India’s rulers boast of the period of ‘9% growth rate’ in the decade of the 2000s. But the facts show that this phenomenal ‘growth’ was jobless growth!

One out of every three graduates in the age group 15-29 years were unemployed (source: Report on ‘Youth employment- unemployment scenario,2012-132 , by Labour Bureau of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Govt of India.

Of the 15 lakh engineering graduates India produces every year, 20-30% of them do not find jobs and many other get jobs well below their technical qualification. The share of agriculture in total employment shrank from 57% to 53% over this period, 1.5 crore workers were forced to migrate to cities for work. But what ‘work’ did these workers find? The manufacturing sector shed 50 lakh jobs, while the services sector employed just 35 lakh workers during this period. So, the only ‘work’ available was casual, informal work!

Today the unorganised or the informal sector account for more than 90 per cent of the workforce in the country and almost 50 per cent of the national income evolves from this sector (Report of the Committee on Unorganised Sector Statistics, National Statistical Commission, Feb., 2012). As per the NSSO data, in 2011-12, unorganised sector accounted for 83% of the employment, with organised sector accounting for the rest 17%. However, even within this small proportion of employment in the organised sector, 55% was of informal nature! In fact, formal employment in the organised sector decreased from 52% in 2004-05 decreased to 45 % 2011-12. On the whole, in 2011-12, of the total employment (in organised and unorganised sector), 92% was informal employment.

In short, the entire phase of neo-liberal policies not only saw rising unemployment, it was also a phase of informalisation of employment that is associated with no job-security, violations of wages and rights, poverty and inequity.

In May 2014, Modi was swept to power on the wave of youth anger against growing unemployment. The BJP promised to ‘revive’ and ‘reform’ the economy and create ‘skills’ and jobs. But instead, the Modi Government has begun its innings with an all-out offensive on the availability of stable, dignified employment.

Let us take stock of the Modi government’s specific policies over the past one year:

• CSAT in UPSC: One of the first things the Modi government did on assuming power was to brutally crackdown on students and youth who were protesting against the discriminatory CSAT pattern in the UPSC exam. The CSAT is clearly discriminatory to candidates from the social sciences and the humanities; it tilts the balance in favour of candidates from engineering, management, and urban English-speaking backgrounds. Despite huge protests, the Modi government has refused to roll-back CSAT.

The real agenda behind this move needs to be underlined. Today, the govt no longer wants to even pretend to promote public welfare, rather it has openly refashioned itself as an aggressive promoter of corporate interests. To fulfil this task in an unhindered manner, the govt. wants to change the composition and attitude of the bureaucracy as well. The calculation is to bar students from underprivileged sections and social science-humanities training from entering bureaucracy, so that bureaucracy is ‘cleansed’ of any semblance of social concerns and social sensitivity. The govt. wants to restructure bureaucracy in a manner so that there are only technocrats, who by background and training, will be instinctually prone to act as pliant, obedient arms of corporate lobbies and anti-people govt policies, without raising any critical concerns, without any ‘aberrant prick of conscience’ for poor and common people.

• Cutting down jobs in the banking sector: A 10% cap was introduced in the waiting list of the IBPS exam, thus reducing employment options in the banking sector.

• Attempts to close down ESIC hospitals: The government tried to close down publicly funded 13 ESIC-hospitals; this would have rendered a huge number of employees and doctors jobless. This move was stalled only after the spirited protests of students and youth from across the country.

• Cutting jobs in CSIR: In CSIR too, the government reneged on its own promises, cutting jobs and leaving several qualified research scientists in the lurch. 250 CSIR Trainee Scientists were shunted out and denied appointment as Scientists despite the fact that they fulfilled the eligibility criteria specified by CSIR for appointments.

• Massive retrenchments in the IT sector: In the private sector too, retrenchments are rampant. An estimated 30,000 people were laid off by the software company TCS in 2014-15. Earlier in 2014, IBM had started the spate of retrenchments. Now, Wipro is following suit and has announced that it could reduce its workforce by a whopping 47,000 over the next three years.

