Get ‘addicted’ to music, art, studies, not drugs: Singer Mika to youngsters
Singer mesmerises audience with his performance
The mood inside the packed auditorium changed almost instantly when Mika Singh walked on stage.
Moments earlier, the young audience had been listening to speeches on drug abuse, skills, employment and the responsibilities of the country's next generation. But as the singer took the microphone, cheers rose through the hall of Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, with Gen-Z and millennial members of the audience dancing from their seats as the evening shifted from political messaging to music and cultural performances.
The occasion was an Independence Day-themed musical and cultural programme centred on the message of a drug-free India. The event, organised by World Punjabi Organisation and Sun Foundation, brought together Union ministers, MPs, university representatives, young people and cultural performers, with speakers repeatedly urging the country's youth to stay away from drugs.
BJP's Rajya Sabha MP and World Punjabi Organisation chairman Vikramjit Singh Sahney told the gathering that drugs could offer a temporary high but dreams could provide a lifetime of achievement.
“Drugs are not cool. Destroying your future is not a vibe,” Sahney said, urging young people to instead become “addicted” to skills, music, yoga, meditation, sport and opportunities.
His larger argument was that employment and skills could take away the appeal of drugs. “When young people have a skill in their hands, a job before them and a dream in their heart, drugs will lose the power,” he said.
His message to the young audience was summed up as a call to “substitute drugs with dreams, hopelessness with opportunity, fear with confidence and excuses with action”.
Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat took a different route to make the same argument, linking the drug-free youth campaign with the sacrifices made during India's freedom struggle.
With thousands of youngsters holding the Tricolour, Shekhawat said India's freedom and the right to raise the national flag had come after the sacrifices of thousands of people who faced imprisonment, torture, bullets and the gallows. But, he said, merely carrying the flag was not enough.
The sacrifices of freedom fighters could truly be honoured only by building the India they had dreamed of, he said, adding that such an India could not be built if its young generation remained trapped in drug addiction.
Shekhawat described the current generation as particularly fortunate, saying it could eventually look back and claim that it had helped build the India that emerged as a developed nation.
While addressing the younger audience, Mika Singh echoed the central message of the evening but put it in the language of entertainment. Young people, including Gen-Z, should not get addicted to drugs, he said, but could instead get “addicted” to music, art, culture, studies, craft and the nation.
Mika began his performance with a patriotic song before moving to his popular chartbusters, turning the auditorium into a more celebratory space.
The programme also saw Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju arrive while Mika's performance was underway. At Rijiju’s request, Mika sang Kishore Kumar's “Bachna Ae Haseeno”, drawing another enthusiastic response from the audience.
The event also carried a tribute element, with Sahney saying families of martyrs of “Operation Sindhu” would be supported and honoured. Akashdeep Singh (23), who was martyred in Jammu and Kashmir, was remembered at event.
Alongside the anti-drug message, the evening repeatedly returned to Independence Day and the contribution of freedom fighters, particularly the sacrifices associated with Punjab.
DMK leader in Rajya Sabha Tiruchi Siva joined the gathering alongside Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh. Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab Vikramjit Sahney organised the event at Bharat Mandapam.
