How does one become conscious of the future? Is thinking about the future a skill? Can one’s imagination of the future be harmful to others? And what dispositions, knowledge, and skills are needed to imagine equitable futures? According to UNESCO, it is crucial for young people to be able to imagine multiple alternate futures and be open to new possibilities of action in the present to bring such futures to reality. This ability is called futures literacy.

Unpacking anxieties about the future

At Quest Alliance, we conducted futures literacy workshops with more than 500 students in the age group of 14–29 years. These students—all of whom belong to marginalised groups that have experienced varying forms of structural injustice—came from 36 districts in the states of Odisha, Gujarat, and Assam. For instance, young Loiry* from Moregaon in Assam belongs to a tea tribe, one of the most marginalised communities with the highest dropout rate in secondary schools. Historically brought in by the British from Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and adjacent areas as indentured labour, tea tribe communities have continued to work for low wages in exploitative conditions. Similarly, development projects in Khadsaliya village in Gujarat have usurped the landholdings of Saurabh* and his friends. For others, agriculture is no longer a viable livelihood due to dust from the coal plants settling on their fields.

While the initial aim of our research was to understand young people’s aspirations, it became clear during our first field visit in Assam that thinking about the future was a source of immense anxiety for young people. This was because they believed that their voices are not acknowledged in deciding their own futures. Disruptions such as climate change and AI exacerbate this anxiety. In Majuli, a river island in Assam, Shalini* told us that she wouldn’t know what to do if floods engulfed her house. Such a situation is not unthinkable as soil erosion is a constant threat in Majuli, particularly affecting members of the Mising community who reside closer to the river. Students also spoke of anxieties around automation and the possibility of not having jobs because of the increase in the use of AI.

We employed speculative futuring as a methodology to address the current challenges confronting young people. Speculative futuring involves contemplating what-if scenarios, facilitating the exploration of diverse possibilities not limited by present knowledge. This approach enabled us to explore possible, preferred, and non-preferred futures with young people while encouraging them to imagine various alternative possibilities.

When students were first asked to contemplate the future, their responses spanned a wide spectrum—from a reluctance to consider the future, to uneasiness about what it might entail, to viewing it as a continuation of the present. Some expressed uncertainty, with remarks such as “We don’t know if we will be alive in the next 20 years.” Others expressed disinterest, stating things such as “We just want a secure job that pays well, whatever it may be.” In Gujarat’s Saurashtra region, many young girls’ perspective was shaped by societal expectations, as manifested in statements such as, “At most, our names will change,”—alluding to the likelihood of marriage.

We used a justice-based pedagogy where students were made conscious of injustices they or their peers face, and were encouraged to imagine transformative possibilities or pathways of hope and action. For example, girls in Khadsaliya initially expressed enjoyment in doing household chores because, as women, they felt obligated to learn such duties; however, during the workshop, they lamented that increased household chores left them with little time for schoolwork.

Some of these insights were further explored at the end of the workshop, where students imagined alternate futures. During a speculative futuring exercise in Assam, for instance, students suggested living in outer space as a possible solution to the climate crisis. However, they quickly identified that because of class barriers, only the rich would be able to access it.

Why teach about reflecting on the future?

While thinking about the future has long been a centralised affair under the ambit of governments, states, and other decision-making bodies, recent advances have called for democratising the field. UNESCO deems futures literacy as being as important for young people as reading and writing, and has accordingly established more than 110  futures literacy laboratories worldwide.

As we reflect on the future, it’s important to note that many of our visions are often influenced by the past or, as seen in students’ stories, may simply be an extension of the present. These futures are often shaped by narratives driven by the state, media, or influenced by biased perceptions based on factors such as gender, caste, or class. For instance, some students recognised systemic challenges in Guwahati and labelled the city as unliveable, but still aspired for their districts to evolve into a Guwahati. Some imagined a smart future but recognised that people would be isolated due to excessive reliance on technology. In other cases, while students acknowledged multifaceted issues such as the uneven distribution of profits or industrial pollution, their proposed solutions were often simplistic, for example, advocating for waste reduction or recycling without considering more radical alternatives. Futures literacy workshops we conducted with students allowed them to identify existing assumptions, thus laying the groundwork for questioning the dominant vision of the future and making space for imagining new possibilities. Here’s how we incorporated diverse perspectives into visions of the future.

1. Contemplate the future  

In Majuli, floods and soil erosion are persistent challenges, leading to widespread displacement and loss of livelihoods. However, the impacts of these natural disasters are particularly acute for communities residing close to the river, primarily the Mising tribal communities, among other ethnic groups. Some families have experienced displacement multiple times, with many forced to settle on government land or damaged embankments. During the workshop, the first step was to contemplate the future and be conscious of it. Initial responses reflected a sense of extreme powerlessness, with statements such as “Everything is dependent on God,” or “Nothing is possible. Everything is in the hands of politicians.”

2. Acknowledge existing injustice

The next step of the process is to provide space for students to acknowledge and process some of the social injustices that they experience. In Majuli, students’ concerns included perceived corruption in government exams, discrimination faced by those belonging to the tea tribes, the effects of soil erosion, and the paucity of jobs.

Prompted by the facilitator to reflect on the impact of floods, students from privileged castes residing away from the banks of the island could acknowledge that their experience of living in Majuli was considerably different from the lived realities of the marginalised Mising community. This exercise promoted a deeper understanding among young people of how factors such as caste, class, gender, or tribe can lead to varying impacts even within one location.

3. Speculate on the future 

After addressing current challenges, students were prompted to imagine the future, exploring both dystopian and utopian scenarios. This was done creating scenarios through the exaggeration of challenges mentioned by students, fictionalising scientific predictions, or proposing utopian solutions. Particularly notable were speculations about the ongoing reduction in Majuli’s land size due to environmental changes. For example, confronted with the possible disappearance or destruction of Majuli, some said, “This land is a holy place, it cannot disappear. The floods will stop.” However, after leaning into their discomfort, students were able to move beyond denial and consider alternative possibilities.  Utopian responses to this problem included an all-woman government.      

4. Imagine alternate futures

Students were able to move from a place of discomfort to actively engaging in solutions. Each of these solutions was then examined from the perspectives of class, gender, and other social categories to determine if the envisioned futures were inclusive.

For example, when students suggested that dams could prevent flooding, the facilitator offered instances where dams had failed, such as in Assam’s Kaziranga, or shared other students’ experiences that challenged this dominant narrative. This enabled young people to consider versions of the future that would be advantageous for all. This process involved questioning and debating not only when dams function effectively but also considering the costs such as displacement borne by communities living closest to the dams, highlighting the need for greater scientific rigour and improved rehabilitation measures.

In other places such as in Bhojava, Gujarat, a student envisioned water banks with a committee representing all castes, particularly Dalits, to ensure fair water distribution. In Gujarat’s Khadsaliya, students suggested shifting work hours to cope with increased heat but also anticipated a decline in women’s work participation.

5. Build agency

Additionally, these workshops shifted the students’ mindset from feeling powerless to having a sense of agency. They said, “This process is making us realise that we need to do something and help find solutions.” Some also noted, “Whatever problems are to come in the future, we can think about addressing them.” The students moved from helplessness and individualised solutions to hoping for change by imagining systemic solutions that are community-centred. A student in Majuli mentioned, “We should build a process through which we can take these solutions to the government”.

Futures literacy allows students to consider the future, empowers the imagination, and rescues it from dominant narratives. It also allows one to see uncertainty as an opportunity and enables action in the present to make the identified desirable futures a reality. This vital capability, necessary for young individuals, also proves beneficial for all stakeholders engaged in the sector.

When considering the intersection of futures and our present actions, it becomes clear that many struggle to shape our current reality effectively. At the same time, our efforts to address challenges may inadvertently create new issues if we fail to examine our biases. Developing the ability to question assumptions and expand our collective imagination emerges as a crucial and universally valuable skill. Beyond its importance for the younger generation, this capacity serves as a guiding light for all stakeholders in the development landscape. By embracing futures literacy, we become better equipped to navigate complexity, and chart paths towards multiple alternative futures through thoughtful, sustainable actions.

*Names changed to maintain confidentiality.

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Know more

• Read From Anxiety to Hope, a report on building climate futures literacy in young people.
• Read this article to find out about how to build resilience to help people cope with future adversities.
• Read this report on the aspirations of youth in India and their visions for the future.

Do more

• Contact the authors at info@questalliance.net to collaborate on a futures literacy workshop.

In India, the top 10 percent of the population accounts for 57.1 percent of the income while the bottom 50 percent accounts for just 13.1 percent. In practice, if one earns INR 60,000 per month per adult in a household, they belong to the top 10 percent of the population in terms of income.

India’s unequal distribution of income is due to several factors such as insufficient social spending on education, low female labour force participation, and inability of the service and industrial sectors to produce employment opportunities.

A big contributor, however, is the lack of opportunity for several millions of Indians who are educated but not employed in the formal economy. The State of Working India 2019 report estimated that the number of educated citizens looking for a job was nearly as many as the entire population of Bengaluru. In June 2022, the Lok Sabha’s Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) revealed that over the past eight years, a mere 7.22 lakh aspirants—out of more than 22 crore applicants—got permanent central government jobs. This means each job had more than 300 applicants.

This dearth of relevant education and opportunity are fundamental reasons behind the increasing income inequality in India. The problem we therefore need to solve for is, how can the country grow more equally and how can opportunities be made less scarce?

