet another lease of life to
the youth(ful) anger. This is geared toward subverting the
textual, conventional, and prevalent notions of
democracy; this thrives on the usage of new media,
information technology, and innovative methods of mass
mobilization. Youth culture and thereof politics, in
contemporary Bangladesh and India, for example, solicits
a fresh approach to comprehending the youth
phenomenon. For, the so-called angry young men, and it
includes women too, of South Asia have seemingly given
a larger objective to their angst, which is: revitalizing
democracy! It indeed entails manifold ideologies and
utopias, and perhaps a transcendence of dichotomies as
such.

Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi;

dev@soc.sau.ac.in

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Keywords: Youth Politics, Angry young men, ideologies, utopias,

Bangladesh
I am nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?
Then there is a pair of us- don’t tell!
They would banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog! Emily Dickinson1

It is a truism that policy stance is crucial as far as imagining youth,

devising youth programs, and execution of the same is concerned.
It is, thus, imperative to take a critical glance at the deductions from
the policy stances for some provocation and points of departure.
How does a policy reconfigure youth and thereby figure out
expectations and possibilities? The following eclectically chosen
examples lead in critical reasoning. The policy stance in India
toward youth echoes the rational, planning oriented imagination of
youth. However, it paints a picture too simple to aid in
comprehending the complexity of youth dynamics. For example,
the National Youth Policy-20142, in a press release envisaged the
state initiatives for „empowerment of youth,' suggesting a hint of a
connection between human development and youth in India. While
it states the imperative of youth participation in governance, it
scarcely deliberates on the intricacies of youth politics, political
aspirations, and youth‟s longing for alternative ideologies and
utopias. Most importantly, it obviates the complex identities of
youth; the latter entails a peculiar orientation to the information
technology and thereby political behavior. Needless to say, the
seemingly ideal connection between youth empowerment and
human development is a debatable idea too; for, the scholars of
human development have been raising issues with the models that
render youth into passive receivers of the rational policies and
plan. Moreover, if we turn to a neighboring country in the region of
South Asia, to check whether the policy stance echoes any
difference, the point of departure for this essay gets vindicated.
For example, the policy tenor in Bangladesh, almost concurrent
with the Indian counterpart, as stated in the National Youth Policy-
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2003, reads, “To ensure favorable environment towards productive,

practical education, training and self-employment for the youth
and bringing out all dormant potentialities including their
leadership quality aiming at national progress. The main objective
of the present National Youth Policy is to create disciplined and
efficient workforce having the responsibility of good citizen and
creative mentality to (or “intending to”) involving the youth in the
national development stream also having respect towards national
heritage and culture through a planned process” (People‟s Republic
of Bangladesh: 2003)3.
However, a benign statement to justify the need to delve into the
idea of angry youth ought to be made at this juncture. We are
living in a time when youth activism, with due youthful anger, no
matter how justified in the larger framework of constitutional
patriotism, is vulnerable to „nationalistic‟ misinterpretations. If a
young woman shouts back at an indifferent police officer in Delhi,
she may be perhaps immediately charged with treason; or if a
young man conducts a meeting to discuss state brutality in
Kashmir or Muzaffarnagar, he could be held culpable for sedition.
It seems state machinery, as well as a good chunk of common
sense, is angry about the anger of youth in general and any angry
questioning by youth that upsets the status quo, in particular.
Moreover, neither state nor the policy think tanks, let alone the
employment marker which seeks for the best of servile and trained
youth in the workforce are comfortable with the combustible
emotions of youth. Only the tameable youth befits the policy
frameworks. In this light, it becomes imperative to peruse critically
some of the most decisive factors which determine socio-political
attitude to youth‟s anger. However, a benign statement to justify
the need to delve into the idea of angry youth ought to be made at
this juncture. We are living in a time when youth activism, with
due youthful anger, no matter how justified in the larger
framework of constitutional patriotism, is vulnerable to
„nationalistic‟ misinterpretations. If a young woman shouts back at
an indifferent police officer in Delhi, she may be perhaps
immediately charged with treason; or if a young man conducts a
meeting to discuss state brutality in Kashmir or Muzaffarnagar, he
could be held culpable for sedition. It seems state machinery, as
well as a good chunk of common sense, is angry about the anger of
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youth in general and any angry questioning by youth that upsets

