Written after interviewing eight young politicians cutting across political parties, "The Young And The Restless" is Gurmehar Kaur's second book. In an interview with Outlook's Mirza Arif Beg, Kaur speaks about BJP's definition of the term secularism, young electorate and why the number of women MPs was still very low.
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00:00 Hello and welcome to Outlook Bibliophile. In 2017, a four and a half minute video featuring
00:05 an 18-year-old woman batting for peace between India and Pakistan and calling an end to the
00:10 war between two nations went viral on social media. While some alleged that she was being
00:15 soft on Pakistan, others supported her, saying that yes, peace should be given a chance.
00:21 Her latest book is The Young and the Restless.
00:24 Gurmehar Kaur, thank you so much for speaking to Outlook India. My first question to you
00:36 is that you know you have profiled eight supposedly young politicians of the country. There are
00:41 people like the former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, and now the current
00:45 Deputy Chief Minister, Sachin Pilot of Rajasthan. And then there are youngsters like Jagnesh
00:50 Mevani and Shaila Rashid. Who exactly is a young leader? You know, this is a question
00:56 that keeps coming at me. Omar and Sachin represent a kind of young, while they're not as young
01:02 in age, I think they represent a young India that we dreamt of. You know, they're the first
01:10 breakthrough batch of young politicians in India. But you know, when you talk about somebody
01:16 like Sachin Pilot, you talk about somebody like Omar Abdullah. Can't we also include
01:20 somebody like Amit Shah in the category? Because you know, he's not that old, he's 54. On the
01:25 other hand, we can also include somebody like Rahul Gandhi, he's just 48. The reason that
01:29 there's no Amit Shah in the book, but Omar Abdullah and Sachin Pilot is because Omar
01:35 was also the youngest Chief Minister before Akhilesh, or after, one of the two. One of
01:43 the youngest Chief Ministers in India held the post of being the youngest for a long
01:47 time before the other came in. So it was either or. And then I wanted to interview Sachin
01:53 because I wanted somebody from the Congress party to talk about secularism. Because right
01:59 now the Congress has been, that's the wave they've been trying to build, the secular
02:04 India wave, trying to be different than the BJP whose entire concept of, or the push is
02:11 Hindutva. So I'm talking secularism, I don't want to talk to a man or a leader or anyone
02:16 who's just talking about secularism. Do you practice it in your own life? You know, when
02:21 the stakes are high. So I really wanted to, one because Congress is his party, second
02:26 it's his cause, and third because he's somebody who married a Kashmiri Muslim woman.
02:31 Completely agree with what you're saying about Sachin Pilot because, you know, in the book
02:34 itself you've mentioned how Sachin actually makes sure while in a conversation with you
02:39 that you know, he differentiate between what his politics is and what his personal life
02:43 is. He's been very clear about it during the conversation with you. My next question, you
02:49 emphasize a lot on secularism. You're saying that Congress party is also once again trying
02:55 to rebuild itself again on the same foundation, but with the kind of mammoth victory that
03:01 the Bharatiya Janata Party just received in the general elections, with the kind of formidable
03:06 leader that Bharatiya Janata Party already has. And there are, there is not one, there
03:11 are two, Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Do you really think that the idea of
03:15 secular politics can actually survive in this environment? Secularism is something that
03:20 I spoke with Madhu Keshwar in the book. I kid you not, I was very convinced by the time
03:25 he finished his argument on secularism, I was very convinced that the BJP is secular.