Weak link between education and employment

The primary requirement for formal employment in India is a certain level of education. The current academic system is an extremely selective process, with only a few making it to the much-coveted tertiary level that produces ‘professionals’—engineers, doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, and so on. For most of our young people, the country’s education system does not translate into employment opportunity. Approximately 47 percent of graduates in India are not eligible for an industry role. As per the Global Skills Gap Report, 92 percent of Indian employees believe there is a skills gap in the country.

This means efforts to increase our gross enrolment ratio (GER) for higher secondary education (which currently stands at 27.3 percent for the age group of 18–23 years) might be misdirected, since there seems to be little value from an economic perspective.

What is the alternative?

To understand the economic significance of a high GER and a graduation degree, we compared India’s rate of enrolment and GDP per capita income with another country. In Switzerland, for instance, 2020 witnessed a GDP per capita income of USD 85,000 despite only 44 percent of the population possessing a college degree. The rest stop their education at the secondary level, at which point the majority receive vocational training and become part of the workforce. In comparison, India’s GDP per capita income remains approximately USD 2,000.

There is much to learn from other countries that have been in a similar situation as ours in the 1970s and ‘80s. Austria, China, Germany, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, and more, who were at per capita income levels of approximately USD 2,000 some 30–50 years ago, all made heavy investments in employment-linked education such as skilling, vocational training, and apprenticeship.

In India, vocational and technical training has been pushed as part of skill building to bridge the employment gap. However, data reveals that these efforts haven’t been successful, with more than 84 percent students in the age group of 12–59 years not receiving any vocational training during 2020–21. In the case of women, this number was a staggering 90 percent. The 15,000 industrial training institutes (ITIs), which serve as the traditional backbone of vocational training, also remain underutilised with just 10.5 lakh seats being filled out of the 25 lakh available. Moreover, their lack of industry relevance is reflected in the data that shows that a paltry 3 percent of the ITI candidates were hired in 2020.

While India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 aims to invest in vocational training, there needs to be a more pointed focus on students’ imagination and development. A large majority of students are simply not aware of the plethora of academic and work focussed opportunities resulting in them gaining a degree of little economic value.

Given the weak link between education and employment, it is worth questioning if growing the GER is the right goal for the country.

It’s not just about employment though

Education doesn’t just have an economic impact. Its real value is the identity and social currency it provides to the more marginalised segments of our society. Attaining a formal degree is valuable, especially for girls, Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi (DBA) communities, and minorities. For women especially, it delays the age of marriage and motherhood, reducing child mortality and inequality in society. Similarly, a high GER among people from marginalised castes and classes has a positive impact.

This explains why the poor or vulnerable communities will attempt to earn a BA or an MA degree—even if it doesn’t give them a job, it gives them social standing. It tells us that being respected and moving up the social hierarchy might be more critical than economic opportunities for a large proportion of our population.

The future of our youth is at stake

India has 18 years left before our opportunity window closes. By 2041, we will reach peak working age—the share of the working-age population (20–59 years) is expected to hit 59 percent. After this the number will start declining. We will have an ageing population that will require support. It is therefore imperative to ensure our future growth isn’t jobless and our education is able to create opportunities for the youth, rather than hinder them.

How can we solve for economic growth to be much broader and benefit the majority of this demographic while also making sure it goes hand in hand with social change?

We must take work-skills training seriously

We have culturally respected and invested significantly in tertiary education. Getting a professional degree is considered a mark of ultimate success. But this cannot be at the cost of the majority of our young people who are in secondary education and will not have a shot at it.

The government is mainly focused on getting primary education right. In fact, even in the development sector, most of us are still focused on ensuring that all children develop the necessary foundational and primary skills. As a result, little or no attention is being paid to secondary education. Unfortunately, given that we have only about two decades left to harness the opportunity of a working population, we don’t have the luxury of doing primary first and then looking at secondary. It needs to happen simultaneously, and it needs to happen now.

If we are going to seriously explore vocational education like other countries have done successfully before us, one of the big questions we will face is, how does one evaluate and grade vocational subjects? Since we don’t know how to do this, we are unable to introduce the subject, which in turn means it’s not an option that students can choose. In the absence of grades, colleges won’t admit you because there is no alternative method of evaluation. Hence, it is just seen as an extracurricular subject, and not on par with the ‘core’ subjects.

We need to invest in school-to-work transitions seriously, and develop a robust curriculum that is future-of-work focussed. We need to hire and train teachers for effective implementation, allocate budgets, and provide for internships and apprenticeships. And, we need to ensure market linkages and employment opportunities. Without this, we are not going to be able to move forward and make the next two decades matter for our youth.

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Know more

• Read more about how India can solve for early childhood care and education.
• Learn how India can encash its demographic dividend.

On the surface, the conditions for entrepreneurship are ripe. Yet, there are very few entrepreneurs in India.

Abundance of talent but fear of failure among youth

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report 2020-21 highlighted the abundance of entrepreneurial talent in India, with approximately 81 percent of youth reporting having the skills and knowledge needed to start a business. However, many lacked a risk-taking attitude—a critical aspect of entrepreneurship—with 56 percent of young people stating that they feared failure. This, coupled with familial concerns about the financial uncertainties around starting one’s business and societal expectations about what steady careers look like, have contributed to greater hesitation among the youth and pushed them to opt for jobs. In 2020–21, the anxieties caused by the pandemic only worsened the situation, with only 20 percent of young people stating that they intended to take up entrepreneurship—a sharp decline from the 33 percent in 2019–20.

This is probably why, despite the media narrative around India having a large number of start-ups, only 5 percent of the Indian population are entrepreneurs—a number that is among the lowest in the world. In comparison, 23 percent of the population in the US, 17 percent in Brazil, and 8 percent in China are entrepreneurs.

Lack of exposure and agency

In ComMutiny’s extensive field experience with youth over the past 28 years, we have found that the shifts in access to information have caused a significant change in their outlook. They are more knowledgeable, aware, and engaged. If in the early 2000s, one out of 10 young people was ready to try out active citizenship, today we find four or five of them eager to put social concerns in their list of top priorities.

However, what hasn’t changed as much are the kinds of exposure and real-life situations they have access to. In fact, with our work, we have seen that the quality and quantity of opportunities for on-ground experiences that help build key life capacities, and help young people realise their full potential, have declined due to safety concerns. As the GEM report points out, young people’s ability to take risks has come down over the years due to the fear created by the news around violence and the lack of physical and digital safety. As a result, their families hesitate to send them out to gain on-ground experience. Hence, the agency of young people still remains low and not commensurate with what is needed to take decisions.

How can we increase the uptake of entrepreneurship from the ground up?

If we expect young people to avail of the many government schemes on entrepreneurship, we must start by recognising that in our hierarchical and patriarchal societal structures, they are denied many foundational rights. These rights allow for access to intergenerational spaces in which the young can have agency, take important decisions, and reach their own potential even as they make change in the world. Not having these rights leads to low capacities and low appetite for entrepreneurship and risk-taking.

Within our youth-centric development ecosystem, consisting of 143 organisations, we conducted a survey where three major youth duties and rights were highlighted by the members:

• Young people should have a seat at every decision-making table, be it at the level of the family, schools, colleges, workplaces, panchayats, legislative assemblies, Parliament, or other societal platforms. As of now, only 13 percent of the ministers in Parliament are below the age of 40, and the average age of cabinet members is 60 years. We propose this average to be brought down to 55 years, and 35 percent of all assemblies and panchayats should consist of young people. The top leadership in all corporate organisations should subscribe to a similar structure. In families, we suggest all decisions that affect a young person significantly, even if they are not directly about them, to be taken with their involvement. Education spaces, too, must include 35 percent of youth in their top decision-making bodies.
• Youth also need to be provided with spaces for refl-action—when reflection precedes and succeeds action—where they can take up shared leadership of their communities by setting up social businesses or enterprises (social entrepreneurs working on social development issues such as poverty alleviation and gender equality), where they are allowed to fail and learn from their own and others’ mistakes. Government and corporate funding for spaces that allow for refl-action is necessary. These funders must also focus on growing the entrepreneurial capacity of the youth wherein they develop a risk-taking appetite and the resilience to deal with failure.
• Young people should have another foundational right: to ask ‘disruptive’ questions about the prevailing order without fear of retribution. Freedom of speech and expression of dissent need to be tolerated by authorities, including families and schools, much more than now. This encourages young people to think differently, think out of the box, and ultimately disrupt the status quo.

Experiences that build young people’s agency and leadership capacities have to become a part of mainstream policies for the youth. At the same time, adults need to amend their roles vis-a-vis young people and become facilitators of these experiences. Because entrepreneurs are not born—they are made.

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Know more

• Learn more about creating nurturing spaces for young people.
• Read more about the future of employment for young people in India.
• Read this article on the relevance and scope of youth entreprenuers

Do more

• Connect with the vartaLeap Coalition to assess how your organisation’s programmes and policies can be made more youth-centric.

According to the latest UDISE+ report, approximately 5.6 million students dropped out at the secondary school level in 2020–21.¹ In 2019, more than 30 percent of Indian youth in the age group of 15–29 years were not in education, employment, or training. Women constitute 57 percent of this group. Economic migration, caste-based discrimination, early and forced marriages, and gendered control on mobility are some of the structural barriers that result in dropouts. However, these problems manifest in the form of disinterest in studies, irregular attendance, or the absence of relevant government documents, such as an Aadhaar card or domicile certificate, that are required for admission. Engaging exclusively with these symptoms of the problem often disregards the deep-seated structural barriers that are at its root.

