The Silent Majority: Why India’s Youth Struggle to Enter Politics

Youth Policy or Workforce Strategy?

India is the world’s youngest democracy. Yet the average Member of Parliament is 56. Only 11% of MPs are under 40, according to PRS Legislative Research. Two-thirds of its 1.4 billion citizens are categorised as youth, and the median Indian age is just 28 years old. Yet when it comes to political decision-making, India’s youth remain curiously absent. Not by choice, but by design. This is the paradox of Indian democracy: the nation with the largest youth population is governed by one of the oldest political classes.

Take the Draft National Youth Policy (2024) meant to be aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, released by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Although it is an improvement from the National Youth Policy (2014), there is still a lot to be done. Its vision of young people is narrow: they are framed almost entirely as human capital to be “skilled” and absorbed into the labour market. What the document fails to ask is: what does it mean to be a young citizen in the world’s largest democracy? Where is the recognition of young people as political actors? 

Barriers at the Ground Level

The irony deepens when one considers the Ministry of Youth Affairs itself, currently headed by a 53-year-old, Mansukh Mandaviya. In contrast, other democracies have seen leaders emerge much earlier in life. Finland’s Sanna Marin became prime minister at 34. New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern took office at 37. Emmanuel Macron was 39 when he became President of France. India’s political structures, however, are designed to keep its young people on the sidelines “waiting their turn”, where even the youth ministers—let alone the heads of the country—aren’t young enough to represent the interests of the youth.

This is not accidental. At the ground level, India’s youth face systemic restrictions on their ability to participate in public life. Hostel curfews in most public universities and many private institutions disproportionately affect women, keeping them indoors during evenings—the very hours when political meetings, protests, and forums are most active. University spaces, instead of being incubators of free debate, often impose restrictions that frame political involvement as unsafe or undesirable. The language of safety is weaponized. Parents, institutions, and governments invoke it to keep young people out of the public square. This not only stifles student politics but also narrows the pipeline of future leaders. Across campuses, student politics is treated less as a training ground for democracy and more as a threat to systemically continued ageist structures. Crackdowns on student unions at Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Aligarh Muslim University illustrate how authorities restrict youth participation in politics. Public spaces are heavily policed, with Section 144 of the Indian Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) of 1973 routinely imposed to disperse gatherings of more than four and possibly enforcing internet shutdown. 

The Price of Participation

Financial barriers are yet another obstacle. Fighting an election in India is prohibitively expensive. The 2019 general elections were the most expensive in the world, costing over $8 billion (Centre for Media Studies). For a first-generation aspirant without family wealth or dynastic connections, contesting elections is almost unimaginable. The political culture compounds this, with young people discouraged from challenging entrenched older elites. The result is that young people are not only excluded from formal politics but are often unable to even practice the first steps of civic engagement: assembly, association, and dissent. India risks alienating its largest demographic dividend. 

At the state level, the picture is not much better. India’s political recruitment patterns rely heavily on dynastic politics, where “young” leaders are often heirs of established families rather than grassroots voices. For an ordinary 25-year-old with no connections, the ladder to leadership is practically nonexistent. Young people today are treated primarily as voters, not as leaders. By keeping them out of political institutions, the system weakens its own legitimacy and misses out on fresh perspectives urgently needed in policymaking. The silent majority of India’s youth cannot remain silent forever. The next revision of the National Youth Policy must shift from symbolic gestures to structural guarantees. The world’s youngest democracy deserves leaders who are not just speaking to young people, but speaking for them. If mere civic engagement is limited through restrictions, how is increased political involvement supposed to be fostered?

Global Lessons, Local Gaps

Globally, countries have recognised that building political capacity in youth requires not just lowering barriers at the top, but opening spaces at the base. The UK reduced the age of candidacy from 21 to 18 back at the start of 2007, enabling young councillors and MPs to emerge. Now, they are soon to lower their voting age from 18 to 16 as well. Nigeria’s Not Too Young To Run movement successfully amended its constitution to lower candidacy ages across offices, sparking a surge of youth candidacies after 2018. In India, by contrast, 18-year-olds can vote but must wait until 25 to contest even the lowest elected office. Youth representatives in India are essentially not allowed to actually represent the youth, by law; this is a big problem. Your vote counts but not your voice. 

Equally telling, also, is India’s approach to political education. Where Germany funds a Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung or bpb), producing guides, media, and youth parliaments to stimulate critical engagement, India’s NYP reduces “education” to employability. Finland requires every secondary student to undertake civic projects under the guidance of municipal councils. India, meanwhile, leaves its youth with rote civics textbooks, disconnected from real governance. If you want to learn democracy here, you do it on your own time, and usually at your own risk. The risk involved in being remotely interested in politics as a young person in India far outweighs the benefits of being politically educated and aware. This is primarily due to decades of flawed governance and using the excuse of “society” to delay progressive change. 

Even when India does speak of ‘inclusion’, it does so vaguely. The draft policy invokes “gender mainstreaming” without budgets, timelines, or accountability. It avoids naming caste, class, or religion as barriers to participation. Compare this with Rwanda’s 61% female parliament, achieved through enforceable quotas which compels parties to field youth, women, Dalits, and minorities. But perhaps most damning is the absence of genuine consultation. 

