A few days after the admissions process, I noticed an unexpected email from my daughter’s college administration. Clicking to open it, I was relieved to see that it was just an automated message informing me that she had 100% attendance that day. I don’t think my adult daughter’s appearance is my business. But I still get a daily email, and at the end of every session, his mark sheet is also addressed to me.
Recently one of our interns told me that whenever she wanted to step outside her campus, she had to take her parents’ permission. The college was more than 2,000 km from where his parents lived. But this was not a problem. The students had a Gate Pass app on their smartphones that would send a request to their parent’s smartphone, which would be acknowledged to the security guard’s smartphone, and the gate would open (or stay closed, depending on what kind of parent you were). . It didn’t matter that she was a smart, adult law student—without her mother’s permission, she couldn’t leave campus.
As a parent, I am of course concerned about the safety of my children. But I am unable to understand how an adult who can legally sign a contract, take a loan, have sex, marry, drive a truck, fly a plane, fight a war and can vote in elections, cannot leave the college campus without parental permission.
A few years back, I remember my surprise when parents turned up for the orientation lecture of my public policy class in a master’s program at a city college. Many private colleges have uniforms for undergraduate students and some state governments have started emulating the idea. India is infantilizing its young middle class adults.
So, when do Indians grow up? The official age of maturity is 18, as it is in most countries around the world. Now, there’s nothing magical (in a non-romantic sense) about turning 18, and most of us know that there’s no switch on your birthday that suddenly makes you more rational and mature. As psychologist Lawrence Steinberg and his colleagues concluded in a study on adolescents and maturation, “the notion … that a single line can be drawn between adolescence and adulthood for various purposes under the law is at odds with the developmental sciences.” The opposite is true. Psychological maturation is asynchronous in various areas of functioning, especially during periods of dramatic and rapid change, as occurs during adolescence.”
That said, the law needs a convenient heuristic for adulthood and 18 has become more or less a global norm, and I think it’s a fair one. Psychology suggests that sometimes there are grounds for deviating from this norm. But the departure must be reasonable and logically consistent.
Moral panic and political populism over the past decade have led us to treat 16-18 year olds as adults in serious criminal cases. However, there is no such flexibility in civil cases. Justice Sanjay Kumar of the Punjab and Haryana High Court said, “A criminal act committed by a child of 16 years of age or above is now being treated at par with that of an adult, but the same parity has not been extended to a civil act.” is. of a child of the same age.” A civil matter of particular concern relates to romantic relationships and the choice of a spouse. In addition, the age of consent was raised to 18 in 2013. The Chief Justice of India himself expressed concern over the criminalization of juveniles who find themselves guilty of statutory rape for having ‘consensual’ sex with people under the age of 18.
Then there’s the legal age of marriage, which until last spring was different for men and women. Social revolutionary objectives had led us to this inequality. Last year, a bill was introduced in Parliament to raise the minimum age for women to 21. This would mean that Indian citizens above the age of 18 can do all adult things except marrying, signing contracts, voting, having sex and engaging in live-in relationships. Or, in some states, have a drink. Furthermore, to the extent that the legal age for marriage is justified on one’s maturity to make life-changing decisions, the absence of any legal age for religious ordination calls the whole argument into question. You can enter lifelong sannyas or nunhood even as a child, but have to wait until 21 to enter into marriage.
Different states in India have different minimum legal drinking ages: 18, 21, 25 and infinity. Empirical evidence suggests that 21 has better social outcomes, but drinking age laws dealt a further blow to 18 being the age of maturity. Banning the sale of alcohol to those under 21 and decriminalizing possession and consumption would lead to a better balance of adult agency and social well-being.
An energetic nation with a young population will not achieve its potential by patronizing and pampering its adults. P. Anita and A. Umesh Samuel Jebesilan has shown that “excessive control over adolescence by the family, overprotection and severe punishment inhibit the development of social maturity”. Instead of locking the gate and sending attendance emails to parents, society should reinforce this sentiment. Agency and independence of young adults and allow them to learn to take responsibility for their actions.
An Indian is an 18 year old adult and should be treated as one.
Nitin Pai is co-founder and director of The Takshashila Institution, an independent center for research and education in public policy
catch ’em all business News, market news, today’s fresh news events and Breaking News Update on Live Mint. download mint news app To get daily market updates.