the status quo, in particular. Moreover, neither state nor the policy
think tanks, let alone the employment marker which seeks for the
best of servile and trained youth in the workforce are comfortable
with the combustible emotions of youth. Only the tameable youth
befits the policy frameworks. In this light, it becomes imperative to
peruse critically some of the most decisive factors which determine
socio-political attitude to youth‟s anger. While this could be a
legitimate positivist policy orientation of the state toward youth,
resulting into a simplistic imagination of youth and their actions, it
is imperative to reason with the pluralism of notions about youth
prevalent in the everyday life. A significant variety of images of the
youth have emerged and corresponded to them are multiple
theoretical stances. This paper seeks to understand the various
possible ways in which youth could be approached. Beginning
with locating and understanding them in the trajectory of studies
on youths in India as well as abroad the paper solidifies the
imperative to move beyond what was earlier called „sociology of
moral panic‟ vis-à-vis youth studies. The early twentieth century
stood witness to the sociological engagement with issues of youth,
in a manner suggestive of moral panic about youth behavior. In the
scheme of moral panic, there surfaced the image of „angry young
man‟4, in consonance with a similar image of youth in the British
plays. Furthermore, there was a turn at the beginning of the 21st
century where youth was, en mass, called „cool selves.' This era
proclaimed that „the world is flat‟, „community has become virtual‟,
„modernity is liquid‟, and „identity is ambivalent‟ in sync with the
globalization discourse. Or, there has been a growing pessimism in
the face of youth integration in the job market or the youth living in
a world of career insecurity 5 , or youth politician ceasing to be
assertive when they are careerist (Chadda, 2000). Does the
trajectory of being youth stop there? Is it a linear progression from
„angry young men‟ to „cool-indifferent-selves‟ for youth in South
Asia? Or is there a more complex kind of interplay between the two
poles of being youth? This paper proposes to see a new lease of
ideologies and utopias (note the plural usage) palpable in the youth
orientation. However, for contemporary youth ideologies and
utopias are not in binary oppositions. And hence a kind of
uncertainty in youth identity unfolds. Perhaps, an old poem by
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Emily Dickinson, published in 1891, expressed a note of

ambivalence of youth identity. This was a characteristic
ambivalence between being „nobody‟ and „somebody‟. It also
solicits fear of declaring the identity of „nobody‟ and boredom of
the identity of „somebody.' Despite the poetic preference of the
identity of „nobody‟, it is not an exaggeration that even „nobody‟,
unwittingly or compulsively, assumes the significance of
„somebody.' The youth of South Asia, this paper would propose,
seems to have traveled a trajectory characterized by „somebody,'
„nobody‟ and the interplay between the two in a creative manner.
The political implications of this trajectory underpin the
significance of being a youth in the region.
It is in the epochal frame, whereby there has been rethinking on
most of the fundamental concepts of Sociology and Social
Anthropology, let alone the concept of culture and identity.
Primordial Origin of identity is highly questioned at various levels,
socio-political as well as socio-cultural. Identity is, thus, a contested
entity, which reveals manifold complexity. The contestation
unfolds mishmash of traditional and modern, anachronistic and
present, national and global, socio-cultural and politico-economic,
the binaries of bygone times and many more newly cultivated ones.
The whirlpool of the constituting elements of identity is, arguably,
a ground of collapsing binaries. It is often, as it were, leading to the
hybridity of forms. The discourse on identity, thereby, generates
more questions than answers. It is in this context that this paper
seeks to understand the idea of being a youth in South Asia by
problematizing the preceding hinge discourses on, approaches to
and comprehension of youth. It makes an attempt to reason with
the identities that the global youths, through the globalized and
globalizing media, try to maintain. The paper eclectically reflects on
the two contemporary instances of youth synergy in India and
Bangladesh, concerning the web-based manifestations of the youth
sentiments in the two contexts. The youth culture of „Globalizing
South Asia‟6 is a contested domain, and global youths of India are
pursuing a „soft utopia‟, discussed at length in the later part of this
essay, to change their world. The ambivalence of identity, thus,
serves a strategic purpose in the socio-political actions of youths. A
sense of insecurity drives the responses in fluid social structure,
youthful joy, the aspiration to explore new relations, desire to
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„express anything‟. Youths‟ ambivalent identity is, however, meant

to restructure the pre-existing social institutions rather than
blowing them off. It is more for exploration of novel aspects of
being human than reducing the self to certain definitive identity.
In a manner of the synoptic survey, this paper will begin with the
broad sociological trends in studying the youth. Subsequently, it
critically investigates the nature and scope of the social networking
website such as Facebook and select blogs of the youth writers. Put
together the analysis aims at understanding the validity of the
ambivalence of youth identity. In a nutshell, the paper seeks to
understand the answer to the question that appears with an
implied answer: I am nobody, who are you!

