Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Sept 7, 2024

Behind all the glib talk of fast economic growth & India being in the big league as the 5th largest economy there is continued silence over an underlying social crisis that the Modi Government has no time for. Last week the media focused on a study based on official data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) that points to the continued rise of student suicides in India. Families of the lower middle class and the middle classes put enormous pressure on children and young adults to prepare well for competitive exams. Those who can afford to send their kids to coaching centres —which is a huge business but in the process subjecting students to mass regimentation & creating social anxiety among youth. Millions of young people prepare either for higher education streams or for competitive job entrance tests. Recently there have been scandals involving the national level entrance tests (NEET etc) and the National Testing Agency (NTA) which have seen the exam papers repeatedly stolen and leaked by the mafia at a price leading to cancellation of exams. All this has been creating social tensions among the youth in urban society. In February 2024, competing for 67,000 job openings in the Uttar Pradesh state police department were nearly 4.8 million jobseekers [1]. In July 2024 there was a near stampede at Mumbai airport where over 25,000 applicants turned up for 2,216 vacancies for airport loader posts at Air India [2] There is a massive unemployment problem in India, thousands already had lost jobs during the twin crisis of demonetisation, followed by COVID-19 that disrupted the economy that has still not recovered and a continued shortage of jobs has been affecting the young disproportionately, according to the India Employment Report 2024 [3], [4]. There are alarming reports from USA of illegal migrants from India entering the US via the US-Mexico border or from the Canada-US border. [5] Rural youth have been venturing out for recruitment opportunities offered by wars in Israel and Russia/Ukraine [6]India needs to create around 10 million jobs every year to keep its youth employed [7]. In the wider canvas of the past decade there is a deep social distress, we have seen umpteen reports from the countryside with a farmer or farm labourer committing suicide every hour [8]. India has been slipping down the Global Hinger Index [9] In 2022, 69 percent [10] deaths in Indian children under the age of five (around 3.38 million children) were [11] due to malnutrition and malnourishment. Mr Modi keeps making public claims that under his administration 800 million people are getting food rations [12] Beneath all this social slippage, there is rise of violence inside families and in society at large. Hundreds of thousands of women have dropped out of the national labour market. There is also an epidemic of violence against women and suicides by married women [13], [14]. All these issues need to be seen together — It is time for observers, political activists & scientists who are focused on the economy to look at the social price India is paying. While the opposition political forces in multiple states prepare to pose an electoral challenge to the ruling BJP, they must come up with wider alternatives to provide jobs, and welfare and challenge the social violence, going way beyond conventional solutions.

September 7, 2024 —HK