4. Impact of Globalization on Youth in India

Globalization offers clear economic opportunities and benefits, but comes with substantial social costs that often appear to affect young people disproportionately, given their tenuous transitional status within an uncertain and rapidly evolving global context.

The majority of India’s population is young. The population growth among youth is one of the most critical factors in the way India responds to globalization. Indian youth are fuelling both positive and negative perceptions given to globalization. They are embracing globalization in a way that the previous generation never imagined.

Economic globalization has led to increased urban poverty as people move from the rural areas to the cities in search of opportunity. Youth make up the large majority of urban migrants. Young people are experiencing the encouragement and the freedom to break from traditional family norms and practices of the rural areas to find opportunities in the city.

But youth face a high level of unemployment in urban centres. Young migrants are pushed and pulled into the cities only to find a stressed local economy. In the absence of critical infrastructure many youth suffer from the mismanagement of scarce resources, corruption, and sometimes natural calamities that devastate overpopulated areas. Religious, civic and ethnic conflicts also undermine economic prosperity available in cities, which often directly involve young people.

The primary ambition of young Indians from the smallest villages to the largest cities is to ''become rich.'' Young people hope to achieve this goal through enterprise and education. The most highly regarded careers like civil service, engineering, and medicine are giving way to high- paying jobs in high tech and the media.

Present day youth, with its more materialistic ambitions and more globally informed opinions, are gradually abandoning the austere ways and restricted traditional Indian markets. Youth demand a more cosmopolitan society that is a full-fledged member of the global economy.

In addition to the dynamic, global, economic forces effecting India, globalization has brought change to India’s rich culture. Youth see themselves as global teenagers. They belong to a much bigger community than the community they were born into. The younger generation is embracing western popular culture and incorporating it into their Indian identity. There is a subtle and powerful hybridization of western and Indian values occurring – particularly evident among Indian youth.

Consumerism has permeated and changed the traditional beliefs and practices of the Indian people. The traditional Indian dress is declining, especially among urban youth, in favour of new fashions from the west. Buying the latest cars, televisions, electronic gadgets, and trendy clothes has become quite popular. The younger poor population is particularly susceptible to the allure of expensive products seen in advertisements and when they cannot respond to these ads, they get frustrated. Crime can be the result of their frustration.

Globalization also is changing family institutions, and the nuclear family is increasingly the norm. Youth are not as close to their grandparents as were earlier generations and spend less time with the older generation resulting in loss of wisdom handed down from generation to generation.

Globalization has led to an increase in uncertainty among youth; this underlying instability may serve to magnify the tensions and lack of control they experience on a daily basis. Uncertainty is because of the breakdown of traditional norms, weakening of social relations like that of family and marriage, uncertainty in career due to market economy. This has led to an increase in cases of depression and suicide among the youth.

Most religious activities are becoming irrelevant to the youth. They want to see changes in religion. They are not internalizing traditional ideas; rather, they are merely tolerating them. Though they do find some indirect value with religion.

The evaluation of the effects of globalization is as a mixed bag, both good and bad. Economic globalization has improved study and job opportunities and provided greater employment opportunities. But it has also made the poor even poorer. But importantly, there is no going back from globalisation. The youth enjoy having the opportunity to be modern, progressive, and be a part