Sociology of Moral Panic

Youth studies in India as well as all over the world suffered from
certain crises of approach to and understanding of the object of its
study, youth. In most of these studies, youths are those who belong
to roughly the age group of 15 to 25; including a broad range in the
category of youth, subsuming adolescence and adulthood as it
were, propels this scheme to judge youth as vulnerable to
provocation, delinquency, moral confusion, even immoral conduct,
and misleading protests. Seldom does this scheme note youth to be
yet another category of social humans in the process of becoming.
Chicago school of youth studies in the early twentieth century
contributed to the worldwide prevalence of the image of troubled
youths (McDonald, 1999). The vulnerable and troubled youths,
furthermore, become a source of suspicion and fear. The troubled
selves, as the popular notion suggests, could be destructive for the
socio-political order. While making sense of the sociological
approach to youth, it is worth noting that a trend toward a
configuration of „angry young man‟ began in the West after the
British Royal Court Theater used the phrase to describe the work of
the author John Osborne. Encyclopedia Brittanica informs that the
phrase denotes “various British novelists and playwrights who
emerged in the 1950s and expressed scorn and disaffection with the
established sociopolitical order of their country. Their impatience
and resentment were especially aroused by what they perceived as
the hypocrisy and mediocrity of the upper and middle classes”7.
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Some of the known novelists such as John Braine (1957) and Alan
Sillitoe (1958) and the playwrights Bernard Kops (1956) and Arnold
Wesker (1958) popularized the image of angry young man. The
image of angry young men became a pneumonic device to capture
the socio-cultural tensions and political aspirations of the youth in
the scripts of the dramaturges. In India as well as abroad, the
decade of 1970 stood witness to a plethora of works on youths.
Most of them were concerned with cultural values amongst youth,
the formation of identity vis-à-vis socio-psychological process of
socialization, youths‟ leadership role and revolutionary potentials,
and youth‟s susceptibility to juvenile crimes. These works were,
overtly or covertly, guided by the project of nation building to
which everybody in academics as well as otherwise were
committed 8 . Debate on the modernization, its implications,
scrutinized the functional role of everybody in society including
youth in this milieu. The whole of society was seen through the
conceptual prism that dichotomized everything into traditional and
modern. A breakdown of the traditional order was considered to be
a daunting challenge for whole society. This was the context in
which Erikson (1963) coined the concept of „identity confusion‟
which Kakar (1970) continued in his analysis of Indian youths,
considering it aid in understanding the choice and challenges
youths had at the breakdown of tradition. An assumed crisis of
authority, the then academic works believed, abetted frustration,
which was also supported by the then socio-economic and socio-
political circumstances. The identity of youth was, thus, confined to
and confused with that of „angry young man‟9. Youth culture was,
by and large, perceived as a subculture with propelling elements of
activism and resistance in several walks of everyday life. It invoked
mixed feelings not only in society but also amongst sociologists all
over the world.
Nayak (2003) in agreement with Cohen and Hebdige, reckons with
the moral stance prevalent in the approaches to youths in the post
independent India as well as abroad. Based on multiple socio-
cultural, economic and political reasons, the moral stance rendered
youth as a category fraught with volatile energy. There were
diverse factors that caused frustration amongst youths. Rising
urban population and related socio-economic pressures, families‟
rising post-industrial fears of potential unemployment, and a
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growing conservative moral pressure to conceptualize family and

stability in traditional terms, among others. The contrast between
the societal expectation and youth behavior under compelling
factors caused a sense of panic. Addressing this social panic, under
the obligation of nation building, sociology of that time became
„Sociology of moral panic‟. Later on, in the decade of 1980s, the
image and identity of youths in India continued to have almost
similar connotations. McDonald (1999) suggests that the decade of
the 1980s, all over the world, stood witness to academic
preoccupation with the structure of power and discourse.
Ironically, youths disappeared from the „discourses on discourse‟
and power structure. Meanwhile in India youths were recognized
for their protests and movements. Guha (2007)10 mentions youths
in terms of (mainly north) Indian students‟ anti-Mandal (anti-
reservation) protest toward the end of the 1980s. This was
somewhat in line with the image of youth already constructed in
the decade of 1970s. Latest in this league is the researched
conclusions drawn by Jeffery (2010), which underscored the
youth‟s politics of waiting, with reference to the students of Meerut
University. But these are youth as liminal actors, who wait with
hope while they attend their college education, and in the interim
period seek for mobility through students‟ politics. This restricted
sense of youth politics is, it can be argued, only a flip side of
youth‟s armed struggles, which surface in the discussions on the
Naxalbari movement (Banerjee, 2010).
Similarly, the Bangladeshi youth has been noted for their
participation in the various critical moments as mentioned in the
introductory section of this paper. There has been however a
significant absence of youth as an engine of „regular‟ politics, as it
were, with exceptions 11 . A handbook on South Asian Politics
(Brass, 2010), for example, discusses the political issues of the
region without a direct mention of the validity of youth in politics,
except that youth seems to be an essential qualifier for the radical
mobilizations. It, furthermore, offers little to comprehend the
various ways in which youth political actions present an interplay
between cultural and political in the technologically connected
world. The „performing democracy‟ (Spencer, 2007), which entails a
notion of socio-cultural everyday life conjoined with politics, too
does not make specific mentions of the regular involvement of
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youth. Though exploring a possibility of plural notions of politics,

as public politics, Spencer‟s interest is to situate electoral
performances and public responses in between politics and
counter-politics. In this quest of violent manifestations, for example
between the Sinhala and Tamil politics in Sri Lankan context, the
potential role of youth and their technological weapon of the global
world seldom surface for a mention. It is in this context that this
paper seeks to comprehend youth politics in the present context in
South Asia where the notion of angry young men has acquired
novel significance. It is no longer a linear narrative to vent anger, as
was depicted in the Bollywood flicks, or in the earlier engagement
with youth as the embodiment of volatile energy. In the present
situation, the angry young men seem to be based on a rationale that
clubs ideologies and utopias of socio-political changes. Also, the
angry young men seem to vacillate between the Dickinson‟s
„nobody‟ and „somebody‟, conveniently grabbing new and
shedding old faces, as though standing on an eternally shifting
ground. The following section attempts to unravel the identity
question in the wake of the globalizing world where youth are
frequent with the usage of the information technology.

