Suddenly, voting is "cool"

India's youth are expected to turn out in large numbers for the upcoming election.

Saritha RaiApril 13, 2009 17:37Updated May 30, 2010 12:52

Rahul Gandhi (L) goes with his mother, the head of India's ruling Congress Party Sonia Gandhi (R), to file nomination papers for the upcoming general elections in Sultanpur, in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, April 4, 2009. Rahul Gandhi, 38, is seen as part of a new generation of younger candidates who are attracting younger voters. India will hold a general election between April 16 and May 13, election officials said on March 2, kicking off a mammoth process in which 714 million people will be able to cast their votes. (Pawan Kumar/Reuters)

BANGALORE — Last month, 20-year-old Soumya Janardhanan spent hours standing in line, braving the sounds of heated arguments. The reason: She wanted the photo ID card that will allow her to vote in the Indian election that begins April 16.

“Politics is suddenly cool,” said Janardhanan, a bubbly undergraduate at an engineering college in Bangalore who is one of the estimated 200 million Indian voters under the age of 25. Like Janardhanan, half of these young voters will cast their ballots for the first time in this upcoming election.

Until now, “cool” was an unheard-of description for India's complex politics, which include an alphabet soup of political parties, aging leaders and candidates tainted by crime and corruption. Young educated Indians previously disdained the process, and most didn't bother to show up at the voting booth.

But young, restless India has been stirred to action by an unprecedented voter participation campaign, which has spread the message on television, YouTube, blogs and Facebook, and even through an Indian rock band’s new composition "Shut Up and Vote."

“For the first time ever, the aspirations of the massive youth population appear to intersect with politics,” said Bangalore-based urban affairs expert Ramesh Ramanathan.

So intense is the crusade that many young people are on the streets canvassing for candidates, and some have even announced their own candidacies. Call center workers in Bangalore, college students in Delhi and Bollywood stars in Mumbai are all inspired. The general desire seems to be for conscientious leaders who will fight poverty and terrorism, and guarantee job security.

“It is a very different level of political engagement by the young, it is a ray of hope,” said Ramanathan, whose organization, Janaagraha, linked with industrial conglomerate Tata to launch a campaign that berated youngsters with this slogan: “If you are not voting, you are asleep.”

Janaagraha's Web site has received millions of hits, and has helped 500,000 Indians register as new voters.

“Politics will be the new arena where youth can make an impact, it is a challenge,” said Shashank Navalurkar, 21, a college student in Mangalore, on the southwest coast of India.

How India's youth will shape the election won't be known for some time. The election is so gigantic an enterprise in terms of logistics, security and sheer size — it will involve 720 million voters, nearly two-and-a-half times the population of the United States — that it will span several weeks until May 13. It will end only when votes are counted and final results declared a couple days later.