People's Democracy

Unemployment is on Rise,  So is Youth’s Anger

R Arun Kumar

* Among the 16,000 applicants who were interviewed for 21 posts of court peons in Chandigarh, there were 40 jobless post-graduates who had applied for those posts that required formal education of up to only the eighth class.

* 240 graduates, including B.Techs, had applied for sweepers’ jobs at a municipal corporation.

(Recent news reports from Hindustan Times)

IN the din of the cacophony of NaMo and RaGa and the orchestrations of parliamentary disruptions, the plight of the youth is lost. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) has recently released its report on the 68th round of unemployment survey. The survey finds that unemployment has increased in the country. More significantly, unemployment is predominant among educated youth who have completed secondary and higher secondary education. According to the Report: “The unemployment rate for youngsters aged between 15 and 29 has increased marginally in India between 2009-10 and 2011-12 fiscals...The unemployment rate for the youth was 5 percent for rural males and females, and 8 percent and 13 percent for urban males and females, respectively”. And about underemployment, the Report states that 60 million people are underemployed in the country. Of course, it depends on how they define that status as, but there need not be any doubt that this figure could well be a gross underestimation.

All this, in a country, which boasts of as many as 189 million people who are between 18 and 25 years of age. If you stretch the age limits slightly, i.e., count the Indians between 15 and 29 years of age, their number swells to 285 million and a little more stretching will tell us that about 65 percent of the population is below 35 years of age. These statistics convey a simple fact that a  majority of our people are in the prime of their age, where, if properly empowered, all of them can add to the productive hands and contribute to the all round development of the country. It should be remembered here that the number of graduates produced in India is larger than the populations of many European countries. Unfortunately, this demographic advantage is being wasted due to the disastrous policies pursued by the government.

According to the HT-MaRS Youth Survey 2013, over two-fifths, 41.5 percentage of surveyed youth said the pursuit of happiness tops their wish list, while 30.4 percentage said being rich is the most important goal in their life and interestingly 35.5 percentage stated that they are yearning for a secure government job, for a secure future. These statistics show that a large section of the youth are concerned about job security and are not too eager about private sector employment as they are worried about the insecurity that is built-in in these jobs. This explains the reason why still most of them are vying for a government job. But the government, unfortunately has stopped recruiting and many posts are lying vacant. One glaring example is the department of railways, where more than a lakh posts are lying vacant with the government refusing to issue notifications for filling them. This is not just denying the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth of job opportunities, but is adding to the work-load of the existing workers, which in turn is adversely affecting the maintenance operations and safety and security of rail travel. Similar is the case with many other government departments.

The reluctance to recruit is also affecting our education system with various central education institutes like the IITs and the central universities now boasting of thousands of teaching posts lying vacant. Once again, this reluctance is having an impact on the quality of education imparted in these institutes and naturally we do not find even a single Indian education institute as a top ranked institute in the world. Other factors like the lack of sufficient funds to run these institutes, specifically the absence of support to research, is hampering the growth of our intellectual potential and is seriously jeopardising our ability to tap in the vast human resources and productively use the positive demographic dividend.

One of the pet arguments of various government officials and many private entrepreneurs is that though the industry needs human power, there are no qualified hands available in the job market. So they intend to project an interesting paradox – while there are thousands of job aspirants who have passed out with the necessary degrees, most of them are not qualified to meet the requirements. If at all anybody is to be blamed for this paradox, it should be the government. The government is failing in its duty to strengthen the education system through its neglect and budget squeeze. So, if unemployment is predominant among the educated youth, it is due to the faulty education policies of the government.

The youth whose aspirations and dreams are not realised are increasingly getting disillusioned and their anger, if not properly channelised will prove detrimental to the future of our country. Already the warning bells are tolling. According to the above quoted Youth Survey 2013, “52 percent of youth said they would be better off in a dictatorship which they see as a system of governance 'to get things done'”. This does not augur well with our famed democracy, particularly in today's context when the country is going to the polls shortly for electing a new parliament. The BJP and its prime ministerial candidate might smile contentedly as this suits their kind of politics. Gujarat model demonstrates precisely this kind of an attitude where no challenge is tolerated and no dissent entertained. People are coerced to accept with submission that even if the interests of the corporates are catered with haste and the needs of the poor and downtrodden sections are not only brushed aside, but are sought to be brushed under the carpet, they are to remain silent.

Of course there are some positive features too that emerge from the HT survey. Around 24.7 percentage of the youth openly express their support for the right-wing ideology, but they are out numbered by those who say they are moderate in their ideological beliefs (42.6 percentage). They should form our bedrock to fight and defeat the growth of right-wing, fundamentalist forces in the country and stop them from spreading their venom among the youth. The positive energies of the youth were visible during the many protests that were held throughout the length and breadth of our country during the past few months. They were in the forefront in the struggle against corruption, against the sexual attacks on women and in the recent incidents of racial attacks on the students from North-East in Delhi.

Finding the youth taking an active role in social and political issues, the BJP and the Congress are now trying to entice them to support their politics by proposing to offer a certain percentage of the seats for the youth to contest. Youth empowerment does not mean offering a few parliamentary seats for the youth, but promulgating such policies that will better their livelihood and also actively involving them in the entire process of policy formulation. This indeed demands a departure from the neo-liberal policies – which are also inherently anti-democratic – that both the BJP and Congress espouse.

It is the duty of the Left and democratic forces to tap into the volcanic energies of the youth and put them to a proper use. After all, the very same survey also states that of the surveyed youth, 21.7 percentage believe in making other people's lives better. Through a thorough exposure of the neo-liberal policies, the root cause of unemployment and many other social evils, the youth should be made part of the movement for an alternative. For, it is not just the future of the youth that is at stake today, but the future of the country as well.