Rethinking Identity, community and culture: In a

Globalizing world

One of the consequences of the discourse on power was the

rethinking of culture, community, and identity. The question of
identity acquired many dimensions when it was discussed in the
format, which had not only cultural but also economic and political
factors (Appadurai, 1997; Chatterjee, 1998; Upadhya, 1997; Jodhka,
2001). The concept of culture was perceived in relation to identity
politics and the larger process of globalization that ushered
economy and polity in a new era. Other components of identity,
especially community, that had hitherto been presented with
primordial and natural origin was questioned. Upadhya (2001)
sums up the consequence, “many anthropologists no longer hold to
traditional notions of culture as an integrated symbolic system and
body of beliefs, and practices that exist apart from its carriers, as a
„thing‟ which can be possessed or lost, as a primary source of self
and identity, or as a gestalt which characterizes an entire society
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and community, and differentiates one from the other. Instead,

culture is conceived as fractured, contested and continually in flux,
as a multiplicity of discourses which are constantly being
challenged and negotiated, and as closely interacting with power”
(p.48). The new understanding of identity, interacting with power
and economy as much as with culture, is also perceived to be in
relation to globalization.
Globalization altered economy as well as politico-national thinking.
There are discontents of globalization at international and national
levels due to the asymmetrical nature of economic policies vis-à-vis
structural adjustment in the developing countries (Stiglitz, 2002).
The bearing of politico-economic changes on culture is radical and
upsetting. It leads to „marketization of culture‟, which in turn poses
a threat to the sense of identity. As Singh (2000) suggested, “the
cultural identity problem is considered to occur when cultural
change is so drastic as to destroy the sense of continuity” (p.37). On
the other hand, these threatening changes, due to new socio-
cultural and institutional forces, which surpass the boundaries of
the nation-state, also redefine locality (Appadurai, 1997). Especially
communication media, with its universal reach, produce and
augment „virtual localities‟ and „virtual neighborhood‟. The
production of locality goes hand-in-hand with the erosion of real
time and space. Hence, local and global are perpetually in
juxtaposition. The cultural formation of identity begins to
accommodate both local and global. Besides, the redefined locality
that does not wish away the global, renders the world flat, as
Friedman (2005) prophetically suggested. The process of
globalization has flattened the playing field – world, and thus
enables individuals rather than merely countries and companies to
be a player in the world economy12. The individuals and smaller
groups of India can, with the help of Internet and phone, offer
services to clients far away and do business. The dot-com boom,
thus, adds up an economic and technological dimension to cultural
formation of identity. In this scheme, we can see the identity of
youth switching from that of „angry young man‟ to a real self-
oriented rational-economic creature. This is perhaps yet another
prejudice toward the youths.

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Not very similar to the „flat world‟ is Singer‟s (2002) imagination of

„one world‟ wherein he underlines the discordant disparities and
hence attempts to redefine the ethics of globalization in the face of
the tension between local/national and global. The ethics suggest
that nations would have to reconfigure the idea of „imagined
community‟ in order to incorporate the whole world as one nation.
This has to be done without sacrificing the local, national and
regional requirements and without being restricted to the hitherto
held idea of sovereignty. This proposition, somewhat tacitly, has a
bearing upon the youth identity. In fact, not only youth but also
everybody inhabiting the politically, economically and culturally
globalized world can experience a problem in the definitiveness
and singularity of identity. The definitiveness and singularity, an
offshoot of identity politics, undermines our diverse affiliations we
enjoy in our everyday life (Sen, 2006). „The same person can be,
without any contradiction, an American citizen, of Caribbean
origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a long
distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist,
a heterosexual, a supporter of gay and lesbian rights, an
environmental activist, a cricket fan, a jazz music lover, and
someone who can be deeply committed to the view that there are
intelligent beings in the outer space with whom it is extremely
urgent to talk‟ (Ibid.: xii). Each of these collectivities to which a
person belongs, put together, gives a person a particular identity.
Identity of everybody inhabiting the global world, based on diverse
affiliations, is also characterized by unprecedented ambivalence
and thus manifold vulnerability of identity in the global world.
This is peculiarly characterized by the notion of „liquid modernity‟
(Bauman, 2004) where emotions are excessively privatized. It is
linked with what Simmel called man‟s blasé attitude in industrial
society. Living in Metropolis causes the „intensification of nervous
stimulation‟ because of the „rapid crowding of changing images‟ or
„unexpectedness of onrushing impressions‟. It leads to blasé
attitude whereby the mind becomes incapable of discriminating
diverse objects; they appear to the blasé person in an evenly flat
and grey tone; no one object deserves preference over other
(Pathak, 2006). This tendency becomes more acute in Bauman‟s
(2004) understanding of liquid modernity and thereof ambivalent
identity. As he argues, “in our world of rampant „individualization‟
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identities are mixed blessings. They vacillate between a dream and