The draft National Youth Policy

To address many of the challenges facing India’s youth, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports recently released a draft of the National Youth Policy (NYP) 2021, seeking to replace the previous NYP 2014. The policy has a 10-year vision for youth development in the following areas: education, employment and entrepreneurship, youth leadership and development, health, fitness, sports, and social justice. In line with the National Education Policy (NEP) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the policy recognises the issue of dropouts and engages at length with possible strategies to address the problem.

1. Focusing on the individual rather than the structure

One of the strategies suggested by the NYP 2021 to ensure that at-risk youth stay in school is counselling them and mobilising ‘school–community–parent partnerships to encourage them to stay in school’. Without going into the specifics, it also suggests providing merit-based bank loans to ‘exceptional’ students and creating an online dashboard for youth to access any information related to education.

Through Nirantar’s work with out-of-school children and youth in the resettlement colonies of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, we have found that counselling is an inadequate response to the structural barriers that push young people out of the education system. A number of studies and reports have also shown that dropping out is not a matter of motivation but a consequence of systemic barriers. The problem with the draft NYP’s approach is that it puts the onus of staying in school on the individual learner. By doing so, dropping out is assumed to be a personal problem that mere ‘encouragement’ or counselling can resolve. 

Such a solution ignores the structural barriers of caste, class, gender, religion, and ethnicity. This is further reflected by the fact that the policy encourages ‘merit-based bank loans’ instead of need-based ones. Need-based loans recognise the various barriers that impede students from performing well academically. By providing financial assistance to students from the most marginalised sections of society, these loans can help prevent dropouts. Education loans are also not an option for under-resourced families that are already struggling to sustain themselves. By rewarding ‘exceptional’ students based on meritocracy, while simultaneously ignoring the root causes of poor performance, the policy risks further marginalising students from different caste locations and with different abilities, and sex and gender identities.

Additionally, a study by Azim Premji University estimates that approximately 60 percent of students in India do not have internet access. Without addressing this disproportionate gap in access to digital devices, the feasibility of an online dashboard remains doubtful.

2. No clarity on data systems

To reintegrate dropout youths into the education system, the policy suggests creating a comprehensive data system that is responsible for systematically identifying and tracking out-of-school youth.

However, there is little to no information about the logistics of this comprehensive data system. Data systems run the risk of social profiling based on caste, class, religion, and sexuality leading to discriminatory practices. Currently, no mechanism has been envisioned to address these challenges. Additionally, migration is one of the major causes of dropouts but no clarity has been provided on how this data system will help in keeping migratory youth in the education system. This should be seen in conjunction with the fact that even after 13 years of the RTE Act, the migrant population has seen very limited benefits.

3. An absence of well-researched solutions

To address waning enrolment rates at the secondary level, the policy recommends building new schools where there are none. In areas with low demand, it suggests upgrading the schools with better information and communication technologies and improved transport facilities. For low enrolment in colleges, the policy pushes for ‘stronger regulation of private institutes’.

Low enrolment numbers at the secondary school level are not new. To address this, in 2017, NITI Aayog launched its educational reform programme called Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital in Education (SATH-E) in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh. Under this programme, schools with low enrolment were closed and merged with the nearest government schools. So far, more than 4,800 schools have been shut down. However, SATH-E proved to be a failure. In Odisha, instead of bringing children back to school, it discouraged access as students now had to travel further away to the newly merged schools. Recognising this, the Odisha High Court issued a stay on the merger of the remaining 8,000 schools and directed the School and Mass Education Department of Odisha to find the cause behind low enrolment instead of shutting down schools.

Another possible reason for low enrolment levels is the dwindling teacher–pupil ratio.

Even though the draft policy proposes providing transport facilities, it does not offer any clarity on how it will reach those living in remote and difficult geographies. Another possible reason for low enrolment levels is the dwindling teacher–pupil ratio. The draft NYP’s approach of building new schools in low-demand areas without identifying reasons for low enrolment is likely to be counterproductive.

Additionally, to address the problem of low enrolment rates in colleges, the policy emphasises a stronger regulation of private institutes ‘to ensure that education imparted is of value to the youth’. This is effectively in line with NEP’s graded autonomy model that pushes for the privatisation of education. The perils of such a model have been debated and protested at length since UGC granted graded autonomy to 60 educational institutions in 2018. Graded autonomy disguised as ‘stronger regulation of private institutions’ will only lead to substantial hikes in student fees, which instead of ensuring enrolment will push youth further out of higher education.

4. Lack of sexuality education programmes

India is a signatory to international bodies such as UNESCO, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR), and Conventions of the Rights of the Child (CRC) that have routinely focused on the importance of comprehensive sexual education for adolescents and have recognised sexuality education as a right to health and survival. However, the draft NYP makes no mention of this. A lack of sexuality education undermines adolescents’ ability to successfully navigate the myths associated with sexuality and sexual health. For instance, a report by Dasra suggests that 23 percent of girls drop out of school after reaching puberty. The inability to manage their periods at school, teenage pregnancies, along with several health risks associated with adopting unhygienic menstrual hygiene practices often cause young girls to discontinue their education. 

Instead, the policy’s final strategy regarding dropout youths involves developing national-level programmes covering a wide range of skills, of which ‘childcare and family welfare education’ is one. Not only does this assume that childbearing is expected from the youth, but it also provides no clarity on what ‘family welfare education’ entails. Does the state envision heteronormative and traditional family structures, or does it include an awareness of sexual diversity? Will this education equip adolescents to better understand their sexual and reproductive rights? Will education related to childcare be extended to single mothers?

The way forward

With unemployment at 6.8 percent in 2022, there is an urgent need for the government to rethink its strategies for addressing dropout youths. This must begin with an acknowledgement of the structural inequities and barriers that force young people to leave their education midway. Several organisations such as the Centre for Research and Policy (CPR), Pratham Foundation, Dasra, and Care India are working to document this, and their insights will prove useful for the government in its planning processes. 

To help reintegrate youth into the education system, the draft NYP also envisions partnerships with nonprofits and private sector organisations to create non-formal education centres. While formal education is highly structured and rigid, non-formal education centres are flexible in terms of organisation, timing and duration of teaching and learning, age group of learners, methodology of instruction, and evaluation procedures. These features make non-formal education a crucial pathway for reaching out to the most marginalised sections of children and youth.

Rather than focusing on reintegrating youth into the school system, non-formal education spaces can serve as a robust educational alternative.

At Nirantar, our work with dropout youths has also shown us the merits of using non-formal education spaces as an alternative to address the issue of dropouts. Rather than focusing on reintegrating youth into the school system, these spaces can serve as a robust educational alternative. Not only are they mindful of the structural barriers that cause students to drop out, but they also focus on skill building and training sessions (in addition to textbook education) as strategies to encourage young people to continue learning. While these alternative educational centres carry great potential to challenge the issue of dropouts, educational policies such as the RTE Act and Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao should be simultaneously strengthened.

It’s high time that India makes policies keeping in mind the structural challenges that confront a significant population of its youth, particularly women. Instead of using counselling as a post-facto strategy to address dropouts, policies that prevent dropouts in the first place should be prioritised. Efforts must also be made to recognise the reasons behind low enrolment and dropout rates. And finally, to truly empower India’s youth, the NYP must recognise the significance of comprehensive sexuality education and fulfil its international commitments to impart the same.  

Ankita Dhar Karmakar, Sohnee Harshey, and Archana Dwivedi contributed to this piece.

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Footnotes:

1. According to the UDISE+ report, the total number of students enrolled in secondary schools is 39 million (table 1, p. 62). The total dropout rate of students from these schools is 14.6 percent (p. 109) or 5.6 million.

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Know more

• Read this report to understand the factors behind early and child marriage and how it leads to dropouts.
• Understand the impact of COVID-19 on schoolgoing children.
• Learn more about what young adults in India see as integral to their well-being.

Gender equality is not the only reason that men have been in focus. Farmers’ suicides have emerged as a recurring phenomenon in several parts of rural India. Crop failures, the inability to service crippling debts, and an utter sense of failure in being the provider and protector are understood to be factors that contribute to it. The compulsions that men face in a rapidly changing world that continues to be deeply divided by gendered expectations are becoming increasingly evident. In addition to the changing roles, aspirations, and capacity of women, men are faced with a wide battery of other changes. Economic arrangements, livelihood opportunities, and traditional societal relationships are undergoing rapid transformations. Some men are able to cope and even thrive in this dynamic environment, but many are not. Signs of such failure are already apparent across society. School retention and scholastic achievement is falling among boys, and male violence doesn’t show signs of abating.

The focus of our work was on the violence and exclusion that women faced in rural communities, and it was possible to get many men concerned about this very ‘unfair’ situation. 

I have been working in the field of gender equality and with men for more than two decades now. We started this work in rural Uttar Pradesh with a simple question: Would men in the community join a programme where the benefits are supposed to accrue to women? We learned that it was indeed possible to bring improvements in women’s status through what is often called a win-win approach. The focus of our work was on the high levels of violence and exclusion that women faced in rural communities, and it was possible to get many men concerned about this very ‘unfair’ situation. We were convinced that the change in men had to be first within the family and in their personal roles and relationships. Despite their initial hesitation, women and girls began to welcome these changes.

Men were spending more time at home—they were helping out in the kitchen, fetching water, and looking after the children. Wives enjoyed a new-found intimacy and even encouraged their friends to get their husbands to join the same men’s group. Instead of being wary of their fathers, younger children now liked playing with them. These men also did not become as angry as earlier, and they reported that they were able to manage their temper in different ways.

