Quality education and decent employment to one and all – that must be the national agenda Featured

Quality education and decent employment to one and all – that must be the national agenda Featured

Rise against the lunatic rightwing !  

Quality education and decent employment to one and all – that must be the national agenda !

Empty slogans cannot feed mouths!

‘Modi sarkar’ has been a huge disaster for the youth of India. They had come to power promising 2 crore jobs every year. Instead of providing the promised jobs Modi gave chest thumping speeches in abundance along with free advice to sell pakodas !  ‘Make in India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘Digital India’, ‘Start up India’, ‘Stand up India’ etc. are publicity stunts to cheat the youth. It seems, the government believes public memory is short. So they change grand slogans every season. 

 

The Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE) has found that unemployment is rising at 7.2 % per year. According to an All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) study, around 60% of 1.5 million engineers i.e., 9 lakh engineers graduating from technical institutions across the country every year remain unemployed.  

The fifth annual employment survey (2015-2016) conducted by Central government’s Labour Bureau revealed that 4 out of 10 Indians in the working age group do not get throughout the year work. As per the same survey 58.3% of graduates and 62.4% of post graduates are jobless. The government’s Labour bureau solved this problem quite easily. They discontinued the practice of conducting annual employment surveys!

National sample survey found out that unemployment is rising at alarming rates. According to information leaked to the press, unemployment rate has risen to the highest level in last 45 years. But the government chose their favourite method to resolve the issue – do not publish national sample survey data ! 

Government promoting unemployment !

Provide huge tax concessions and ‘stimulus packages’ to big business houses, hand over public assets and natural resources to private corporations and weaken labour laws to facilitate ruthless exploitation of workers – these are the policies adopted by government for economic growth. All these policies help big business to greatly increase their profits but do not generate employment opportunities for the youth. Government’s refusal to undertake public investment to meet the basic needs compounds the unemployment crisis. Millions of jobs were lost due to demonetisation and introduction of GST. 

Business strategies of private sector and government policies are in the same direction - promoting ‘jobless growth’. Whatever little employment is available are temporary contract jobs.  All industries are proposing expansion at the cost of the wages of the workers. Jobs in almost all sectors varying from manufacturing industry, banks, insurance, schools and colleges are being contractualised across India. 

In the industrial sector, the wage gap between permanent and contract employees is significant 5-6 per cent. In technology and services sectors, the gap is even higher. Nurses, a big chunk of employees in the private companies of all sectors like insurance, banks, outsourcing agencies, BPOs etc are highly insecure. 

The government itself is acting like a private business house when it comes to providing employment. Declared and undeclared recruitment bans are in place. Indian Railways and various offices under the Central government are getting their work done increasingly on contractual basis. Various jobs are out sourced leading to intense exploitation of working people. 

Crisis in the country side.

Millions of families making their living from agriculture are in a great crisis. Farmers’ suicide has become a routine fact of life in many parts of the country. The livelihood of agricultural workers belonging mainly to Dalit and Adivasi communities, especially women, has come under severe strain. MNREGA has been non-functional in large parts of the country. 

Hunger and malnutrition are stalking the countryside, leading to deaths of thousands of children. Rural distress is pushing out a large number of youth from villages. They are forced to live in pathetic conditions in the periphery of big cities suffering intense exploitation and intimidation. 

Denying education – a threat that is real

The spectre of growing illiteracy is looming large over our nation. Number of “drop outs” and “out of school” children are steadily increasing.  Millions of poor families are forced to be in the mercy of education market. There is a deliberate attempt to kill public education system. Higher education sector is also under the grip of commercialization. Our education field is being increasingly dominated by  self-financing institutions, autonomous  colleges and private universities where youth belonging to the poor and middle class families have no place. Modi government’s policies are promoting this change of education sector as a preserve of the rich 

Social degeneration and communalism – using the youth as cannon fodder 

Violent communal and terrorist organisations have a free run under Modi Raj. We are witnessing innumerable acts of communal violence, police colluding with right-wing criminals, atrocities on Dalits and women, ‘honour killings’, increasing number of female foeticides and spread of obscurantist practices. 

Job divisions in Sangh Parivar is such that several BJP ministers in centre and various states, Parliament members, Party leaders etc. are specially  assigned to issue threats against minorities on a regular basis. Niranjan Jyoti, one of Modi’s ministers, who claims to be a saint (Sadhvi) hurls abuses at non-Hindus. ShivSena demands the word ‘Secular’ to be removed from the Constitution, its Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut wants voting rights of Muslims to be taken away. Sakshi Maharaj, BJP MP exhorts people to worship Nathuram Godse. 

Godse worship has become widespread among all sections of Hindutwa parivar. Those who dare to oppose RSS’s politics of hate are intimidated, assaulted and imprisoned. Pseudo-nationalists attacking true patriots branding them as ‘anti-national’ is the cruel joke of our times.

Unemployed youth are being deployed for criminal activities as Gaurakshak Sena and many such vigilante groups. Moral policing has become rampant. Youth is pushed to criminal activities in the name of ‘protecting culture’. When the case of  BJP’s chief Subhash Barla’s son stalking a woman returning from work came to light, another senior BJP leader of the state chose to blame the victim for travelling late in the night !  Such is the ideological climate under BJP rule.

The present ruling dispensation is hell-bent on spreading irrationality in every sphere. Under this regime, prestigious institutions like the Science Congress have become laughing stock with calls being given to rename gravitational waves as ‘Narendra Modi waves’. 

Our youth is deeply disturbed due to lack of educational opportunities and unemployment. Rightwing politics feeds irrationality and hate among such youth and turn them into violent carries of cruel ideas.  As a result, we are seeing steep increase in atrocities against women, minorities, Dalits, migrants from other states etc. Couples who chose their life-partners out of love have to die in the hands of such criminals. These criminals dictate dress codes and food habits and when to travel and where to go. Not only unemployment but lawlessness also is spreading like epidemic in cities and villages.  

Fight this social degeneration

In the fight against the menace of unemployment and growing criminality, the most immediate step is to dislodge the Modi government which is the fountainhead of this social degeneration. We must oppose, with all our might,  this politics of violence and hatred.  India belongs equally to its entire people regardless of social or religious background. We will uphold this principle at any cost. We will tirelessly alert the nation against perils of communalism and bring about a great upsurge of secular unity in the whole country. For patriotic youth who share Bhagat Singh’s vision for India, this is the most urgent task today.

We must bring the questions of education and employment back to the national agenda. The foremost political force that is committed to progressive socio-economic change is the Left. In these precarious times, increasing Left’s strength in Parliament is of utmost importance.

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