a nightmare, and there is no telling when one will turn into
other…in a liquid setting of life, identities are perhaps the most
common, most acute, and most deeply felt and troublesome
incarnations of ambivalence” (p.32). In the setting of globalization
what we have is electronically mediated virtual totalities, which
provide us with the only illusion of intimacy and pretense of a
community. „The community of life‟ that one inherits by birth, the
springboard of what Tonnies called „we feeling,' has given way to
„the community of believers.' The latter is not guided by definitive,
singular and all-pervasive principles; neither by unquestioning and
unswerving loyalty. Rather it is constantly revised, grappling with
multiple choices, reconciling contradictory and often incompatible
demands. In such circumstances, some of us tend to retreat toward
the values of well-known institutions. Bauman warns, “in a society
that has made social, cultural, and sexual identities uncertain and
transient, any attempt to „firm up‟ that which has become liquid
through a politics of identity would inevitably lead critical thought
up a blind alley” (Ibid.: 6). Bauman gives us a sense that the state of
ambivalence vis-à-vis our identity may be painful, challenging and
frustrating too. However, this is where a more refined version of
responsibility, identity, and social existence is possible. The
possibility of this novel emergence lies in the „feasibility of another
modernity‟ that can address the techno-rational definitiveness as
well as the nihilist and relativist tendencies that are mounted on the
pretext of multiplicity (Pathak, 2006). In the era of cultural
globalization, that is intertwined with economy and politics, and
that engulfs not only everyday life but also intellectual-academic
discourses, it is necessary to seek for an „art of resistance‟ which can
help finding alternative ways of identifying oneself.
To turn back, the academic writings on youth identity in the decade
of 1990s and onwards, explicitly responding to the changes brought
about by globalization, exhibit the willingness to conceptualize
youth identity afresh. They mark a shift from the Chicago school,
the early critique of modernity and they are also reflective of the
postmodern critiques of culture and society (McDonald, 1999). The
prevalent commonsense view of contemporary youths is that of
„cool selves‟ 13 . The youth‟s „struggle for subjectivity‟ is not a
unilinear expression of identity. They might, in fact, give a
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confusing impression whether they are „escaping or connecting‟

(Wolak et al., 2003) by the means of information technology at their
disposal. Youth identity in the global world accommodates a
multiplicity of principles and youth‟s responses are richly
heterogeneous (Nayak, 2003).

Internet and youth in global world

To understand youth identity in the context of globalization, it is

imperative to take note of the media of the global world. Also, it
would help locate youths in a matrix of global media. The whole of
electronic media tends to restructure itself in order to encompass
the whole globe, with diverse ways of balancing between local and
global. In a broader perspective, we can see “globalized media as
both an outcome of broader processes of globalization and itself a
constituent factor of the globalization of culture and society”
(Hjarvard, 2003, p. 8). One of the popular media amongst youths,
other than cellular phones, is Internet. “By the internet we refer to
the electronic network of networks that links people and
information through computers and digital devices allowing
person-to-person communication and information retrieval”
(DiMaggio et al., 2001, p.307)14. The growing popularity of Internet,
in the realm of international actions, can be estimated from the fact
that the number of websites (World Wide Web) increased from
20,000 in 1995 to over 10 million in the year 2000. Researchers offer
diverse conclusions on social implications of Internet. It suggests of
„information society‟ with the possibility of social networking
through mediated interaction. It also suggests that society has
become „cyberspace‟ where virtual nature of groups, by the virtue
of „compucation technology‟15, rule social life. It is broadly divided
position as some researchers aver that the Internet may induce
anomie and erode social capital by making users retreat into the
artificial world (Kraut et al., 1998; Epstien, 1998; Wolak et al., 2003).
On the other hand, there are those who, while not denying the
existence of novices abusing it, argue that the internet sustains the
bonds of community by complementing, not replacing, other
channels of interaction in society. Many types of research have
pointed out the real purpose of the so-called virtual online
communities. “Online communities come in very different shapes
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and sizes, ranging from virtual communities that connect

geographically distant people with no prior acquaintance who
share similar interests, to settings that facilitate interaction among
friendship networks or family members, to community networks
that focus on issues relevant to a geographically defined
neighborhood” (DiMaggio et al., 2001, p. 317 ).
The all-pervasive presence of Internet provides youth a sense of
being global. Giddens recognized it in general for every inhabitant
of the global world, observing, “the sense today of inhabiting one‟s
world is in large part a result of the international scope of media of
communication” (Giddens, 1989, p.548). Furthermore, “with
computers and the internet has apparently a heightened awareness
that the media interact not only with the dedicated institutions of
political democracy but with the entire human-machine-society
configuration. As a result, the metaphorical understanding of
society as a system of communication has shifted toward a more
literal understanding under the heading of information or network
society” (Jensen, 2003, p. 269).
This is, thus, not very surprising that the number of internet users
has increased phenomenally and India stands fifth in the group of
top twenty countries in internet usage, next to America, China,
Japan, and Germany. From Delhi itself, the number of the regular
users is recorded 42,000,000 in June 200716.
With this background, we try to make sense of the youths and their
impressions of identity as manifest on social networking website
Facebook and Blogs. We could perhaps make sense of the
implications of being an angry youth in the region thereby.