We also noted some other changes that surprised us. In one study, we tried to understand the changes men experienced not only through their own stories, but also by examining the experiences of a female member of their household and a close male friend. The male friends reported that their relationship with the person concerned had also improved. We realised that men are part of a variety of relationships with other men inside and outside of the home. These social and positional relationships—determined by age, caste, religion, ethnicity, language spoken, educational attainment, organisational post—are also hierarchical. There are social norms that dictate how men relate with each other. Each male in a position of ‘superiority’ by virtue of any of these social or positional parameters is very careful that ‘subordinate’ males do not transgress boundaries.

We started learning more about the world of men and their expectations and relationships. The social construction of boys into men is a complex process because they have to be taught to negotiate the wide range of expectations that they have to fulfil and relationships they have to be part of. It is well known that boys are expected to toughen up and not cry when hurt. And men can’t express emotions other than anger, disgust, and hate. This is part of the training and conditioning boys receive to survive in the ‘competitive’ world of men. However, the world of men is rarely a level-playing field, and is carved up through a wide range of social hierarchies. Most of the men we worked with were poor, rural, and often from subordinate castes. They experienced many disadvantages as men belonging to a particular caste or class, and could thus empathise with the disadvantages experienced by women. This ability to understand someone else’s marginalisation and their own privileges as men was important in transforming their understanding of social relationships.

In our work with poor men, we realised that they experience different layers of privilege and disadvantage. We needed to empathise with their disadvantages so that they could empathise with those more disadvantaged than them (that is, women). We came to realise that the call for equality cannot just be a ‘demand’ by the disadvantaged and oppressed, but also needs to be acted upon by those who benefit from existing unequal social orders. All efforts at equality will otherwise lead to sharp contests and harder pushback because those who gain from the unequal social systems will rarely relinquish their benefits willingly.

How do men and boys deal with their failures when they have not been equipped with adequate emotional or social tools to do so?

If we are to build a more resilient future for our societies, we have to understand how our aspiration for equality gets challenged by the idea of ‘hegemonic masculinity’. In its essence, the idea relates to a ‘desire to dominate’ or ‘to win at any cost’ that is coded into almost all men. In successful men, these are seen as ‘good’ traits. However, not all men can succeed, which results in these desires remaining unfulfilled or getting thwarted when they fail. Today’s changing social and economic environment is causing an increasing number of men to be partial successes at best. How do they deal with their failures when they have not been equipped with adequate emotional or social tools to do so?

If we have to help men in coping with failure, we need alternate models of success. We need to bring up boys differently, and not limit it to boys from deprived families. We need to work with boys, parents, and teachers simultaneously. We need to build empathy, celebrate different kinds of success, and find ways to promote collaboration over competition. At home, both boys and girls need to learn to care for themselves and for others. The successful model for bringing up girls cannot be to bring them up like boys.

If we want to address persistent gender discrimination, increasing male violence, everyday sexism, and ‘problem’ men and boys, the answer may lie in redefining ‘success’. We have to develop alternate models of leadership where men can provide opportunities to others without worrying that it will take away their own power. We need to also celebrate ‘successes’ that are not accompanied by material wealth or authority over others. To do so, we need to build a collaboration with men who wield power over other men. Such a collaboration should encourage men, without blaming or accusing them, to understand how their own ‘successful masculinity’ may hurt themselves and others. Our experience shows that there are men who are willing to engage in this process. And this is how relationships between women and men, and between men and other genders, ultimately improve and larger social and institutional changes take root.   

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Know more

• Read about the results of an intervention with men on violence against women in India.
• Read this article on constructing alternative masculinities to address gender-based violence.
• Learn more about a community-led programme that aims to systematically change the way communities raise boys.

While high-income countries are expected to recover their employment deficit from 2020 in 2022, low- and middle-income countries are unlikely to close that gap quite so quickly. India in particular has a much tougher challenge to overcome given that it is the only country where youth went further behind in 2021 compared to 2020. Bear in mind that, according to the report, young Indian men account for approximately 16 percent of the global workforce, and young Indian women account for 5 percent of the same.

The future of work will be influenced by technological innovations, demographic shifts, climate change, and globalisation.

As systems prepare solutions for recovering from the damage created by the pandemic, the report insists on adopting a human-centred approach while determining the strategy for investments of the future. It has become apparent that the future of work will be influenced by technological innovations, demographic shifts, environmental/climate change, and globalisation. In the larger spectrum of work that holds opportunities for the youth, the report details three economies as areas of investment for the future.

• Green: Roles that aim to address the environmental crisis
• Care: Roles that focus on human well-being and care
• Digital: Roles that leverage the internet and different forms of digital technology

While they are relatively niche ecosystems today, each of these economies is likely to be a more sustainable pathway for young people of the future.

Unfortunately, children and youth have experienced significant learning losses during the pandemic, which will inevitably hamper their progress in the future. India had one of the longest records of school closures around the world and experts suggest that not only did learning stall for many, but the long gaps have also resulted in learning regression. These economic and educational deficits are projected to result in an increase in ability vs aspiration mismatches, notwithstanding the gaps in access and awareness. If the goal is to prepare youth for the future of work, we need to enhance the following:

1. Awareness about the green economy

“Given the number of young people in India, we need to prepare them to be ready for this future. These sectors are often perceived to need more specialised skills and hence considered not very accessible for entry–level workers. It’s important to understand that it’s not only about preparing young people for careers in green, but also looking at understanding green in existing careers.” — Nikita Bengani, Director (Youth Programmes), Quest Alliance

With growing concerns around environmental sustainability, it is likely that the green economy will become a major employer in the coming years. This doesn’t just refer to new areas of work but also the green transformation of existing industries (such as automotive, electrical, construction, and hospitality). Interestingly enough, the green economy is expected to cover almost all sectors, either directly or indirectly. However, this transition will not be possible without widespread structural changes and investments to ensure that youth are given sufficient data and awareness about the skills required for engaging in these industries. The report states that, with the right resources (such as investment in green technology and research of green solutions), the sector is expected to add 8.4 million jobs by 2030 for the youth. It is an opportunity that shouldn’t be lost due to information asymmetry.

2. Accessibility of digital resources

“Digitisation and technology are increasingly affecting all sectors from finance to healthcare. Human capital continues to be particularly relevant in this technology-driven economy. While digital and technology-based jobs continue to increase and bring several opportunities, they also bring forth challenges about relevant skills needed to fill these jobs as well as their effect on gender diversity in these jobs. Going forth, it is crucial that the employment ecosystem comprising policymakers, training partners, and firms makes concerted efforts to address diversity at the workplace.” — Devanshee Shukla, Doctoral Candidate, INSEAD

As economies shift from agriculture to industry to services, there will be a natural rise in the use of digital technology. However, there is a tendency for these jobs to be concentrated in urban hubs rather than rural areas and be heavily influenced by the availability of digital hardware and internet connectivity. According to the report, the sector is expected to add 6.4 million jobs by 2030 for the youth, but due to the higher levels of technical proficiency demanded by the sector, there is a lot of work to be done if we are to prepare young people for such work. The upside is that all jobs in the future may not be wholly technical. The creative economy is heavily reliant on digital skills and roles in these domains are also expected to grow.

3. Aspirations around care labour

“Women dominated those sectors that were most adversely affected by the pandemic, such as health, education, and other non-professional personal services. What will be important to ensure is that women are better represented in formal sector work, in decent jobs, and in less precarious work. Currently, they disproportionately account for informal and less productive jobs. Training in soft skills, retraining in skills more valued by the market, and other interventions aimed at building employability and confidence can help bring back former workers into the workforce.” — Dr Anisha Sharma, Assistant Professor (Economics), Ashoka University

The care economy is responsible for fundamental services such as education, healthcare, and domestic work. However, there are several vulnerabilities associated with this sector due to the informal nature of most roles. Social protection for these workers is often lacking and monetary compensation is far lower than other sectors. During the pandemic, workers in this sector experienced significant pay cuts, reduced working hours, and increased exposure to COVID-19. It is expected that in the future, the care economy will continue to be a major employer of youth, especially young women. Investments will have to be made to ensure that the sector provides opportunities for decent work, including policy development to enforce ethical practices that can make the sector more aspirational for young people.

Skill development for the win

It is heartening to note that the report has clearly highlighted skill development and entrepreneurship as the key area into which systems need to invest if we are to improve resilience among youth and create more opportunities for decent labour.

However, it also highlights how the pandemic threw a wrench into the operating structure of several skill development programmes. Almost 70 percent of technical vocational education and training (TVET) providers in high-income countries were able to deliver remote training, but hardly anyone managed to pivot in low-income countries. More than 50 percent of training activities stopped in these low-income countries during the pandemic.

Very few organisations have been able to rapidly pivot and offer technology-enabled learning opportunities to the youth in rural India. The vast majority struggled with lockdown restrictions and their ability to connect youth to jobs dipped significantly, as evidenced by PMKVY 3.0’s average placement rate of 15 percent.

While there was a decline in women’s employment, more women reported enrolment in education compared to men.

It is also worth noting that while youth overall were negatively impacted, young women felt the brunt of the pandemic a lot more. The report indicates that across the globe women are more likely to fall into the NEET category, and states that the last two decades haven’t made any positive strides towards closing the gender gap. It was observed that the higher the levels of gender discrimination, unequal distribution of care work and restrictive social norms, more the number of women found to fall into the NEET category. The silver lining is that while there was a decline in women’s employment, more women reported enrolment in education compared to men.

