Swami Vivekananda had visualised the youth rising and playing a leading, revolutionary role in nation-building, says OSWALD PEREIRA. More than 120 years since his passing away, the question still burns: have the youth risen—or been allowed to rise—to the challenge of leading the nation?
Swami Vivekananda saw the youth not merely as a demographic category but as a spiritual and moral force capable of reshaping India. For him, nation-building was ultimately a project of character-building, and it was the young—free of cynicism, caste rigidity, or submissive colonial mentality—who could ignite that transformation.
In his celebrated exhortation, “Give me a few men and women who are pure and selfless, and I shall shake the world,” he signalled an unambiguous faith that the future of India rested in the vigour, fearlessness, and idealism of its youth.
Vivekananda’s vision of nation-building was radical, defiant and uncompromising. He did not see the youth as bystanders waiting for their turn; he saw them as warriors of reconstruction, the life-force that could jolt India out of its colonial stupor and social stagnation. For Vivekananda, youth were not the future—they were the fire that could burn away weakness, inertia and self-pity right now.
He placed his bets on them because they were uncorrupted, unafraid, and unburdened by society’s accumulated baggage. They had the strength to think fresh, to break moulds, to question the decrepit moral architecture of a civilisation that had grown too comfortable with its own decline. To him, a strong young person—morally, mentally, physically—was worth more than armies of scripturally learned but spineless elders.
Yet, more than 120 years after his thunderous call, we must confront an uncomfortable truth: India’s youth have not been allowed to fulfil the revolution Vivekananda entrusted to them.
Yes, today’s young Indians are brilliant, tech-savvy, globally connected and ambitious. They build startups, lead scientific missions, win medals, speak the language of the world. But judged by Vivekananda’s standard—fearlessness, character, selflessness, and a burning desire to uplift society—they remain hemmed in by forces that dull their edge and stunt their rise.
The rot begins with an education system that turns the young into exam factories—capable of cracking tests, but not cracking the chains that hold society back. Add to that a culture of digital distraction, relentless consumerism, and a politics that thrives on division instead of collective uplift. The result? Youth who are busy surviving, not soaring.
But the biggest betrayal—the one Vivekananda would have called a national disgrace—is the stranglehold of the old guard on political and institutional power.
India today is a young nation ruled overwhelmingly by the elderly. Parliament, ministries, political parties, and powerful institutions are often controlled by individuals well past the age when most professionals retire. They preach the virtues of youth energy while clinging to positions with an iron grip. They praise “fresh ideas” but refuse to make space for those who possess them. This is not reverence for experience—it is fear of losing relevance.
India, one of the world’s youngest countries, still hesitates to give its young leaders the opportunities to rise to the top. The message this sends is unmistakable: youth may dream, but elders will decide.
So, is it time for a retirement age in politics?
Morally, yes. Constitutionally, it is complicated. The Constitution guarantees every eligible citizen the right to stand for elections; imposing an upper age limit would require a constitutional amendment. And who must pass that amendment? The very leaders who would be forced out by it.
A more realistic route is political party reform—upper age caps for leadership roles, term limits, mandatory youth wings with real authority, and a culture that rewards innovation over seniority. But this too will demand public pressure, youth mobilisation, and a national debate on the quality—not just quantity—of leadership.
Vivekananda would have urged young Indians not to wait for permission. He would have asked them to organise, to speak, to challenge, to become the moral spine of the nation. The youth, in his philosophy, were not heirs—they were torchbearers, meant to lead, not merely inherit.
Big questions remain unanswered: How will the youth rise to lead? Who will allow them to rise and lead? The choice depends not only on whether the youth rise—but whether the elders step aside and pave the way for young leadership.
Let the last word belong to Swami Vivekananda, whose challenge still echoes like a war cry across the centuries: “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.”
Oswald Pereira, a senior journalist, has written ten books, including Beyond Autobiography of a Yogi, The Newsroom Mafia, Chaddi Buddies, The Krishna-Christ Connexion, How to Create Miracles in Our Daily Life and Crime Patrol: The Most Thrilling Stories. Oswald is a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, and practises Kriya Yoga.
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Every age and time, based upon their specifics, carry in themselves scopes for change and reconstruction. This is how society ascends upon the ladder of development in the course of evolution.
Failing to do so, mankind has witnessed the decline of many a cultures and civilisations. The corridor of history is replete with the relics of the glories as well as obscurities of humanity which can be relished only when we take them as lessons. It is only when a society succeeds in doing so that it integrates at a higher level of functioning to mutate the pace of evolution.
No doubt, all the teachers of humanity have acted as the catalysts of these changes to bring in the course correction of every civilisation. Swami Vivekananda appeared as such a very forceful catalytic agent to ignite the fire of patriotism in the mind of young India for our societal resurrection.
It is an irrefutable fact that a wonderful alchemy of freshness pervades the mind of young ones and hence, if adequately harnessed, they promise the possibilities of all the great transformations.
No doubt, every age and time has a voice of its own and it calls for a change specific to the need of the time necessitating for consideration.
The time that we are going also is not an exception. And the onus of change as such lies on the responsibility of not only the leaders of the society or the polity, but largely on the shoulders of the youth. And to that very end, they must not be used as misguided missiles by the forces of vested interests, for there is always the risk of being so and if it so happens, it can only be counterproductive of a very healthy cultural revolution.
It is a fact that youth leadership is always a very potent, unfinished revolution. But it has to be led by exceptional leaders who are fired by the zest, zeal and wisdom of Swami Vivekananda for a cultural revolution. No doubt, India has always been a promising land and it has sailed through all the upheavals of history in safeguarding the sanctity of its culture and civilisation.
The wisdom of survival as a civilised society is intrinsic in the collective memory of our civilisation, hopefully it will keep guiding our youth against all the odds, for all the course corrections.
Baturam Ji, you have made a very valid point that the youth “must not be used as misguided missiles by the forces of vested interests, for there is always the risk of being so and if it so happens, it can only be counterproductive of a very healthy cultural revolution.”
You have rightly said, “youth leadership is always a very potent, unfinished revolution. But it has to be led by exceptional leaders who are fired by the zest, zeal and wisdom of Swami Vivekananda for a cultural revolution.”