Facebook and Blogs: India and Bangladesh

A community page with modest following on the social

networking website Facebook, called Angry Youth of India
(https://www.facebook.com/AngryYouthOfIndia), launched on
August 2012, states as its objective,
“We are very angry with the way our political leaders have done to
our country. We'll bring a new wave of change by our fresh set of
ideas for India. You can follow us on twitter @AngryYouthIndia”.

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It has a thumbnail picture of Bhagat Singh, a revolutionary hero

from the history of colonial India, as the identifying face of the
page, while the cover picture shows a woman with a band on the
mouth which has a message/slogan inscribed: Say No to Caste based
Reservation!
Curiously enough, the page displays images and slogans in
support of the leader of the political right and the prime-ministerial
candidate of the 2014 general election in India Mr. Narendra Modi.
In the same vein, the page also hails the civil society activist turned
politician Mr. Arvind Kejriwal who was in the fray against Mr.
Modi in the general election. In between there are images and
questions seeking to whip nationalist sentiments, such as emblem
of the Indian Army and an image of Bharat Mata (iconic image of
Mother India), image of the rebel Congress leader Subhash
Chandra Bose, glory of the former Non Gandhi-Nehru prime
minister of India late Lal Bahadur Shastry, and so on so forth. The
most dominant theme is, however, a voice of support for Mr. Modi,
typically expressed in one post which reads: Kaun Haramzada kahta
hai ki Modi is anti Muslim… (which mother fucker says that Modi is
anti-Muslim; The only thing is he works for Nation)17. In a nutshell,
the community page declares the incompetence of the political
leadership hailing from the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and seeks a
change by highlighting the available political options viz. Narendra
Modi and Arvind Kejriwal.
Another page titled „Student-Youth Against Corruption‟ 18 is
managed by All India Students' Association (AISA), a students‟
wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the
Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA). It notes,
“Young India against Corruption - Young India for Democracy."
Onward to a More Determined Assault on the Citadels of
Corruption and Corporate Plunder. Join the Nationwide Student-
Youth Campaign for a Corruption-free Democratic India. This
summer, hundreds of students and youth will hit the streets
throughout the country to unite people against corruption.
Strengthen this massive campaign against the neo-liberal policies,
corporations, and institutions responsible for corruption and loot of
resources. On 9th of August, let us march on the streets of Delhi

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showing our resolve to uproot corruption. We appeal to you to join

this campaign as an active volunteer”.
The activities on the page include notifications for the protest
march by students‟ bodies and Teachers‟ Union of the University of
Delhi. The page also provides with the issue-based articles dealing
with the question of malpractices in the wake of neoliberal
economic policies in India. Another page managed by AISA is
Student-Youth Against Corruption and Right to Education and
Employment 19 , with a sizeable membership. This page too is
populated by notifications and information for political marches
organized by students‟ political wings in the Delhi-based varsity.
An interesting feature of this page is a systematic criticism of the
growing popularity of both Arvind Kejriwal and Narendra Modi,
while it pokes fun at Rahul Gandhi, as the so-called heir apparent
in the Congress Party. The page, through various posts, seeks to
revolutionize youth for their rights to education and employment
in the wake of the receding opportunities.
All this may seem quite closer to slandering and trivial-cynical
debunking. But then, it always has a serious side to the abundance
of criticism. However, there are groups with somber outlook and
serious engagement too. An open group called Youth for Change20,
with a following of over a million supporters, states its objective:
“This community is for those, who want to travel from dark
oldness to brightest youthfulness. Here, we all are trying to search
the way to enlightenment. A new definition of youthfulness
wherein youth will love to die if death is required to be known.
Remember, youthfulness is nothing about being young with age or
physical strength but it is completely related to have a young and
active mind, which always requires a strong reason and valid logic
before you do something or accept. Jai Javan ! Jai Vigaan! Jai
Hindustan!”
Needless to say, there are other community pages representing
youth sentiments on issues such as anti-rape protests, anti-gender
violence, and anti-caste; there are groups seeking for more
radicalism in protecting the Dalit and women, protection for
workers in the neoliberal capitalist economy, etc. In addition to the
propaganda, the communities on Facebook also show an expedient

