India's young deserve citizens' rights, not baby talk

India, especially India's polity, professes to have ditched its socialist past and embraced rugged individualism. And, yet, the mai-baap state continues to treat the young grown-up citizen as a toddler clutching to its mum's organza sari.

This is no contradiction, but the result of a hive-mind delusion. On paper, the citizen is a free agent, a sovereign atom in the physical world of democracy. In practice, he or she is treated as a babbling infant to be spoken with patronising 'kuchu puchu' and lullabies of slogans and anthems.

As a result, 'kuchu puchu' is not merely baby talk but lingua franca of dependency. It is the sound of those in charge believing 'Daddy knows best'.


The rhetoric of self-reliance - 'aatmanirbharta' sounding even more like a mashed baigan dish mum has lovingly prepared for a 30-yr-old 'beta' - is drowned out by the gurgles of entitlement. Over decades, such infantilism had become aspirational - until now. To be cared for, coddled and cooed over is no longer seen as the ultimate ask for many under-30s.

The young citizen has now turned the baby-talk lisp of 'kuchu puchu' on its head and made it 'mock vox'. So, it's time the mai-baaps wake up and taste the baby food for what it is - instant formula - and move along quickly to replace 'bachhe din' with something better. For, beware the eye roll of the youngster treated like a kid.