At Pratham we have always maintained that the purpose of the skill development ecosystem isn’t to merely certify young people, but to help them find access to meaningful livelihood pathways, even if it isn’t the easiest solution to implement. The youth need to be equipped with an assortment of skills, ranging from transferrable core competencies to highly technical industry-specific knowledge, if they are to enter these new sectors.

In order to keep up with these needs of the future, the ecosystem and all its stakeholders must transform. While the development sector may spearhead solutions designed to help overcome these gaps today, policymakers and philanthropists alike need to join hands and make investments that can help reduce these vulnerabilities in the future.

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Know more

• Learn what India’s young people look for when they seek employment.
• Read the ILO report, Present and Future of Work in Least Developed Countries.
• Read the ninth edition of ILO Monitor on the World of Work.

1. Physical capacity of the minor to commit the offence alleged against them
2. Mental capacity of the minor to commit the offence alleged against them
3. Ability to understand the consequences of the offence alleged
4. Circumstances under which the offence was allegedly committed

If a minor satisfies all the conditions of the assessment, they will be eligible for punishments as stringent as life imprisonment, reserved only for adults in the past. 

However, as of now, this assessment is done at a stage when the trial is yet to commence and there aren’t enough facts available about the minor to evaluate their case. Juvenile justice boards have been using reports from mental health experts to pass orders to transfer a child to be tried as an adult, which has led to oppositions from several quarters of society.

Judgements by courts, including the Supreme Court, have noted that there are no clear guidelines for the assessment mentioned in the act. Legal scholars have called the act itself a backward step in juvenile justice. Individuals and organisations working with children have pointed out how the assessment goes against the various rights of minors, such as equality before law upheld by the Constitution. They have argued that it is a form of discrimination that, despite being minors legally, juveniles can be tried and punished as adults.   

There has been sustained advocacy against the hasty implementation of preliminary assessment by juvenile justice boards, which has not taken into consideration the ground reality of juveniles in the country. How, then, did the act get implemented, and what exactly is the problem with the preliminary assessment of minors?  

Changing perception of the juvenile

1. Children before offence

Juvenile justice laws in India have gone through considerable reforms since their introduction in the colonial era. However, there has always been a clear distinction between children in conflict with the law and those in need of care of protection, even though the terminologies have evolved over time.

When the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986, was replaced by its successor in 2000, some significant changes were made to the terminologies. For example, ‘juvenile court’ was replaced with ‘juvenile justice board (JJB)’ (consisting of one judicial magistrate and two social workers) and ‘remand homes’ became ‘special homes’ for children found guilty of a crime. The JJ Act 2000 and subsequent amendments (in 2006 and 2011) continued to retain the focus on the child rather than on the offence. While the minimum age of criminal responsibility remained a low seven years, for all children up to the age of 18 years, the juvenile justice law excluded a punitive approach for any offence committed by children. This was based on the assumption that children are vulnerable and innocent, and entitled to care and protection in all circumstances.

2. From victim to offender

The shift in focus from the child to the offence started in 2012 with the involvement of a 17-year-old in the rape and murder of a young woman who came to be called ‘Nirbhaya’ by the Indian media. The media reports described the juvenile as the most brutal of the criminals, and even called him the main accused. Juvenile justice law was portrayed as an enemy of women and a hazard to public safety. Following the outrage, the Parliament enacted the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, which introduced a provision for transfer of cases of children aged between 16 and 18 years involved in heinous offences into the adult criminal justice system. The classification of offences is based on the severity and duration of punishment, and a ‘heinous’ offence is one that entails a minimum punishment of imprisonment for seven years. While the public mood was to treat all children who commit serious crimes as adults, the government decided to restrict this provision to those aged 16 to 18 years. Further, because of protests from child rights and women’s rights groups, it decided to send the accused child to a ‘children’s court’ set up under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, which deals with adult offenders who have committed crimes against children (such as child sexual abuse). Although the purpose of these courts was to protect the child victim, they now also deal with children who offend.

3. A criminal adult

The fact that an accused child is deemed to be treated as an adult even before trial has commenced seems to turn the concept of natural justice on its head and derails the very philosophy on which the juvenile justice law was enacted. Some juvenile justice boards use results of psychological assessments as ‘the’ tool to take the burden off themselves and order a judicial transfer, while some others don’t bother to invest much in due process when the offence is of a heinous nature. In 2019, while hearing the case of a 17-year-old girl who was tried and convicted as an adult, the High Court of Rajasthan noted that no account had been taken of the circumstances under which the child was driven to commit the offence. The girl had suffered a violent marriage and killed her drunk husband after persistent abuse by him. The court concluded that the juvenile board passed the order for judicial transfer ‘in an absolutely mechanical and laconic manner’.

In another case, in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, two children aged 16 to 17 years were apprehended for brutally stabbing a 14-year-old and were transferred for adult trial. Referring to the Nirbhaya case and the subsequent legal developments, the children’s court decided to try the boys as adults, eventually delivering them life sentences. Though the murder was attributed to the boys’ drug addiction, there is no record of the judge’s interaction with them in this regard.

Preliminary assessment doesn’t work

Being treated as adults implies denial of certain rights otherwise guaranteed to children in the Indian Constitution and international human rights instruments binding on India. Currently, preliminary assessment is the basis of a judicial transfer for a child to be tried as an adult. But there are many reasons that this process cannot be applied without compromising the basic rights of a child.  

1. Assumption of accused as guilty

Subjecting only those children who are involved in serious offences to psychological assessments overturns the principle of presumption of innocence, even though the law says that should not be the case. The moment a court of law sets out to decide on the issue of transfer, it must consider certain facts prima facie and render an opinion on the child’s capacity to commit the offence alleged even before concluding trial. This defeats the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

 2. Violation of right against self-incrimination

Psychological assessments invariably lead to children sharing information which may reflect behavioural traits that can be attributed to their actions. It may also reveal information that can be used against them, thus impacting the decision on judicial transfer. The law has no provision for seeking consent of children before subjecting them to an intrusive assessment, and no process is built in to inform the child that such psychological assessment could amount to waiving the right against self-incrimination. For example, a child may admit to committing an offence under influence of drugs. The defence counsel may use such information to press for a judicial transfer of the child and trial as an adult. The board may also be inclined to transfer the child to the adult criminal justice system, ignoring the child’s history of addiction as was found in the order of the sessions court in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh.

3. Lack of legal scrutiny

The psychological assessments should be forensic assessments that can answer psycho-legal questions and their validity and the findings must be subjected to legal scrutiny. Over-reliance on psychological assessment for judicial transfer has been questioned by the courts in cases where it found that the juvenile justice boards failed to apply their judicial mind in the assessment. For example, in some cases, the courts found the process inconsistent and age inappropriate.

4. Mismatch between two domains

Judges and psychologists lack knowledge of each other’s domains. Judges and prosecutors cannot understand the content of psychological assessment reports, and rely fully on experts for the same. Similarly, psychologists have little knowledge of law to determine which tests to apply for a specific legal question. The psychological assessments usually happen many months after the commission of the alleged offence. Nobody has answers to how and through which tools the mental capacity or functioning of the brain can be determined at a point in time in the past when the offence is alleged to have been committed. Clearly, the law does not require a general assessment on the mental capacity to commit a crime, which probably most human beings have, irrespective of age, unless there is diagnosis of mental illness or disorder of certain kinds.

5. Distanced from sociocultural contexts

Most tools used in India for psychological testing are adapted from those developed and used in foreign settings, in socio-cultural-economic contexts different from that of the country. Even if these tools are standardised and contextualised, it is worth asking how appropriate it is for judicial authorities to rely on the results of such psychological testing, especially when it can have serious consequences for some children.

Beyond a punitive approach towards juveniles

In the current circumstances, children not transferred as adults after preliminary assessment can be incarcerated for a maximum of three years. However, those transferred can be sentenced to life. The overemphasis on a self-incriminatory psychological test for deciding the question of ‘childlike’ or ‘adult-like’ trial and a preliminary assessment even before the police investigation is complete makes the judicial transfers of juveniles as adults arbitrary and even discriminatory. The Supreme Court of India in a recent judgement left it open for the central government, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, and the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights to consider issuing guidelines or directions with respect to preliminary assessments for judicial transfer. However, it is time for the apex court to also evaluate the constitutionality of Section 15 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, that allows a procedure which can never withstand the test of principles of natural justice and fair hearing.

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Know more

• Read this explainer on how juvenile justice boards should decide whether children aged 16 and above should be tried as adults.
• Explore this collection of resources on the conventions, policies, and laws that regulate child rights.
• Read about a day in the life of a child protection volunteer.

Shubham’s life is of course vastly different from the lives of aspiring middle-class boys across India’s cities. But, arguably, there seems to be one shared reality: Shubham and his wealthier counterparts face societal pressures around what it means to be a ‘man’ in India today. In fact, no matter what one’s economic background, nobody is immune to the strict gender norms around masculinity placed on men and boys in today’s India.

To understand these pressures more deeply, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies commissioned a study¹ earlier this year. Both of us led the study, which sought to explore the anxieties and challenges young men and boys face vis-à-vis their role in relationships. We held a total of eight online focus groups with participants from SEC A and SEC C/D (two distinct parts of the socio-economic spectrum), living in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi. The question we asked these 42 boys and 12 girls was: What does it mean to be a man in India today? The overwhelming, consistent response we got: responsibility. The equivalent for girls: restrictions.

Both boys and girls articulated how adulthood creeps up gradually for boys—beginning with the innocence of childhood, followed by the realisation of responsibility in boyhood, to finally accepting responsibility, the mark of a man.