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urge for a protest. A group called Delhi Rape Protest, with a

membership close to four thousand, notes,
“It's High Time at least now the Government of India and common
man should wake up and take a step against the growing Rape
Cases in Delhi. Some Cases come into notice, but many cases don‟t
even come to the notice of everyone. The next case can be of one of
the girls of your family. Protest Against Rape!”
If we turn to such pages hosted, managed and controlled by
individuals in Bangladesh, the narrative becomes more interesting.
It also paves the way of comprehending commonalities of youth
concerns in the region, across the territorial boundaries of nation-
states. A community page of the Bangladeshi Youth21 displays a
candid mix of entertaining posts and raising political questions for
the youth. It shows images with inscribed messages for evoking a
sense of youthful frolicking: playing children in the street puddle,
seeking love, jubilation of sporty Bangladeshi youth; it also
presents a political punch with the images of Begum Khaleda Zia
and Sheikh Hasina Wajed, asking the youth to decide who could be
better for a rising Bangladesh. In one post it appeals to the youth
vote for four options: Zia, Hasina, Ershad and an unnamed pistol
trained at all the three! There could be perhaps no good example of
a rationalized anger of youth in a South Asian context which
requires us to read in the image more than mere political nihilism.
One closed group called „Youth Voice of Bangladesh‟ 22 , with a
sizeable following of a million members, makes the political agenda
clearer,
Our primary mission is social reform by motivation. The social reform
activities that we intend to execute are as follows: To eradicate corruption
from the society; Create public opinion against the anarchism; Motivating
youth involved against illegal activities; Evaluation & encouragement of
brilliant students for motivation in greater social role; Food distribution at
lower price; Free Food distribution; Free book distribution; Free
Clothes/amenities distribution; Rallies on important socio-political issues;
Motivation & movement against acid attack crimes; Movement against
eve-teasing of women, rape, etc.; Human Chain (Manob-bondhon) on
current political/social issues such as, recent spraying of pepper spray on
teachers of universities, gang-rape issues, Corruption related issues. The

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overall aim of all these activities is to create a public opinion against the
following activities.
Another pertinent page is Youth Movement in Bangladesh23, which
came into existence on Facebook on 12 April 2013, within a month
of the mobilization at the Shahbag Square in Dhaka. It solicits
youth support and activism to claim the „future of Bangladesh‟ free
from the political and fundamentalist evils of past. Besides, there
are Bangladeshi youth blogs, aplenty, seeking for youth
mobilization and political participations. These blogs express the
youth anxiety in irreverent fashion and target not only the corrupt
political leadership, the Islamic fundamentalist forces in
Bangladesh, and receding opportunity of employment in general
but also the parochial conceptualization of „God‟ and prophet.
There were allegations of atheist writings, and an insult to the
religious sentiments, on these blogs, and subsequently a blogger
hunt in Bangladesh 24 . Moreover, a blog with relatively larger
outreach, professional in presentation and consistent in
performance, is aptly called Youth Ki Awaz25 (Voice of Youth), and it
notes in a post, “They (India and Bangladesh) share a newfound
tendency to crush dissent and mute popular anti-establishment
voices. A propensity to deploy policemen at the slightest
provocation also seems to be a shared attribute these days”.
From the above mention of the sliced narratives, taken from the
community page on Facebook as well as blogs, there appears a
sense that youth in the two socio-political contexts is anti-political.
One could perhaps resort to the hasty conclusion that they are
irresponsible and cynical, and hence the political implications of
their assertions are destructive. However, it ought to be noted that
youth, with a sense of liquid identity, mostly articulating incognito,
are making political assertions. There is an evident politics in the
youth politics in the virtual space. It is in this sense that one is
inclined to note a resurgence of ideologies and utopias, manifest in
the assertion of anger young men of South Asia.

Conclusion

There is no denial of the fact of the oft-mentioned problems in the

contemporary society: onslaught of neo-liberal economic policies,

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Dev N Pathak Angry Youth in South Asia

cultural imperialism carried out by globalization, changed and

changing society, changing forms of social relations reducing
society into instrumentally readjusted social networks, acute
individualization and pathologies thereof, partial or complete
disintegration of traditional as well as modern institutions. Nothing
can refute the truth of humans‟ suspension in the cobweb of
instrumental logic, and anguish of never satisfied minds. Youth
respond to them in diverse ways. Some responses may add to
moral panic while some other may make one feel a resurgence of
nationalistic thinking; some might blow the imagination of past off
and critique it vehemently while some other may attempt to
redefine the traditional associations. There may be certain
inevitable extremities in both directions, one seeking for radical
transformation and other advocating utterly regressive measures to
curtail the very fundamentals of human freedom. The pluralism of
responses is evident in the recent spates of violence, in which
unfortunately state became a party. But the need is to acknowledge
the polychromatic appearance of angry youth. The virtual space,
akin to real space, bring about the effect of varied notions
stemming from the angry youth. They are varied, yet they refer to
the sense of identity of youth that is ambivalent – an unwittingly
maintained strategy. The strategy of pursuing an inarticulate
utopia that does not deny expression to any ideology but seeks to
make everything self-critical. It also seeks to redefine social
institutions of all kinds so as new forms could be accepted. This
shows youth, amidst varied assertions of youth, that their
somewhat ambiguous identities enable them to speak up freely
even though their grammar of politics may not be deemed
sophisticated. The rawness, notwithstanding, these assertions
indicate the political implications of angry youth in South Asia.

Endnotes
1See“The selected poems of Emily Dickinson” published by Wordsworth
Poetry Library (1994). This particular poem by the hermit poet is
expressive of anguish and pain pertaining to fixed identity as well as
ambivalent (fluid) identity. Dickinson herself lived a reclusive life

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with her identity shrouded by thickness of solitude- about which she

said, “it might be lonelier, without loneliness”.
2 See http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=102397 (accessed

on 12 February 2014), the press release on the National Youth Policy-

2014.
3 See http://www.dyd.gov.bd/nyp.php (accessed on 12 February 2014).