03:30 Gurmehar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his winning speech actually mentioned something
03:35 different from what he's been talking about. This time around he said, it's about sabka
03:39 saath, sabka vikas and sabka vishwas. So he essentially talked about the inclusion of
03:44 the minorities that have felt alienated over the past five years. And there have been umpteen
03:48 incidents to basically say and suggest that yes, minorities had all the reasons in this
03:53 world to feel insecure. So when you talk to, let's say a BJP parliamentarian or a BJP leader,
04:00 how is his or her definition of secularism different from what we have been listening
04:05 to over the past 70 years, ever since we got independence? The Congress, what they right
04:09 now need is to have a perfectly good definition of who they are, what they are and what we
04:15 can believe in. Because even as a citizen of a country, I want to believe in you, but
04:20 who is you? Who are you? Are you a face? Because of the BJP, the BJP has a face, the BJP has
04:27 a manifesto, the BJP has a definition of secularism as well. The BJP has a huge history. The BJP
04:34 also has this whole concept of, you know, how they're promoting the RSS and the, and
04:38 Hindutva. Gurmehar, do you, do you, do you actually think that the BJP has been very
04:42 successfully able to convolute the definition of secularism and Hindutva? 100%. 100%. Which
04:49 is why they're winning. Which is why they're winning. Secondly, the Congress party in 2018,
04:56 December won three state elections. They won in Rajasthan, they won in Madhya Pradesh and
05:00 they won in Chhattisgarh. Many would say that they pandered to soft Hindutva politics and
05:05 soft Hindutva elements, you know, Rahul Gandhi out of nowhere started temple hopping. And
05:10 perhaps that once again indicates or perhaps establishes that they're not very sure of
05:15 what they want to do. Is it, is, do you think that it's because of this lack of clarity
05:21 that the Congress party has that the people are not able to trust them? So what, what
05:26 is secular that you don't make of the other, you don't make fun of, or you don't, uh, so
05:31 if today, if today Rahul Gandhi is going temple hopping, okay. I don't want to, like I, for
05:36 me, I don't care about it. He wants to go temple hopping, he goes temple hopping. He
05:40 wants to go, if, if a Muslim leader wants to go to a masjid, he goes to a masjid. If
05:44 a Christian leader wants to go to a church, he goes to a church. I want to, I don't want
05:49 to be intolerant about it. I don't want to point it at a very sensible, we are, we are
05:53 sensible voters. Uh, we do not get swayed by temple activities. What we want is stronger
05:59 leadership, stronger faces. And I think that's also where the BJP wins. Like you said, they
06:03 have two leaders, the Congress who are, what is the Congress at this point? Secularism,
06:08 person, party, who are you? What are you? They need to, the Congress needs to divide,
06:13 define itself. What is activism again? Is, is a question that I constantly keep asking
06:17 myself. It can't be defined. Activism is art. Activism is, activism can be, you could be
06:23 on the street shouting, you could be an RTI activist putting, you know, RTI requests one
06:30 after another. That's activism. You could be somebody who's constantly writing columns.
06:35 You could be somebody who is with a party and is a, is a kare karta with them. It's
06:40 a certain kind of activism there as well. You could be a student in a, in an organization
06:45 that's not political, but to a certain cause, which is like the Pindar, Pindarathod, which
06:49 is a feminist cause, but not a political party. So again, what is activism? Activism is taking
06:56 an action, is to act. And which you're suggesting you could have done even without being labeled
07:03 as a social activist. Even without being labeled as a social activist. I think everybody's
07:06 a social activist. I would want to believe that everyone who takes an active interest
07:10 and is out there is an activist. At one point it did like just make me feel very like worried
07:19 in the sense of what am I going to do? I have these like big shoes to fill, like this big
07:22 label. And what, 19 years old at that point, right? In first year of college, you barely
07:27 know, you've just moved to Delhi and all of a sudden you're an activist who's supposed
07:29 to have an opinion on everything. I think something that I, I realized was after, after
07:35 I, for me it was growing, you know, be feeling comfortable in my own skin, knowing that I'm
07:42 only going to talk about, you know, there was a pressure of, I have to speak about everything
07:48 because you have a voice now is what people told me. So use your voice. Because I have
07:52 a voice, it comes with responsibility. Okay. So I want to speak about something that I'm
07:57 very certain that I know 10 years down the line, I'm going to stick to this for sure.
08:02 You emphasize a lot. I mean, in fact, the entire book is all about youngsters, young
08:06 politicians, young electorate of the country. Something that I know again, I know what it
08:10 looks like. Absolutely. The, the, the, the fact still is that most of the parliamentarians
08:15 who've been elected to the parliament this time around as well, they're all old. And
08:20 does that suggest that somewhere down the line, the youngsters of the country are still
08:24 not able to, you know, repose faith in younger politicians? I don't think the conversation
08:29 is that can, will the young put their faith in younger people? I think, I think they will,
08:37 but will the parties who are giving out tickets, put their faith in younger people? My biggest
08:41 question to every single party is that will our younger people only, you're only meant
08:48 to oil the machinery that your party is. Will you ever give them a ticket? Or is our tickets
08:53 only meant for diners, rich people, people with money, people who can pull. Talking about
08:57 the younger leaders also, you know, somebody like Jignesh Mevani got elected to the assembly
09:02 in Gujarat. Shaila Rashid is already making her inroads into active politics. Raghav Chadha
09:08 contested in Lok Sabha elections this time around. How do you find their politics different
09:13 from let's say, a dynast like Sachin Pailat? Let's be honest. I mean, Pailat comes from
09:18 a dynast. Yeah, a lot of them. In fact, a lot of them, a majority of the people in the
09:23 book come from dynastic politics. And this is again something that I was, even when I
09:29 was structuring the book, and I went ahead looking. So I went ahead going through sheets
09:35 and sheets and sheets and sheets of politicians' names. So as many politicians that we have,
09:40 I went through so many names to get the right people. And I kid you not, I kid you not,
09:51 so all the young politicians are dynast. Sachin Pailat has a proper office. And I went to
09:57 the office and I did an interview. I had a slot time, I had everything set up. And he
10:02 had to fly out, he flew out, he had a team. Because I'm also somebody that Jignesh knew.