According to 15-year-old Mahesh,* “For family issues, we feel like the family (responsibility) is on our shoulders. I am in 10th, and I am small. But I get that feeling as I am maturing. But we can’t discuss that with anyone…it is understood aage kya karna hai (what we need to do next).”

So, what does responsibility look like?

1. Becoming the ‘provider’ for the entire family

For many boys, the obvious choice after completing education is to step into their father’s shoes. The primary expectation is to be the provider. This could mean earning enough for food, meeting parents’ healthcare needs, and covering all household expenses. We heard time and again in our discussions with participants that a ‘good’ son must be a role model for his siblings. Boys from lower economic backgrounds are also expected to take on the responsibility of settling the younger ones, which means educating the brother and getting the sister married.

But maturity does not happen overnight. Many boys stated that the freedom they enjoyed at a younger age was gradually reined in for family roles. Tacit norms and predefined gender roles together contribute to the expectations placed on men.

2. No room to pursue passion and interests

To take care of the family, a man needs money. To make money, he needs a stable, well-paying job. And to get such a job, he needs education in a predictable and time-tested domain. This usually limits the acceptable professions for boys to about two or three. Following your passion—music, art, bodybuilding, or even the humanities—has no ‘scope’. It is considered a long journey to an unsuccessful life. So, boys are rarely allowed to take part in such indulgent pursuits.

3. Strict boundaries for ‘acceptable’ emotions

To add to the frustration, boys are given a limited territory of emotions. An invisible yet clear boundary demarcates what is allowed and what isn’t. Displays of strength are applauded. Fear, sadness, and affection end up getting expressed as anger, contempt, or stoicism. Meanwhile, tears are a guarded secret. A 19-year-old Raghav* said, “If a boy wants to cry, it is on his bed, covered by a pillow, and under a blanket, where no one can see him.”

According to 20-year-old Aditya,* “Izzat kam ho jaayegi society mein (Our respect will reduce in society) because boys are strong and need to know how to deal with situations. They will make you feel like the weakest person if you show weakness.” Often, these bottled-up emotions find a release in loud, aggressive, and violent behaviour. As a society, why are we so afraid of boys’ tears? Maybe it has more to do with our needs than their reputation.

4. Norms around masculinity handed down through generations

When we spoke to the boys, a rare few acknowledged their fathers as role models. However, on deeper questioning, many spoke about the impact their fathers have on them. The relationship is initially distant, they said, and the mother is the protector and nurturer of the son. The father is often a shadowy figure, seen for a few hours at night when he is too tired to be interested or invested in the son. By a certain age, the relationship shifts from distance and fear to support and understanding. This is usually when the son is ready to take on the family responsibility. In this way, the idea of masculinity is passed on to the next generation.

5. Being ‘worthy’ of a wife is key

An added expectation that keeps boys under pressure is ‘ladki ke laayak banna’ (to be worthy of a girl). As girls are increasingly studying more, and earning their own incomes, they are raising the bar for men. The boys noted that the girls and young women of today can care for themselves, make decisions, voice opinions, and are less tolerant of male inadequacies. Therefore, they are looking for someone who is doing better than them in life.

So, what makes a boy deserving of a girl’s hand in marriage? According to a group of 22–24-year-old boys we interviewed, girls and their parents want everything in one person. Someone who is successful, earns well, stays in a good locality, and has a car, a respectable job, parents, and a decent group of friends. The list is long, and many boys in the study appeared to be overwhelmed by it.

6. Material success and ‘honour’ are equally important

The ultimate goal assigned to a boy is ‘to settle down’. But there are two preconditions to earning this label—material success and maintaining an honourable image. Participants in our study defined ‘honourable’ as being studious, being a non-smoker and non-drinker, and avoiding people who could distract from success. This blemish-free life will ensure marriage to a girl from a good family, they said.

7. Expectations of boys’ success are much higher than in previous generations

While these pressures are not new, boys today have a longer runway to explore and study compared to the previous generation; responsibility can wait a bit longer. Fathers who had to start working at 18 are encouraging their sons to get an MBA.

From then to now, there has been an expansion in employment opportunities too, and with that a surge in competition—not only among boys, but also among girls who are now studying more and scoring much better in exams. While the path is getting more complicated, the goalposts are shifting. No longer is a hard-working, dutiful man enough. To earn the respect of the family (and partner), the man must be ‘a winner at what he does’. The ideal is social status—highly coveted and admired by others. Mukesh Ambani came up often as a role model—an individual who is not only successful but also has status, while being a true ‘family man’.

These expectations are so rooted in our everyday life that we often fail to see the subtle (and not so subtle) ways boys are kept on track. They are expected to be competitive and be winners at everything they do. ‘If he is a part of it, he must be ahead’ seemed to be the common refrain. This competition is heightened by the ‘Sharmaji ka beta’ syndrome, with parents constantly comparing their boys to others. Even relatives come along and comment on their performance. The comparison intensifies at a marriageable age. Salary, job, and knowledge are essential when a girl’s family is looking for a suitable boy.

8. High expectations lead to intense scrutiny and even punishment

Apart from productive pursuits, boys also face judgement for just being. “Baalon ko aise kyun rakha hai? Kya junglee ki tarah reh rahe ho? Oonchi awaaz mein nahi bolna, bade ki baat sunni hai—even though we are grown up now. Parents are worried ki dost kuch sikha na de, yeh sab aadatein nahi karni chahiye.” (Why is your hair messy? You are living like a wild beast. Don’t speak in a loud and disrespectful way to elders, listen to your elders—even though we are grown up now. Parents are worried that friends will mislead us, and we will pick up bad habits.)

Their friend group is monitored, so they don’t get caught in ‘buri sangat’ (bad company). The scrutiny extends to relationships with girls. Parents and teachers look at boys with suspicion. Sharing a platonic relationship with a girl is impossible without being judged. Thirty years after the movie Maine Pyar Kiya, our youth are still conditioned to believe that “ek ladka aur ek ladki kabhi dost nahi hote” (a boy and girl can never be just friends).

Physical punishment complements these low-key methods of discipline. All the boys we spoke to have been slapped, hit, or beaten by their parents or teachers. So deep is the social conditioning that many believe they deserve physical punishment. They justify this by highlighting their own ‘inadequacies’. “Reason se maarte hain, padhai nahi ki—toh woh theek hai (They hit us for a reason, such as if we didn’t study—that is justified). Teachers hitting you is okay. If someone is teaching you, toh gussa aayega (they will get angry). Even parents hitting is fine—they are teaching us.”

A man who fails to meet the traditional demands of society is often labelled berozgaar (jobless), nikamma (useless), barbaad (ruined), kaamchor (lazy), and nalaayak (unworthy). And these are polite descriptions that the boys were willing to share with us; the norm is cuss words.

9. Being part of a ‘gang of boys’ offers protection and solidarity, but also abuse

Perhaps the one place where boys can truly belong is among their ‘gang of boys’. A tight-knit group, the boys become a bhai/dost/yaar (brother/friend) to one another. They share a unique friendship based on deep empathy and understanding of each other’s lives without saying much. Through our conversations with boys, we learned that the induction into a group of boys is identity-defining—it shapes beliefs and provides security. Once they belong, no one can harm them; the boys have their back. The group dynamics indicate the roles they play for one another—the leader, the mentor, etc.

Every boy in the group wants to prove his masculinity. So, while the gang will protect him from the outside world, teasing, roughhousing, and abuse are expected within the group. A way in which this manifests is body shaming, we were told. Boys get teased based on expectations of physicality—size, height, colour, facial hair, etc. It often goes beyond teasing to bullying with slurs like ‘mota’ (fat), ‘sukha’ (thin), ‘gitta’ (short), ‘bauna’ (dwarf), ‘kalua’ (dark-skinned), and ‘chikna’ (fair, used for gay) thrown around.

At its worst, the group becomes the ‘buri sangat’ that parents warn against. The boys are expected to conform to the group’s transgressions. These include smoking, drinking, drugs, and sometimes inappropriate expressions such as stalking and violence.

Society’s never-ending scrutiny works as a check so that boys take their responsibilities seriously. The intention is to prepare the so-called deserving gender for success. But, if we look closely, expectations are the burden a boy must bear, whether he wants to or not. The freedom, transgression, and privileges he enjoys come with an unspoken understanding. A boy’s success is the ROI that families invest in—the insurance for their old age. This was articulated by both girls and boys in the focus group discussions.

Hence, the expectation of success is not enough. A successful family man is the ideal. Someone who is not only a go-getter but also takes care of his family. An achiever who is still tied to his roots.

While the study gave us many answers, it also raised many essential questions. Is the freedom that boys enjoy conditional? Do expectations result in anxiety to live up to them? While they enjoy more advantages, does that privilege come with the pressure to perform?

Is it time to revisit some of our assumptions about young men and boys?

*Names have been changed.

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Footnotes:

1. The intention of the study was to understand the anxieties, challenges, and boys’ role in relationships. The research was conducted through online focus groups and the participants belonged to Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi. The respondents were from SEC A and SEC C/D, two distinct parts of the socio-economic spectrum. The participants of six focus groups were boys from the age of 14 to 25 years (school to post college), and two focus groups consisted of post-college girls between 22 and 25 years of age. The discussions were in Hindi/English. Non-binary was not a criterion in sample selection, and this study might not reflect the views of the non-binary.

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Know more

• Learn more about the crushing effects of patriarchy on men and women today.
• Read this report on changing gender norms to achieve lasting change.
• Read this article on constructing alternative masculinities to address gender-based violence.