The policy document has not been revised since 2003, and this
document has been effective uptil the date when it was accessed. I
have italicised select parts to add emphasis.
4 It ought to be noted right at the outset that the usage of the phrase „angry

young men‟ does not carry gender blindness as such. It is more for
convenience that the phrase is used as such, and it denotes both men
and women.
5 See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20947604 (accesed on 10

February 2014).
6 I admit that the usage of the terms such as globalizing India, global

youth, global media are in somewhat arbitrary fashion. However,

these terms are not devoid of meanings. Globalizing India, mainly,
alludes to the fact that there is no point where we can really declare
India totally global, for there is also a virtual force of „local‟. The
process of globalization is far from a unilateral process without
counter-productive forces. So, instead, I intend to perceive it as a
processual term denoting a phased restructuring of economy, culture,
polity and social structure of norms, values, attitude etc. On the other
hand, the usage such as global media and global youth hint at the
virtual connectivity crossing the territorial boundaries. Needless to
say, these usages require exclusive deliberation elsewhere.
7 See http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/25251/Angry-
Young-Men (accessed on 14 February 2014).
8 Such works help imagine the youth culture as well as the domain

assumption of scholars, for example Desai (1967), Kakar and

Chowdhry (1970), Damle (1971), Sriniwas (1972), Kapadia and Pillai
(1971) are from Indian context. While from abroad, includes Erikson
(1963), Hall et al. (1976), Eisenstadt (1971). A comprehensive perusal
of these literatures is not befitting for the purpose of this paper, hence
it carries only cursory reference.
9 See the essay by M. N. Srinivas (1972), titled “Our Angry Young man:

troubled social background”. A reading of this essay also reminds of

the age, in which Prakash Mehra‟s popular Bollywood flick Zanjeer
made a splash and Amitabh Bachchan began to represent that image.
This was the dominant image of Indian youth in the decade of 1970s

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& 1980s, and it resurfaces every now and then till date in the
cinematic representations of youth in India.
10 In Ram Chandra Guha‟s “India after Gandhi: The history of world‟s

largest democracy” we find total 19 pages on student protest at

different juncture of history of post independent India. The one in the
decade of 1970s acquired pan Indian dimension due to the leadership
of Jayprakash Narayan. In other cases students‟ protest are recorded
as more emotionally charged sporadic violence than a well-thought
out movement.
11 See Kumar et al (2009)
12 Friedman conceptualizes globalization as a phenomenon that happened

in three phases. The first (1492-1800 AD) was characterized by

imperial conquest, the second (1800-2000 AD) was spearheaded by
companies globalizing for market and labour, and the third (2000 AD
onwards) flattened the world enabling individuals and even small
groups to participate in the world economy. This is to the third that
we associate the shrinking of time and space with the help of digital
technology.
13 Image of „angry young man‟, in the era where Prakash Mehra‟s Zanjeer

had a success and Amitabh Bachchan‟s famous character Vijay

remained the ultimate iconic representation of the then youth, is
replaced by the image of cool selves of Farhan Akhtar‟s Dil Chahta
Hai . The iconic representation of youth in Bollywood flicks presents a
good case for study that deserves a separate deliberation.
14 “Social Implications of Internet” by DiMaggio et al. presents a

comprehensive perusal of literature on internet and its implications in

society in general as well as on youth in particular. Interesting to note,
most of the literature under perusal in this paper emerged in the
beginning of 1990s.

16 The statistical data is available at www.internetworldstats.com.

17 https://www.facebook.com/AngryYouthOfIndia/photos/a.4065080460

77525.90894.406485942746402/554536184608043/?type=1&theater
(accessed on 14 February 2014)
18 see https://www.facebook.com/groups/studentyouthagainst
corruption / (accessed on 15 February 2014)
19 see https://www.facebook.com/groups/280256758728452/ (accessed
on 15 February 2014)
20 see https://www.facebook.com/groups/yfcfoundation/ (accessed on
15 February 2014)

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21 see https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bangladeshi-youth/
112604515576651 (accessed on 16 February 2014)
22 see https://www.facebook.com/groups/youthvoicebd/ (accessed on

16 February 2014)
23 see https://www.facebook.com/YMinbd (accessed on 16 February

2014)
24 See for example a few reports: http:// www.bangladeshchronicle.net

/index.php/2013/04/bloggers-in-bangladesh-face-threats-online-and
-off/ & http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/asia/bangladeshi-clerics-
fight-atheist-bloggers (accessed on 20 February 2014)
25 See http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ also the facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/youthkiawaaz (accessed on 20 February
2014). The blog has a post which attempts to emphasise the
commonality of youth objectives and experiences in India and
Bangladesh, see http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2011/06/shared-
borders-shared-oppressions-india-and-bangladesh/ (accessed on 20
February 2014)

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