10:06 So I was also somebody, he's like, "Listen, Gurmehar, let's pause the interview. Someone
10:11 is coming." And somebody came, and now there's somebody, someone, a project that he was working
10:15 on for his constituency. And he was discussing what he wanted to do to, you know, to make
10:20 the place safe. Like, it was a construction thing. How do you make public spaces safer
10:26 for women? And what do you need? And they were having a conversation. And they were
10:30 talking and in the end, they were able to talk figures. And when the person left, I
10:34 look at Jignesh and I'm like, "Jignesh, how do you feel? Because today you're an MLA,
10:38 you have this MLA money allotment that you could put..." He's like, "You won't believe
10:41 it gives me... it does empower... because now there's this funding and there's this
10:45 power to actually just do change. You want safer spaces for women, you put a light in
10:51 that street that was dark." Now Jignesh is not a dynast, so he doesn't... so he has this
10:55 old diary that he writes his... nobody does his own schedule, which is also why it's difficult
11:02 to get time from Jignesh because the schedule is everywhere because Jignesh does it himself.
11:07 So he'll take a... it's still a diary. He opens the diary, looks at me and he's like,
11:11 "Achha Gurmehar, the second interview we'll do it on this date. I have 10 things scheduled,
11:15 which I'll try to finish, but in the end you come and then we'll finish the interview."
11:19 So I think it's that Jignesh is still growing into those... he's still very relatable. He's
11:23 still the actors that he is and Sachin Pai was never the actor. He was always the politician.
11:28 Even today, even in this 17th Lok Sabha, we have not really seen a significant improvement
11:33 in the number of women parliamentarians. Does it again go back to the number of tickets
11:39 that political parties give to women or is it because of the social status of women,
11:44 which has not improved that much that people are not able to trust women as parliamentarians,
11:49 as leaders, as legislators?
11:50 I don't think that it's not that people don't trust women with social responsibility because
11:56 you've also had... and I'm giving you... I mean, two examples. You have Nirmala Sitharaman
12:03 as the defense minister. You also have Smriti Irani, who was celebrated across India when
12:09 she carried her workers. And it was celebrated. Then what is the other... the conversation
12:19 that was happening when the elections were going on, that Priyanka Gandhi is the star
12:24 candidate. She is the one who's going to turn tides for the Congress. And these are all
12:29 women. It's not that we don't have faith in women. I don't think that the status is so
12:33 low that we don't have faith in women. Because on one hand, we're also celebrating Smriti
12:42 Irani, but we also say that in the Congress, Priyanka Gandhi was the star face and not
12:49 the brother and not Rahul Gandhi, who's a man. So the faith is... I wouldn't say the
12:55 faith is the question. Again, who's giving the tickets? And who are the women who are
13:02 getting tickets? Wives of politicians, female celebrities, especially when it comes to younger
13:09 women, female celebrities. And I've seen activists, and I've seen younger women in the Congress,
13:16 I've seen younger women in ABVP. Ideally, and I would hope that parties do it, is that
13:22 have faith or put their money where their mouth is. If you're saying we're for women
13:28 empowerment, give us women. Empower women. Give the tickets for younger women to contest.
13:35 The women that you've kept in your political machinery on lower levels, give them an opportunity
13:40 to contest and they will be the leaders they have been for so long. They'll just be leaders
13:45 and now they'll be members in the Parliament. Don't just keep them there for the sake of
13:49 keeping them there and getting all your work done. Mobilize karna hai, call a youth leader,
13:55 female youth leader in JNU. Kuch kaam karna hai, call a female youth leader in Punjab
14:02 University. You give them tickets as well. Don't just give the tickets to men and people
14:07 with money. I kept the last question about women for you.
14:11 So we'll end it here. And thank you so much, Gurmehar Kaur. It was fascinating speaking
14:17 with you. That's all we had for you this week on Bibliophile. Next week, hopefully a new
14:22 writer and new book.
14:23 [Music]