The Importance of Being Gen Alpha

The protests at Jantar Mantar were peaking, and I had been called to judge a round of the Frank Anthony Memorial National Inter-School Debate Competition. On Friday, 24th July, I heard 24 young debaters from 12 schools in South Bangalore express their views for and against the proposition that “Eco-tourism is more harmful than beneficial in practice.” Students from Classes 9 and 10, around 14- to 15-year-olds, were taking part in the prestigious event.

Named after the illustrious Frank Anthony, leader of the Anglo-Indian community and member of the Constituent Assembly who founded the Council that operates the ICSE Board of Education, this is an annual competition drawing participants from schools across the country. It is at two levels, Classes 9 and 10 in one category, and Classes 11 and 12 in another. Conducted in a very professional and rigorous manner, it gives participants an hour to prepare their speeches after a sealed envelope has been opened at the same time across the country with the topic for that day. Four minutes of speaking time and two minutes to respond to questions are strictly enforced.

For several hours, I heard the participants express themselves with remarkable poise and politeness, addressing each other as “my esteemed fellow debater,” or “my worthy opponent,” and praising each other for their speech, or their question, before launching into a reply. But when it was time to wait for the results to be announced, and the marks for them were being compiled and deciding the winners, they began clamouring for an open discussion on the student protests by their seniors – Gen Z. It was clear that what was uppermost on their minds at that moment was how things would play out in the confrontation that was underway between young aspirants for higher education and jobs versus a government shielding their minister for education.

Of course, the host Principal of Carmel High School, kindly dissuaded them from a discussion on what was, after all, the hot ‘political’ topic of the day. But their connection with the issues their seniors were raising, their curiosity and anxiety around those, were very visible.

These were students from higher income backgrounds in a metro city, and what they said in their speeches and replies was quite revealing. Almost all of them, to the last speaker, spoke of the environmental degradation posed by tourists to sensitive eco-regions. Particularly, they mentioned plastic trash and waste around human accommodation. But all of them said that this was inevitable, and very little could be done about it, because people didn’t listen!

How deeply this generation has accepted the lack of civic sense, and low regard for other people’s comfort and convenience, I thought. Why are they already seeing our country and society as a space where expecting people to be more mindful and considerate seems like a false hope?

Since I had spent a couple of years struggling to make people understand the importance of large stretches of green enclosed space for monkeys in Faizabad-Ayodhya, where people would view them in a natural setting and feed them at designated feeding stations, I spoke to them about how eco-tourism needed to be sensitive to man-animal conflicts and search for ways to address them. One of my books Urban Tails: Living in Harmony with Animals has dealt with several animals whose habitat has been impacted by humans, and vice versa.

Vantara came up as a positive example of eco-tourism among several speakers, and it struck me that we needed to give more thought to public-private partnership for preservation of the environment, and the history of how India’s conservation experts and governments had dealt with wildlife and habitat preservation. From Operation Tiger to the management of elephant corridors, there was so much to be learned from efforts that had been made by scientists and administrators, and today’s students needed to access that knowledge.

The last area in which I sensed a gap from the way in which they had constructed their arguments and presented them, was around the rights of communities whose lives were tied to forests, rivers and eco-sensitive areas. One young student from Sikkim did speak about respecting the culture of communities within the zones of eco-tourism, and not treating them like ethnic curiosities to be gawked at, or have their privacy invaded. However, overall, as a student group, they remained unaware of the struggle of Adivasis who had remained submerged in the river Betwa for over a month against the Ken-Betwa river linking project.

The Daudhan reservoir which is expected to be a part of this project will submerge parts of the core and buffer zones of the Panna Tiger Reserve, with the felling of thousands of trees. Not only will this affect the habitat of tigers, but the displacement of rural and tribal communities in Panna and Chhatarpur districts without adequate compensation or alternative housing is what has been protested for many weeks. Only thing is, this protest has obviously not made it to the screens of what urban students are seeing and consuming every day.    

The differences between rural and urban, rich and poor had been swept aside at Jantar Mantar. One of the most heartening things about the Gen Z protests was the solidarity they showed, crossing all the boundaries that normally divide us. Now that the alphabet is being rewritten, with Gen Alpha, or those born from 2010 to 2024 beginning to show their concerns and finding their voice, it is clear that our society is in the midst of great change, a virtual re-awakening.

Far away from the better off students in Bangalore, students in government schools across India, like Fatehpur in UP, Barmer and Jalore in Rajasthan, Gaya in Bihar, Beed in Maharashtra and other places began protesting through demonstrations that caught the attention of administrators in the wake of the Jantar Mantar protests. What were they asking for? Fans and water coolers, benches and desks, laboratories to study science and most importantly, more teachers.

https://thebetterindia.com/informed-india/up-students-gen-alpha-protest-for-basic-school-facilities-fans-furniture-comfortable-learning-environment-12214998

When nearly one lakh schools have been closed down across the country, denying access to education for students from poor rural areas, such basic demands present a stark picture of what life can mean for so many bright Gen Alpha children in our society.  

Even as this is being written, fans, furniture, clean drinking water and washrooms are in the process of being delivered to the students at Fatehpur.

https://thewire.in/rights/gen-alpha-protest-outcome-in-ups-fatehpur-school-agrees-to-provide-water-cooler-and-fans

However, on the flip side, the boy leading the protest, Abhishek Sonkar, has faced police harassment. It is clear that there are many miles to go before we acknowledge, as a country and people, how we have been letting down our youth and our children.

Would you consider rural children asking for more teachers and clean water a threat to the ‘nation’?

Do you think our children have been infected by a foreign bug that makes them undertake public protests for such demands?

If your answer is ‘No’ to both questions, you have rightly understood the predicament facing us at present, across all of India, our whole society – our children are leading, showing us the way for positive change. We must support them, and follow the examples they set.