Youth and Politics in India - II

This paper aims to uncover the features that make India’s youth politics so distinct from other forms of politics within the country, the kinds of politics young people participate in, and the kinds of young people who participate in it. First, there is a detailed discussion of the various identities that political parties have used for mobilising youth, as well as those that the youth themselves have used as a basis of political mobilisation on their own terms and in their own ways. This report also deals with the dynamics of youth politics to make the argument that it is far more behavioural than ideological. Investigated in the process, are the implications that youth politics carries for the personal lives of those who engage in it, as well as its consequences for wider society and for the overall politics of the state. [ISAS WP 174]