• S.K. Nigam

“Today is the last day for me. Today I had dinner with my mother and I am going to cheat my parents. Taking care of Papa and tell him, I was with you only this much. To arrange Sangeeta’s marriage well even if I am not there. I have burnt all my B.Sc papers. What is the use of a degree that cannot get me a job? Half of my life has been spent studying, hence my heart is filled.’’ This heart-wrenching ‘suicide note’ of 28-year-old unemployed youth Brijesh Pal, resident of BhudPurva village of SadarKotwali area of Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh, who had recently given the police recruitment examination, and, due to paper leak, chose the path of suicide on February 23, 2024. Because 50 lakh candidates had appeared for the exam for 60,000 constable posts and then it was found that the exam paper was leaked and the exam would be held again after 6 months. The same Uttar Pradesh where thousands of youth have applied for laborer, electrician, plumbing jobs in Israel instead of Palestinians, thinking that even though the conditions are not good in Israel, it is better to be shot dead abroad than dying of hunger in their own country.

February 21,2024 - Ahmed is digging a trench to build a position and one of his comrades was practising firing when they saw a drone hovering above. According to Ahmed, “Suddenly we heard some noise.....two other war aide Indians were hiding in the trenches. Then suddenly a missile fell and the earth shook. After some time, when we came out, I found Hamill dead.” This story is not about the sacrifice of the son of India for his motherland but it is the truth of the 23-year-old young Hamill AshvinbhaiMangukiya, resident of Velanja village in Kamrej taluka of Surat, Gujarat, which is suffering from unemployment and poverty, had lost his life at the Russia-Ukraine border as a war aide. The Indian Express reports that Hamill’s father Ashvinbhai said that the family, due to financial constraints, allowed him to work as a war aide in the Russian army so that “he could earn some money.” Like Hamill, many other Indian unemployed youths are also working in Russia. In the last year, the Russian Army has recruited at least 100 Indians, who especially belong to Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and other states.

It is noteworthy that Brijesh Pal was a youth from Uttar Pradesh from where Prime Minister Modi is an MP and Hamill is an unemployed youth from the same Gujarat state whose Chief Minister Modi came to power in 2014 by boasting of the employment and development model. If this plight caused by unemployment were just a few incidents, we could have ignored them, but this story is a mirror of the painful situation of crores of unemployed youth across the country. The virus of unemployment that is spreading in India today is more dangerous for our society than Covid-19, because its impact is not only on a youth but on his family and the entire society. In 2019, three crore people were unemployed in India, then the pandemic made this problem more complex and more than one crore people lost their jobs and many people also faced salary cuts. Small and medium businesses were most affected by the pandemic. Government statistics show that one in three MSMEs closed down during the pandemic. These small businesses used to provide employment to 20 crore people. Today, 12 crores of them are unemployed.

It is not that only lower level jobs are at risk. Even if today’s youth becomes an engineer after getting education, he is not guaranteed a job. 3000 Engineers had applied for Walk-in Job Interview for an Engineer post in Pune. A few years ago, 2.8 crore people had applied for only 90,000 jobs in Railways, whereas in Uttar Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh Police had invited applications for 62 posts of peon in 2018, for which the minimum qualification was kept as fifth pass. But seeing the people who applied, even the people of the selection board were stunned. About 50 thousand graduates and 28 thousand post graduates had applied for 62 posts. Not only this, there were 3700 PhD (doctorate) holders also in the queue to become peons.

Today in India, when both the working population and the dependent population are divided 50-50%, that is, for every person below 15 years and above 60 years of age, at least one working person is available and this is the golden opportunity which will come to an end in 2041. Therefore, it is important that we make proper use of our human resources today. When we talk about the reasons for increasing unemployment, three main reasons come to the fore. The first one is skill gap, the second one is population growth and the third and important reason is – no ease of doing business for the MSME sector. India is an agrarian economy and even today about 50% of our population works in this sector. Modi ji would have ruined the agricultural sector by bringing three black laws, if our farmers had not sacrificed their lives and protested against it on time. About 700 farmers were martyred during the agitation against the laws. PM Narendra Modi had accepted his mistake and apologized to the country and the farmers.

The main three sectors providing employment are primary, secondary and tertiary. The primary sector includes agriculture, the secondary sector includes manufacturing and the tertiary sector includes services. In a developed economy, employment is generated less in the triangular primary sector and more in the secondary and tertiary sectors. The main problem of India is that due to the crony capitalist policy of the Government of India, the manufacturing sector in India is not becoming very strong and ease of doing business is becoming the biggest problem for the MSME sector. After coming to power with the dream of making a developed India and giving 15 lakh rupees in the account of every poor unemployed person, the Modi government has sacrificed all the resources of the country on its two favorite industrialists and entangled our 80 crores poor population in just 5 kg of free ration. By denying his guarantee of employment of crore jobs per year, now Modi ji says that he wants to create 10 lakh new employment opportunities by 2024, but has not told how these opportunities are going to be created? Jobs that will disappear in the next 10 years or jobs that will empower our youth.

Job losses across sectors due to policy decisions such as Demonetization and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) have become worryingly common. Congress leader Shri Rahul Gandhi has been always vocal to remind Prime Minister Modi of his promise of creating two crore jobs annually as well as giving meaningful suggestions to the government on issues like demonetization and wrong way of implementing GST, rising unemployment and related poverty problem. He believes that the impact of rising unemployment extends beyond economic sectors, deeply affecting the social fabric. Due to less job opportunities, poverty rate is increasing, social inequalities are increasing and as a result, efforts to eradicate poverty are becoming weaker. Some sociologists say that the main reason for the recent increase in crime incidents is unemployment.

Although Covid is certainly an important factor in increasing unemployment after 2019, it would not be appropriate to blame everything on Covid. Going back to 2014, unemployment remains one of India’s most pressing issues, posing significant challenges to economic growth and social stability. To address this issue, the promise of creating two crore jobs annually made by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appears to be a mere gimmick to get votes. The consequences of this broken promise extend far beyond mere statistics, manifesting in the daily struggles of millions of people grappling with the harsh realities of unemployment. With dreams dashed and aspirations dashed, our youth find themselves trapped in a cycle of disillusionment and despair, with their faith in the democratic process completely shaken.

In the excitement of election campaigns, Modi’s assurances resonated deeply, offering a glimpse of transformative change and economic prosperity. Yet, as time passed, a glaring disparity between their promises and intentions became apparent, leaving youth disillusioned and betrayed. The dream of permanent employment, which once seemed a reality, is now looks illusive to countless young Indians. Despite Prime Minister Modi’s charismatic rhetoric and ambitious vision, the gap between promises and reality has widened in successive election cycles. The Congress party has consistently questioned the sincerity of the government’s intentions over its failure to materialize grand plans, raising doubts over the efficacy of the Modi government’s policies and the integrity of its commitments. Moving away from blaming all the problems on 60 years old Pandit Nehru’s government and juggling government figures, if the current 10 years working Modi government does not improve the situation by making serious efforts to remove unemployment, then maybe it is difficult to even imagine how dire the situation in the future will be!

The Author is a writer and Political Analyst