Biggest threat to freedom? Corruption, says young India

Young urban Indians are upbeat about their freedom and see corruption as the most serious threat to it. That's the finding from an eight-city survey done exclusively for TOI days before the country celebrates the 64th anniversary of Independence.

Those in the 18-25 age group in eight of India's biggest cities are also extremely appreciative of Anna Hazare but still see Sachin Tendulkar as the ultimate role model and India's triumph in the 2011 cricket World Cup as the country's biggest achievement in a decade, ahead of the high growth rates the economy has posted.

It's a measure of the extent to which corruption has captured mindspace in recent months that it is seen as a bigger threat to the country than terrorism, which in fact ranked third on the list behind caste and communal violence in second place, but ahead of poverty.

It's perhaps a generation thing that the freedom most valued by the youth is the right to work and live anywhere rather than free speech, the right to vote or to follow one's religion. It might indicate that the latter are all taken as given.

The cities covered by the survey were Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. The poll was conducted by Synovate, a global market research agency. A total of 600 people from the highest socio-economic category, SEC A, were interviewed face to face for the survey. There were interesting variations in responses across cities on most questions.