E-Paper
In east UP, unemployment woes linger in the air
Uttar Pradesh assembly election 2022: Across Uttar Pradesh, from urban centres such as Prayagraj and Varanasi to smaller districts such as Chandauli and Mirzapur, there is a significant narrative on the ground that the BJP has not done enough on employment and filling up government vacancies.
PRAYAGRAJ/CHANDAULI/VARANASI: In the cramped lanes of Baghara, live dreams. Nearly every building has room after claustrophobic room, where young students live and study cloistered together, in the hope they will find work, and perhaps move to a big city. Every inch of wall has the poster of a commerce training institute, or English-speaking classes, or a public services coaching centre or a digital library, that are meant to facilitate an escape from a life lived in relative penury.
Its narrow lanes, just across a railway line that cuts through the heart of Prayagraj, have small eateries that sell lunch and dinner for as little as ₹20. At each of these eateries is a gaggle of young men and women, bags slung across their shoulders, carrying the weight of their aspirations. Rahul Mishra is one such. But he is not going to class. He is going home to Gorakhpur to vote, and in his mind, there is a lesson the incumbent government must learn.
On the morning of January 26, Mishra was in his paying-guest private hostel in Baghara, studying with a group of six others. Mishra knew of the protests that had erupted a day earlier, revolving around irregularities in recruitment of the Railway Recruitment Board, but he had not participated. RRB was one of the few examinations he had not taken part in, his focus either the UPSC or the state PSC. Still, he knew of them, and he sympathised. “Suddenly, I began to hear screams. We saw police on the streets running after students. And then they started entering the paying guest hostels. I can still hear the glass breaking, the doors being kicked off their hinges. First, there are no jobs. Then, they mess up the recruitment process. Then, they attack students. I am a BJP supporter. But they kicked our dreams. We need to show that there are costs to this,” Mishra said.
But it’ s not just the police action in Prayagraj. Across Uttar Pradesh, from urban centres such as Prayagraj and Varanasi to smaller districts such as Chandauli and Mirzapur, there is a significant narrative on the ground that the BJP has not done enough on employment and filling up government vacancies, which is emerging as a key talking point for the Opposition. India’s latest official jobs survey — the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted in 2019-20 — covers the 12 months up to June 2020 (the first lockdown). Just before the pandemic, the labour market in Uttar Pradesh was affected by a lack of good quality jobs in comparison with other states, PLFS 2018-19 data suggests. While the unemployment rate (18.8%) in the 15-24 age group in the state was definitely much higher than the state on average (5.7%), this is the trend throughout the country. The state’s unemployment rate for the youth was 16th highest among 21 major states and overall rate 11th highest. However, among those employed, only 15.7% overall, and 16.9% in the 15-24 age group, had regular jobs. These are the 4th and 5th lowest shares of regular workers among 21 major states.
Just outside the town of Mughalsarai in Chandauli district, it is 5pm and 20-year-old Satish Chauhan’s faded sleeveless blue jersey is drenched with sweat. Mughalsarai is noisy and its roads are full of the cacophony of small-town traffic. But Chauhan will not stop until he has run 10km, weaving past it all. The jersey is old, and has the word “India” fading in the front. At the back, it says “Gagan Ajit Singh”, the striker who played for India in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The shirt is clearly a hand-me-down. His elder brother, a postman, loved hockey, he says. What he loves about it is that it says “India”. Chauhan is running both as practice and to vent anger. All his life, he has wanted to be a soldier in the Indian Army, and time is running out. On his phone, on a WhatsApp group of similarly minded friends called “Live for India, Die for India”, is a video which shows protesters shouting slogans about the delay in army recruitment in front of defence minister Rajnath Singh at a rally in Gonda. “Look at what mantriji says in response. Hogi hogi, chinta na karo. Arre kaise nahi kare chinta? My dream has been to join the army. They said they cancelled the last recruitment in October because of Covid. But everything else has opened, schools, colleges, markets. In their election rallies, thousands come. There is no Covid there? In one year, I turn 21, and I will not be able to apply for general duty soldier. It makes me so angry,” Chauhan, who is from the Nonia caste, says.
About 20km away, Chetan Kumar is standing in the middle of an altogether different kind of traffic. His golgappa stand is right outside the gates of the Banaras Hindu University. Even at 8.30pm, there is the hum of a busy urban marketplace with glass shopping complexes and restaurants, chaotic traffic, and cavorting families. The 24-year-old Dalit is seething at the government and, unusually, Covid is a factor in his election choice. Just not in the conventional sense. “Covid, Covid, Covid, kya hai Covid? This government brought a lockdown. The panchayat elections happened, these elections happened, big people kept their shops open, but the poor like me got kicked on the roads every day. I am from Gonda, and have done a masters degree in political science. But for two years, I got no work, and my family is poor. So I came here to set up shop. But in these two years, the government has only taken away my earnings, nothing else,” he says.
Barely 50 metres away from him, a 22-year-old Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) worker is leaning on a motorcycle in a different world. He is parked just inside the gates of the Banaras Hindu University, where the volume of the city drops and the university is an oasis of calm, trees lining both sides of the road, students taking a night stroll. The ABVP man, whose father is a chartered accountant in the city, is in a group of six young students, all between 18 and 23, each a student of BHU, and each critical of the lack of employment opportunities. There are many things he is proud of, and he reels off the governments achievements, from the Kashi Vishwanath temple to the Meerut and Purvanchal Expressways. “Lekin naukri pe hum bhi kuch defend nahi kar paate hai. Forget these students, my family asks me what my plans are after studying management here, and I don’t know what to tell them. I am very happy that Varanasi and Ayodhya are being developed, and more tourism and more jobs will come in the future. But right now, what job is available in Varanasi? Or in Lucknow? I joined the ABVP right out of school, and I am proud of the BJP. But I can see the doubt in the eyes of my peers now. The government has to focus on the economy and jobs. Even if the BJP wins UP, it cannot be complacent. An angry youth is not a good ingredient for 2022, or 2024,” he says.