• Amendments to the Apprentice Act: One of the first legislations of the Modi government was to amend the Apprentice Act, to create exploitative conditions for young people who are apprentices in industrial units. The amendments in this Act will now allow the corporate employers TO DECIDE AT THEIR WILL the hours of work, overtime, leave and holidays for the apprentices! Earlier, employers had to adhere to certain laws and regulations on hours of work – they have now been given a free hand to exploit apprentices as they wish. The employers have also been provided with the right to deny employment to the trainees after their training is complete! Moreover, the amendments also REMOVES the provision wherein employers can be imprisoned for committing offences. These amendments basically allow the employers to under-pay and over-work young apprentices denied of any provision of recourse.

• ‘Self-Certification’ for Employers – Removing Safeguards against Labour Rights Violations: We have noted above that 92% of employment today is of informal nature with unorganised sector dominating the scene. It is a common experience, how in this vast privatised, informal job market, contract workers are routinely denied of minimum wages, PF/ESI dues, overtime allowances, mandated leaves and workplace safety. Far from stopping this rampant theft and violations by the employers, the Modi govt. is changing the law to them legal impunity for all these violations. Modi has announced that labour departments will no longer ‘inspect’ whether the employers are complying with labour laws. Instead, the employers will just be asked to ‘self-certify’ themselves – i.e. to declare that ‘they are following laws’! Can there be anything more brazen and outrageous than this? In a single stroke, Modi govt. is snatching away whatever little legal safeguards the workers had and thus assuring the corrupt and exploitative employers to go ahead with their violations with full impunity.

Thus on the front of employment, the govt. game-plan is all too clear: systematic dismantling of all existing avenues of dignified stable employment and giving the corporates a free hand to exploit labour cheap and make massive profits through greater casualisation, contractualisation and removal of whatever little legal safeguards existed for protecting workers’ rights and security.

In the field of education too, the same formula is being followed. Various governments have been washing their hands off their primary responsibility to provide quality and equitable education to all.

• Massive fund cut in education: Compared to 2014-15, in the 2015-16 budget, allocations for school education and higher education have been cut by 23% and 8% respectively. The Government claims to have no funds for education – but clearly, it has lakhs of crores to subsidise Adanis and the Ambanis!

• A slew of shoddy policies like FYUP, CBCS, Central Univ Act, RUSA etc. are being imposed to downgrade public funded education and promote crass commercialisation.

• WTO diktats-Signing away people’s right to universal quality education: In the upcoming 10th WTO Ministerial Meet of Dec 2015, the Modi govt is all set to make ‘binding commitment’ to make education a ‘tradeable ‘ commodity, which will further bolster the global and local ‘traders’ in education and spell doom for equitable, quality education for all.

• Burgeoning Private Higher Education Institutes-Shocking State of Lawlessness, Quality and Repression of Democracy: Private coaching centres, colleges and universities, medical, engineering and management institutes are mushrooming all over, without any accountability or regulation for infrastructure and quality, fees and student enrolment, faculty recruitment and their salary. Effectively reserved for only those who can pay exorbitant fees, none of these institutions adhere to any reservations policy for students and teachers from deprived backgrounds. And most shockingly, both the students and the teachers in these private institutes are subjected to all forms of undemocratic rules and restrictions with no democratic space, no right to form associations or unions, to air their views or defend their rights.

Addressing the so-called ‘investors’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Vibrant Gujarat summit in January 2015: “Ease of doing business in India is a prime concern for you and us.  Why make in India?… India offers you low cost, high quality labour.”

Mr Modi, why should ‘high quality’ labour be ‘low cost’? In order to ensure that MNCs can make profits in India, why are you diluting labour laws to ensure that Indian workers can be ill-paid and exploited?

Why expensive, unaffordable education for India’s students, but cheap labour for corporates and MNCs? Why should Indian youth be condemned to spend their lives between joblessness and ill-paid, exploitative jobs?

The need of the hour is to build a resistance to these assaults, and to demand our inalienable rights to equitable, quality education and employment with dignity for all.

See Also: Uphold Academic Autonomy, Reject Commercialisation of Education