Much of my understanding of environmental issues developed during my days as an economics undergraduate at PGDAV College in Delhi University. I went to Delhi on a government scholarship in 2019. In a way, it all happened by chance. I took up economics in class 12 only because it was easy to score marks in the subject. I didn’t have any clear goals about a future in economics. When I got the scholarship and shifted cities, it was the first time I had stepped out of Ladakh. I couldn’t bear the heat in Delhi. Being much larger in population compared to Ladakh, the state produced an amount of waste I had never seen before. I joined an environmental society in college called Geo Crusaders. My interactions with the members broadened my perception of the city’s waste problem. They had what they called ‘hills’, but they were hills made of garbage.

Since my return from Delhi, I started seeing my home town’s waste landscape in a new light.

My time in Delhi helped me later with my work in Leh. When COVID-19 struck in 2020 and college was shut, I had to return home, and I’ve been here since except for a short trip to Delhi in 2022 for my exams. I started seeing my home town’s waste landscape in a new light, and began working with my community on the various issues around waste management that we were struggling with. The first problem was limited awareness about the environment, and the second was the issue of dry-waste segregation.

8 AM: I wake up and have breakfast with my family—my parents, younger brother, and sister. Mummy manages the household and also works as an ASHA at the health centre in the village and Papa has a government job at the Public Works Department. They are happy with my interests and work. My siblings are younger than me; my brother studies in class 11 and my sister studies in class 3.

After breakfast, I leave for work. I recently joined an environmental nonprofit, Little Green World, as a field assistant. They are a consultancy focused on disseminating knowledge about the environment through teacher trainings and workshops with the youth. Little Green World’s office is in the main area of Leh. Our village is a little away from the city, so I look for a vehicle; on the days that I can’t find anything, I hitch-hike. I reach office at 10 am. This is the first time I have been formally employed; I am learning how to apply field work in a job environment. There’s a set plan and a timeline to doing things—we visit a school, conduct workshops with children, and follow up with them later about the lessons. I want to learn more about the environmental space, and I hope this job will help me do that.

During my years in Delhi, my work and learning had been almost entirely informal, but it was a beginning. As I gained awareness, I started with small changes in my personal life. I would always carry a bag to buy fruits and vegetables, because otherwise the vendors would hand me plastic packets. I would tell people in my circle to follow the same routine. Whenever my friends would forget to carry a bag, they would sheepishly accept their mistake to me.

I still believe that it takes small steps to bring about change. When I started working with children in Leh, I distributed bamboo toothbrushes to them so that they have a biodegradable option for this daily-use item. I wanted them to see this bamboo toothbrush every morning and think about how it had replaced a harmful alternative, turning it into a cause for reflection. This thought would then spread to the other things they do during the day.

5 PM: Today at work, as I interacted with schoolchildren, it struck me that when workshops have incentives, the children are more interested. On my ride back home, I kept thinking about organising a drawing competition for Lothun Lobthuk Tsogspa Phey (United Youth Group of Phey), a group I started for students of classes 5–6. After I reach home and freshen up, I speak with Mummy and she too feels it’s a great idea. So I text on Lothun Lobthuk Tsogspa Phey’s WhatsApp group for the children to gather.

It turns out to be a great session. The children draw pictures to show the state of the earth. One of the pictures depicts clean water and greenery on one side and industrial waste and pollution on the other—it shows us what’s possible and what the earth is turning into.

My evenings are flexible; there’s no set pattern to them. Some days I go play football with students from classes 11–12, because I love the sport. On other days I watch movies such as Wall-E and Finding Nemo with the children. This is usually followed by an informal discussion. For example, after watching Finding Nemo, we talked about the marine environment and how fishes are affected when we move them out of their habitat.

When we started, the children did not know any better than I did when I was their age.

Lothun Lobthuk Tsogspa Phey has been very important for the children and me since its inception in the second half of 2020, just after the lockdown was lifted. When I returned from Delhi and realised that Leh lacks proper waste recycling infrastructure, I started mobilising children into a group because I believe that children are the future. I could not have done anything without them. When we started, they did not know any better than I did when I was their age. They were unaware of the harm that use-and-throw plastic causes and why proper garbage disposal is necessary. But now they are participating in cleanliness drives!

The first cleanliness drive took place during the first wave of the pandemic when the children were sitting at home and getting bored. I asked them, “June 5 is World Environment Day; should we conduct a cleanliness drive?” They said yes. Mummy prepared lunch for the kids, so while they helped in waste segregation, it also became a picnic for them.

During this period, I had the idea to try out a process I had seen on YouTube and Instagram. It is called ‘bottle break’ and involves collecting garbage in plastic bottles to turn it into something useful, like a building brick. But this initiative was not met with much enthusiasm by the locals, especially the elders. They were more difficult to convince than the children. Eventually, I had to make the environment more tangible for them to understand. One of the ways was to ask them why they think Leh and Ladakh are hotter now than before. Recently, the Kargil and Zanskar areas were affected by floods. As these natural disasters are more frequent now, I use them to build out conversations.

The second cleanliness drive was conducted with mostly students from classes 11–12 and college. This was the first time I had approached the local government for support. It helped that my mother is an ASHA and has some goodwill with the administration here, so they are not suspicious of my intentions. Through the local panchayat, we received a fund for plastic segregation. There is only one segregation centre in Leh, which is in the main city. I took the group there with the support of the panchayat and the authorities—they arranged the transport for us. We took the centre’s permission to carry the waste there and, once they told us how to go about the segregation, we separated PET bottles, hazardous materials, and cardboard.

We noticed that the segregation centre was not free of problems itself. There were dogs everywhere, and they would come and chew on discarded materials such as sanitary pads. Slowly, the children in the locality started getting invested in these issues.

9 PM: I enjoy cooking, so I help Mummy with it. During this time, I also discuss my day with her. Today we are talking about the importance of collaboration to achieve any goal. She knows a lot about mobilising people because she does it for a living as a health worker and member of a self-help group for ASHAs. I saw how hectic her work was during the pandemic when she had to go from house to house to convince people about the vaccine, and then organise vaccination drives.

We have dinner, and I am in bed by 10–11 pm. If I am not too tired, I spend some time reflecting on my day and thinking of new ways to involve the youth in our work. Leh has many problems, but a lack of will to change is not one of them.

The kids I met in Delhi were interested in getting their certificates, which they could then add to their CVs. It was mandatory for them to attend, so they did. They participated in the cleaning, clicked pictures, and uploaded them on Instagram; they didn’t engage too deeply. Here, on the other hand, while participation is not compulsory, the children still come happily. After segregating the plastic bottles and numbering them, they ask, “What should we do with these now?” They don’t have any resources or cars to drop them, but they have genuine interest in building a better tomorrow.

Young people all over the world have taken it upon themselves to protect the environment. They are more conscious than adults and want to engage and make an impact. Just look at Greta Thunberg—the contribution from her initiative Fridays for Future, now a global environmental movement, has led to policy change and better youth engagement. She and Sonam Wangchuk, an educational reformer from Ladakh, are my role models.

Now there’s a space in the village where waste can be collected and a large pit on the outskirts to separate waste.

I am trying to boost youth participation in village governance, so that young people can become a part of the decision-making process. In the past, the panchayat has invited young people to participate in gram sabhas, but they don’t turn up because they don’t understand the importance of these forums. Even in the two gram sabhas that I attended, I was the only young person. I want to change this. I am glad that our panchayat is open to new ideas. Now there’s a space in the village where waste can be collected and a large pit has been created on the outskirts to separate waste. I recently spoke with the sarpanch about a segregation centre. I have been told that my request has been put forward in the administration, and I will be informed when a decision is made.

However, there are also external challenges that Ladakh faces. It is a popular travel destination and has many tourists coming in on a regular basis, which has its impact on the surroundings. People come here for 10–15 days and want to travel everywhere because they don’t have enough time, but their actions have consequences on the environment. I feel tourists should come and meet the locals, interact with them, and witness their way of life to understand Ladakh. They can stay at homestays instead of hotels to learn about the lifestyle and culture of the people here. After all, the aim of ecotourism is to promote tourists’ interactions with the locals and the natural environment.

One of the things I do to build awareness is that once in a while I go and stand with placards in Leh’s main market, which is frequented by tourists from both within and outside India. I got this idea from the Instagram handle @dudewithsign, run from New York. Some people come up to me to ask what I am doing; usually they click a photo, say “good, good”, and leave. My hope is that some of them think about the message later.

As told to IDR.

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Know more

• Learn why many climate activists continue to choose radical forms of protests.
• Read about how a self-group group is improving waste management in Udupi.

Keeping girls in school

In Jharkhand, prior to the pandemic, adolescent girls didn’t attend school for a host of reasons, including migration to cities, child marriage, working to supplement family incomes, and household chores. In districts such as Pakur—one of the 117 aspirational districts in India—families migrated en masse seasonally. Adivasi communities would marry their girls early because of an economic incentive—they would receive a bride price from the boy’s family. Many girls were also responsible for taking care of their siblings. All of this meant that sending the girls to school was not a priority for the families.

Before the pandemic, Aangan Trust, an organisation focused on protecting children and adolescent girls, spent a few years working with families and school authorities in Jharkhand to ensure that more girls went to school. They trained 2,000 women volunteers in Pakur to understand the risks to girls’ safety, identify families where girls would be facing these risks, and then take action at the family and community level. “We wanted to see what we could do to ensure that girls were not just enrolled in school, but also attending it regularly. Over two years we saw an increase in attendance—from around five days a month to 15 days or more every month. Moreover, our volunteers helped girls get linked to schemes such as Sukanya Samriddhi (a savings scheme) and Tejaswini (a vocational training scheme). So there was an incentive for families to send their girls to school,” says Chaitali Sheth, COO of Aangan Trust.