This is out of step with global trends. In Tunisia, youth activists of the Arab Spring were integrated into political parties after 2011, reshaping institutions. In Nordic countries, youth wings of political parties play a direct role in candidate selection and policymaking. Even the UK has an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Affairs, ensuring that voices under 30 are heard within Westminster. India’s National Youth Policy, meanwhile, lacks mechanisms for leadership pipelines, quotas, or funding to support young candidates. 

Tokenism vs. Transformation

The result is tokenism: young people are consulted but rarely empowered. Submissions were invited online for the Draft NYP, but without wide outreach or deliberative platforms, only the aware among the already-privileged could respond. And, quite naturally, the privileged cannot empathise with social issues the way that those directly affected by those are, thereby defeating the whole point of the youth policy being shaped by the youth of India. By contrast, the European Union holds a formal Youth Dialogue every 18 months, feeding directly into EU Youth Strategy. Kenya created a statutory National Youth Council to advise parliament. India’s youth? At best, they get a PDF on a government portal, which may be taken seriously depending on luck. 

Unlike Tunisia’s constitution, which guarantees youth representation in local councils, or Rwanda’s model, where youth councils feed directly into national decision-making, India’s approach relies on symbolism rather than structural reform. The disappointing irony here is that young Indians are politically aware. They drive online discourse, flood protest sites, and turn out in massive numbers during elections. Yet they remain structurally shut out of decision-making spaces; from barely any youth representation in the Parliament, to campuses where the weaponisation of “safety-driven” rules limits civic engagement. India does not lack for youth energy; it lacks the courage to let its young lead. 

The Draft National Youth Policy, in its current form, mistakes skilling for empowerment and sidelines democracy altogether. The omissions are striking. There is no mention of lowering the candidacy age (currently 25 for Lok Sabha, 30 for Rajya Sabha), despite repeated demands for change. There is no civic education plan to prepare first-time voters, no strategy to expand youth voter turnout, and no institutional framework to include young voices in policymaking. Even the process of drafting the NYP raises questions. The Ministry did invite feedback but unless you were in Delhi or a college with the right email list, chances are you never even heard about it. There was no structured mechanism for mass participation, regional consultations, or accountability in how feedback was incorporated.

What True Empowerment Would Look Like

Youth voter turnout lags behind older demographics, in part because political parties rarely court them. And when youth see no one like themselves in Parliament, they disengage further. If India is serious about being the world’s largest democracy, it must also become its youngest in leadership. Several reforms could help:

• Leadership by example: The Minister of Youth Affairs should be under 40, representing the demographic they claim to serve.

• Lower age barrier quotas in politics: Youth quotas in political parties and local bodies should ensure leadership opportunities for those under 35. Parties could be required allocate at least 15–20% of tickets to candidates under 35.

• Gender parity in candidacy lists: Ensure women and men contest in equal numbers, especially at state and national levels.

• Reform campus politics: Protect student unions from excessive policing and recognise them as incubators of future leaders. Institutions must dismantle discriminatory hostel curfews and allow universities to flourish as spaces of civic debate.

• Financial access: Campaign finance reforms and fellowships for first-time candidates could democratize entry into politics.

Such measures are not utopian—they exist across democracies. What’s missing in India is political will. The world’s youngest democracy cannot afford an ageing imagination.

The Silent Majority Speaks

The exclusion of youth is not just a question of fairness; it weakens democracy itself. Young people are more likely to prioritise issues such as climate change, digital rights, education reform, and gender equality. When they are absent from the political table, these issues are sidelined. India is at a crossroads. By 2030, it will have the world’s largest working-age population. But unless young people are integrated into governance, the country risks squandering its so-called demographic dividend. Instead of an engine for progress, the youth bulge could become a source of frustration and unrest.

The Draft National Youth Policy 2024 (NYP) frames young people largely as economic inputs for the “fastest-growing major economy.” It reads less like a roadmap for empowering citizens and more like a workforce strategy. Skill development, entrepreneurship, and employability dominate the document, while civic education, democratic participation, and political rights are absent. This framing misses the core: youth are not just GDP-boosting machines. They are citizens with the right to shape the future they will inherit. Reducing them to “human capital” not only silences their political agency but also robs Indian democracy of the generational renewal it desperately needs.

The NYP does nod to “gender mainstreaming” and inclusivity of marginalised youth, but only at the level of rhetoric. There are no budget allocations, monitoring systems, or participatory mechanisms to ensure that women, queer youth, or youth from marginalised castes and regions actually shape policy. Without naming caste, class, religion, or region as structural barriers, “inclusion” remains a hollow word. This has consequences: women still make up less than 15% of the Lok Sabha, and LGBTQ+ youth have no explicit representation mechanisms. A genuinely inclusive youth policy would have set targets, created participatory councils, or tied funding to diversity benchmarks. Instead, India’s NYP settles for abstraction. As a result, the final policy reflects the vision of bureaucrats and select NGOs, not the lived experiences of India’s diverse youth. For a country that prides itself on democracy, this top-down approach undermines credibility from the start.

A true youth policy would start from the recognition that 67 crore young people are not just workers-in-training, but citizens-in-practice—citizens who deserve both the freedom to participate and the right to govern. If India aspires to be the world’s largest democracy in spirit as well as size, it must move beyond token consultations and GDP-centric frameworks. It must dismantle the curfews, expand civic education, lower candidacy ages, and institutionalise youth voice in governance. Until then, India’s youth will remain the silent majority of its democracy: seen and even counted, but left unheard.