Nagpur: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat described youth as a demographic dividend and said that the nation will benefit immensely if they are handled properly; otherwise, there could be a burden on society in the future.
Bhagwat also noted that youth will advance in age after 30 years, and advised them not to think only of themselves but also to be considerate towards the needs of future generations.
This was his second interaction with Gen Z within ten days, The event was organised by the Lokmat media group in Nagpur, Maharashtra.
The country’s youth must first understand that Bharat is different from countries such as the US, Australia, China and New Zealand, and should frame its own yardsticks for development and progress, Bhagwat said, as reported by Deccan Herald.
“The youth are a demographic dividend. We will benefit greatly if they are handled properly; otherwise, there will be a burden on society. The youth are going to be earning people. Employment is not only jobs, but also those who do labour work, and it needs to be treated with respect,” he said.
Bharat has an obligation to show the world the future path through its vision and help it find balance, the RSS Sarsanghchalak said, while asserting that the country needs to develop a thought process suited to its own circumstances.
“The world, due to its imperfect vision, is stumbling. It is our obligation as part of Bharat to show the world the future path through our vision and balance it. We need to prepare for it,” Bhagwat added.
He drew a parallel with a huge tricolour hoisted after considerable efforts at the event and said people should think about what the national flag represents and how much effort would be required to take Bharat to a higher position.
“It is our obligation. We should not compare ourselves with others,” he added.
“We are Bharat, and it has its pride, dignity and supreme honour, the type of development it wants and the yardstick of progress; we need to think for ourselves and for the country in this way,” he said.
While the rest of the world largely thinks in materialistic terms, Bharat’s outlook is not limited to making money, Bhagwat said.
“In Bharat, we do not only think about making money. People say even a chicken would not eat money. This is how we are,” he said.
He stressed the need to promote entrepreneurship, saying young people would have to face hurdles with courage and work towards succeeding.
Bharat’s large population and comparatively smaller geographical area meant that it could not simply adopt the approach followed by countries such as Canada, the US and China, Bhagwat said.
“It is sufficient for countries to think only about employment, which have less population, or huge geography, or countries having huge resources. But a country like Bharat, with a huge population, has less geography than Canada, the US, and China, and because of this, we need a completely separate thought process for our issues. For that, we need to study properly,” the Sangh chief added.
Bhagwat hoisted the National Flag at the Sangh headquarters earlier in the day on the occasion of the country’s 80th Independence Day.
Bhagwat had come out strongly in support of Gen Z on August 6, saying their grievances are genuine and he believes in their honesty, insisting protests by young people do not make them “anti-national”.
Protest is a legitimate form of dialogue in a democracy and should be aimed at building consensus rather than creating divisions, he had said.
