Explosive Unemployment And Rising Communal Violence in India
People waiting in line to submit a job application in India. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons
August 9, 2023
In April this year, 650,000 applied for 8,000 jobs in the police force in Maharashtra state. The police had to be called in to control thousands of applicants who gathered in Mumbai, the state capital. In 2018, 25 million applied for 90,000 positions – more than 250 applicants for each job - in the Indian Railways.
The odds of finding a job are far worse for the unskilled and lesser educated. Recently, for instance, over 8,000 youths applied for a single post of a messenger at a university in South India.
Nearly a quarter of Indians between the ages of 15 to 25, or more than 80 million, are unemployed, according to World Bank estimates. The age group accounts for more than 250 million people, or nearly one out of five among India’s 1.4 billion population.
Overall, more than 8% of India’s labor force is unemployed – nearly 10% in urban areas - according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private research firm based in Mumbai. Data issued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is rosier but is viewed “as outdated and inadequate,” according to Bloomberg.
Worse, India’s overall labor participation rate – the percentage of the population which is working or actively looking for work - is around 40%, down from 46% in 2016, as millions of people who could not find jobs have stopped looking for them. The labor participation rate in neighboring Bangladesh, which in the 1970’s was written off as a basket case facing economic disaster, is 59%.
The hidden unemployment is far more severe in the case of women in India: their labor partiipcation rate is 24%, down from 31% in 2000, according to The World Bank. Women in Saudi Arabia have a higher participation rate. In fact, the proportion of women in jobs or looking for jobs in India is among the 12 lowest in the World, similar to that in Afghanistan and Somalia.
Overall, including the hidden unemployment, more than 200 million are unemployed in India – roughly the entire population of Brazil. Mllions more are semi-employed, including in part time jobs as cooks and cleaners in middle-and upper-class homes.
The rising unemployment, as a Reuters report noted, underlines “the challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in providing millions of jobs.” It also has “the potential for social unrest,” as Bloomberg noted.
Indeed, the anger of the youths, over not finding jobs and being unable to support themselves and their families, has often boiled over into protests against Modi’s government. In June 2022, for instance, millions took part in protests across India after the government sought to reduce the length of service – from 17 years to four years - as well as the number of recruits for the army, navy, and air force. The defense department is one of the major employers, employing around three million Indians.
Protesters blocked highways and trains for days in many states. In north India, where many of the states are ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, protesters burned down some party offices.
Clearly the anger over rising unemployment poses a risk to Modi’s party being re-elected in the 2024 national parliamentary elections. Are there efforts underway to divert this anger, away from Modi’s government, towards inflaming hatred for people from other religions?
Last week, more than eight people were killed in Hindu Muslim clashes which broke out in a suburb of Delhi. “The violence erupted after a Hindu religious procession passed through the Muslim dominated Nuh region in Haryana state,” Reuters reported. A mosque was burned down, killing the cleric, and injuring another person. Several Muslim homes and businesses were bulldozed.
Last year, violence broke out between Hindus and Muslims in the states of Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, during celebrations of Hindu festivals.
“For many, the blame (for the clashes) has been directed at the ruling Hindu nationalist,” Bharatiya Janata party, led by Modi, The Guardian reported. The “BJP is accused of overseeing a religiously divisive agenda and emboldening hostility towards India’s 200 (million) Muslims.”
It is not just Muslims who are facing attacks from Hindu nationalists. Since March, continuing violent clashes between Hindus and Christians have claimed more than 180 lives in Manipur, a state in India’s northeast; more than 250 churches have been burned down.
The clashes in Manipur, which is ruled by Modi’s party, are clearly linked to the issue of rising unemployment and lack of jobs. They were triggered when the Meities, who are mostly Hindus, were to be given Scheduled Tribe status.
The Meiteis account for slightly more than half of the state’s 3.7 million population. They seek Scheduled Tribe status in order to qualify for government jobs and jobs at government-run institutions, including banks and insurance companies, as well as seats in medical, engineering, and other educational institutions, which are reserved for tribals.
Since the number of jobs reserved for Scheduled Tribes is fixed at 7%, granting tribal status to the Meitei would mean fewer jobs and education seats for Kukis, Nagas and other tribals who currently qualify for such reservations. The Kukis, 90% of whom are Christians, and other tribes account for roughly 40% of Manipur’s population.
India’s young population, with half being under the age of 25, is viewed as a favorable demographic dividend by Indian officials and some Western analysts. But even the United Nation’s Population Fund, which says India may be able to “convert the potential demographic dividend into economic benefit,” acknowledges that for most Indians finding a job and earning a living wage is the major anxiety.
Meanwhile, rising anger over India’s exploding unemployment is apparently being diverted from political change to violent hatred of other religions.
FOR MORE UNIQUE STORIES ON INDIANS AND INDIA:
For access to stories each week email: gitimescontact@gmail.com
or follow via LINKEDIN or TWITTER or FACEBOOK
(c) All rights reserved. Copyright under United States Laws
