ABSTRACT
Th e promise and potential of India as a new global power signifi cantly rests on its youthful population. Media discussions of liberalization oft en point to demographic statistics that indicate 54% of Indians are now below the age of 25, making India one of the “youngest” nations in the world (“Th e World’s Youngest Nation,” 2004). Within the southwestern state of Kerala, where the research for this article is based, people between the ages of 15 and 25 are said to make up 45% of the total population of the state (“Th e World’s Youngest Nation,” 2004, p. 52).2 Emblematic of a popular discourse, journalistic coverage has labeled this age category “zippies”; they have also been called “Liberalization’s Children,” a play on and contrast to the so-called generation of “Midnight’s Children,” those born at independence in 1947, the fi rst generation to grow upj in independent India under the Nehruvian socialist understanding of national development.3 Th e defi nition of the “zippie”
combines marketing clichés that exhibit an almost giddy sense of entitlement and possibility, as this mock dictionary defi nition illustrates:
… A young city or suburban resident, between 15 and 25 years of age, with a zip in the stride. Belongs to Generation Z. Can be male or female, studying or working. Oozes attitude, ambition, and aspiration. Cool, confi dent, and creative. Seeks challenges, loves risks, and shuns fear. Succeeds Generation X and Generation Y, but carries the social, political, economic, cultural, or ideological baggage of neither personal and professional life marked by vim, vigor, and vitality (origin: Indian) (“Th e World’s Youngest Nation,” 2004, p. 41).