When the pandemic hit, schools shut and girls no longer had access to the physical, intellectual, and emotional infrastructure they provide. Nonprofits working in Jharkhand point out that all the work they had done at the grassroots to enrol girls in school—negotiating with and convincing families as well as working with school authorities to make sure that they influenced families to enrol their girls—came to nought. All the gains that had been made prior to the pandemic were lost.

“Most families are facing extreme financial vulnerability. The situation has become so bad that while one parent was working earlier, we now find that both have to work to make ends meet. Having girls at home to take care of siblings and chores allows both parents to go out to work, so they are reluctant to send their girls back to school”, explains Sudeshna Basu, programme head at Aangan. 

Having lost out on two years of learning, adolescent girls themselves are reluctant to go back to school as they feel ill-equipped to cope. Moreover, the reopening of schools in October 2021 coincided with the examination period, and most girls didn’t want to go back and take exams.

“What has changed from 2020 is that we need to keep a really close watch to make sure girls are resuming their education. Secondly, we have to invest resources to help those who have fallen behind. This is really important, because even if they come back to school, they’ll fail in class 8/9/10 and drop out. So helping them cope after they come back to school is critical and we all should be looking at what we can do,” adds Sudeshna.

The state government recognises that girls are not coming back to school. “They’ve been running a few back-to-school programmes, for instance, the ‘100 days reading’ campaign. But these are focused on first to fifth standard and don’t help because it’s the older girls who are dropping out”, says Chaitali.

Sending girls back to school is not just about learning, but also about safety. When a girl makes it to school, even if it’s 10–15 days a month, she is accounted for. “To be honest, at Aangan we are not focused on whether she’s learning or not,” says Chaitali. “She may not be, but she’s in a safe space. And that’s why school is so important. At least she’s not married and pregnant at 15, trafficked, or working in a brick kiln. So, in many ways, prevention from harm is a critical aspect of sending girls to school.”

Mental health surfaced as a big concern for adolescent girls

The long days of fear and a sense of foreboding among young people translated into stress, anxiety, and depression. A quantitative survey undertaken during the first lockdown in 2020 by the Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3), an organisation that works with adolescents in multiple states, found that nearly half of the boys and girls surveyed reported increased stress at home. They were worried about the loss of livelihood and income in the family, and the stress of managing day-to-day living in the absence of remittances by those working elsewhere. The closure of schools and the accompanying loss of peer networks also added to their stress levels. Older adolescent girls bore the increased burden of household chores and caring for their siblings. They also experienced constant fear about contracting the virus.

Given all these factors, mental health became a critical issue to contend with. Dr Aparajita Gogoi, executive director of C3, says, “Their parents were not going out to work; they were not going to school. Everyone was at home all the time. Moreover, many family members had lost their jobs. Many of the girls also worried about whether they would be allowed to go to school once everything opened up. Would they be able to cope with or complete their studies? Would they get a job? Would they just be married off instead?”

In many cases, adolescents in districts such as Gumla, Lohardaga, and West Singhbhum didn’t know whom to reach out to when they experienced anxiety, stress, or depression. Because, as Aparajita says, “The problem is that mental health services do not reach the last mile in our country.” To help address some of this, C3 created several short, WhatsAppable public service ads that talked about how stress and mental health issues can be identified and whom to reach out to for support.

Chaitali also refers to the heightened levels of isolation that girls experienced. “We were hearing a lot about children facing anxiety and confusion. They didn’t know whom to go to. To address this, in June 2021, we launched ‘Connect Karo’—a toll-free number that they could call. The idea was to break isolation, especially in light of the devastation and grief that so many were experiencing during that time. Over a period of four months, we had about 400 girls in Jharkhand calling the number just to speak to somebody. They had been locked in and didn’t know what was happening, and so they were anxious, confused, and had several questions about their future.”

The silver lining though was that talking about mental health became less of a taboo. A majority of the participants in the C3 survey voiced the need to end the stigma around mental health, and be provided access to non-judgmental, confidential, affordable mental health care to cope with stress, the pressure of studies, bullying, depression, and anxiety. Nonprofits, for their part, are taking advantage of the destigmatisation to identify ways to provide mental health services in their areas of operation.

The increased digital divide between young girls and boys will have far-reaching consequences

Much has been written about the increased digital divide created by the pandemic. Access to devices has always been a barrier, with only 20 percent of girls in Jharkhand owning a mobile phone in comparison to 39 percent of boys. However, the impact was harsher on adolescent girls given their lack of digital literacy.

If you want girls to be socially and financially independent, and live their lives to the fullest, we have to invest in digital literacy.

India alone accounts for nearly 50 percent of the gendered digital divide in the world, with a mere one-third of the total internet users in India being women. Aparajita says, “What really came to the fore during the pandemic was that if you want adolescent girls to make the transition from schools and colleges to workplaces, it is extremely important for them to be digitally literate.”

The world is becoming digital first—be it for learning, jobs, entertainment, or shopping—and the lack of digital literacy is going to push more and more adolescent girls back. “If you want girls to be socially and financially independent, and live their lives to the fullest, we have to invest in digital literacy,” she says. 

However, she also points out that to become digitally literate, girls first need to have basic language literacy and numeracy skills. “If they don’t have basic numeracy and literacy, if they do not know how to read texts, it’s very difficult to be digitally literate. So, we need to think of how we can introduce digital literacy to girls who are being left out. Targeted last-mile connectivity in deprived villages, panchayats, and blocks with affordable access to personal or community devices and affordable internet access are real needs”.

She also talks about how quickly girls learnt things that mattered to them. “In Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand we were teaching them how to open a file or write an e-mail. But they wanted us to show them how to do online shopping, execute digital payments, access entitlements, or use the internet to get an Aadhaar/ration card for their parents.” Learning these skills made them the go-to people for their families for activities such as accessing government schemes and digital transfer of money.

Girls will have to navigate the digital world, whether to book train tickets, apply for scholarships, or join the workforce. It is imperative to ask if they are being given the opportunity and the tools to do so.

Aspirations versus social and economic barriers

Despite the sense of gloom they experienced during the pandemic, girls have strong aspirations. In a survey conducted by C3 in Gumla and Lohardaga districts in March 2022, as part of a child marriage prevention project, 70 percent of the girls surveyed said they wanted to work. Their responses to a question about aspirations varied from wanting to run their own business to becoming reporters, scientists, fashion designers, goat farmers, and nurses. Many wanted to learn cooking, masonry, computers, and beauty/wellness. About a quarter of them said that they wanted government jobs. When asked about the barriers they would face in achieving their dreams, most cited being forced to drop out of school and having to do household chores.

Aparajita points out, “The reality is that their dreams are pitted against entrenched barriers—family expectations, safety, mobility, and a lack of skills. They also don’t have any role models in their real lives, so their aspirations are fuelled by what they see in the digital world—girls working, travelling, or selling beauty and fashion products. They relate to that much more than us showing them an inspiring film on a female achiever.”

The way forward

Nonprofit leaders agree that the real work to rebuild and restore begins now. If we don’t, we will realise in five years that it was a missed opportunity, and that these young women have dropped out of school and fallen back further in the quest for employment and work-readiness.

To prevent this from happening, we have to ensure that we invest more in girls’ health and education, and in changing social norms. According to Aparajita, now that we are talking about an economic recovery, it is also a great time to push for gender transformative, inclusive, and intersectional policies. “When we do a budget allocation for education, how can we ensure that it is gender sensitive, or that it is catering to digital equity for girls. We must therefore collect gender-disaggregated data, which tells us about girls’ attendance, re-enrolment, and completion of school.”

She highlights why it is critical to keep girls and women at the centre as we rebuild and reprogramme. “It’s also important to prepare girls to be resilient, and equip them with skills including financial and digital literacy and other 21st-century skills that can help them respond better to future shocks like COVID-19,” she says.

The adolescent girl must be looked at as a whole and not as a sum of parts.

Reinforcing this message, Chaitali adds a note of caution. “We shouldn’t look at things in silos,” she says. “When a crisis hits, it affects everything—health, education, mental well-being, and more. So, any kind of siloed programming or funding doesn’t work. Moreover, any kind of prevention work can’t happen in the midst of a crisis. And it can’t happen right after a crisis either, because the community is still reeling.”

It is therefore imperative that during non-crisis times, both funders and nonprofits invest in a broader programme, and not just on one or two outcomes. The adolescent girl must be looked at as a whole and not as a sum of parts. There are many aspects in her life that are at risk—her education, physical and mental health, agency, and so on.”

Chaitali explains this further. “I understand that funders and government want to work for adolescent girls, but just doing safety sessions with the girls is not going to address the issue. We need regular and sustained work with their families, panchayats, and the wider community. You have to get them on board because it is they, and not the girls, who must take that responsibility of improving their lives.”

Therefore, the question to ask is: How do we build this? Because resilience is not just about bouncing back, but also about moving forward and thriving. When the next crisis happens, are you as a community prepared for it now? Or are you going to go back and take your girls with you to ground zero?

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Know more

• Read this report to gain a deeper understanding how COVID-19 has altered the lived realities of adolescent girls and young women across India.
• Read this article to learn more about the pandemic’s impact on child marriages in India.
• Read this article on data-backed methods for empowering adolescent girls.