Why India’s most aspirational generation — its millennials — is quickly becoming its most anxious one

If you want to understand the precipice that India is at and where it might go from here, you have to understand its millennials

It was November 2018 in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. I was at the city’s famous Russel Chowk, talking to young people gathered there in the evening. Cars were honking and young men in bright polyester shirts with elaborately coiffed hair and multicoloured sunglasses were racing on their two-wheelers. The air, quickly cooling down, smelled of diesel and dust. The market could have been called ‘Chinese’ or ‘Electronics Chowk,’ given how nearly every storefront showcased two Chinese smartphone companies, Vivo and Oppo. One store was different. It was the only shop with people inside: Patanjali. A big outlet, it sold everything swadeshi, from cow ghee to fairness creams. I was there to conduct interviews about the State Assembly elections. A high-pitched campaign between the BJP and the Congress was coming to a close. Both parties were aggressively chasing millennial voters, luring them with promises of a million new jobs, unemployment allowances and even a lump sum at the time of marriage.