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India is a political democracy, but India's society is not democratic. That has been a hypothesis offered by many social scientists. Now there is empirical proof - from India's hope for the future, its school and college students.

These are some of the key findings of one of the largest-ever nationwide surveys on youth attitudes, conducted by Children's Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA), a Bengaluru-based non-government organisation that works to nurture democratic values among young Indians.

"One of the most disturbing finding of this survey has been the negative and undesirable attitude of young people towards gender and social issues," Manjunath Sadashiva, director, CMCA told IndiaSpend (indiaspend.org).

The only issue on which students do not appear to have regressive attitudes is the environment. More than 70 per cent believe it is important to collect rainwater and protect lakes.

CalledYuva Nagarika Meter(Youth Citizenship Meter), the study was conducted in association with the Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB). The field research was spread across 11 states and covered 10,542 students: 6,168 students from 9th standard and 4,374 college students from first year undergraduate courses.

The study, one of the largest ever, revealed that youth in non-metro cities (Guwahati, Lucknow, Patna and Bhopal) appeared more progressive than metro cities (Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad).

Only 35 per cent of school students consider themselves citizens of India. Only 24 per cent of high-school students and 29 per cent of college students "correctly" understand the meaning of right against exploitation. The low score of 19 per cent among college students on democratic governance indicates the weakness in imparting civic knowledge and lack of exposure at higher level of education.

A very large number of college students support dictatorial or authoritarian form of government, which is represented by minus 11 per cent score on attitude towards democratic governance.

More than half (53 per cent) of college students favour military rule in India for "some years". Faith in democratic governance is fading. The reasons: corruption, scams, lack of policy implementation and poor governance. Once again, a low score of 15 per cent and 10 per cent highlights disdain students have for civic rules and laws. This is reflected in the widespread violation of laws by citizens and government officials by means of bribes, breaking traffic rules and not paying taxes.

Environmental conservation is the highest-scoring domain. This can be attributed to large-scale awareness programmes and campaigns on global warming and climate change in schools and colleges by NGOs. Academic inclusion of environmental science as a subject could be credited for positive attitudes.

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