As the country was celebrating its 75th Republic day, close to the capital, violent protests were witnessed in the state of UP and Bihar, videos of trains being burnt and then cops beating the students was viral, none of the above can be justified. The media and the government called these protestors anti-nationals. As usual, all the protests against the government, be it the CAANRC, the farmers, the doctors, and now the student protestors, are all anti-nationals, and if the trend continues nobody will come out to air their grievances as they will be labeled anti-national, just a reminder that it is our constitution which gives us the right for peaceful protests. So where is the problem? It is, “Unemployment is at its peak”. Imagine 1.25 crore people, applied for 35,000 jobs from all over the country, the protests were going on for 3 days before the violence, and the government had sufficient time to speak to them as the entire issue has many unanswered questions, and yes just to inform all that the 1.25 crore aspirants have paid Rs 500 for answering the test, which is now scrapped, and the majority of these could not afford the Rs 500 for the test. As usual, Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw did order for an inquiry after the violence and also scrapped the exams, but the catch is, the inquiry committee does not have any student leader in them and the students feel it is a ploy to postpone the issue till the UP elections are over. By now we are all aware that unemployment is at its peak, so where are the Jobs? Were there any initiatives? Yes, we did see some initiatives like Make in India, Start-up India, and many other such ideas but the end result is in front of us, they failed miserably. The government tried hard to convince us by investing crores of rupees in advertisements, but the reality was in contrast. Illogical and hasty decisions like demonetisation, wrong GST and MSMEs, handling the economic aspect of Covid, have all led us to this day today. This year’s budget also reduced MGNREGA by 25%, which when started had assured people of a minimum of 100 days of jobs, in fact, the budget allocated now would be exhausted in 16 days if all active job card holders were to be employed. It is time for us to empathise with these young educated unemployed youth. It is time for us to empathise with the parents who have spent a fortune on their children’s education with a simple dream of seeing their children at a decent job. It is time for us to empathise with all these aspirants who have been brutally beaten by the cops for they tried their best before resorting to violent means to tell the authorities that they want justice. It is time for us to empathise with the students who have answered the exams and waited for more than 2 years for the results, it is time for us to empathise with the all the educated children of our country who are looking for a decent job and are not able to get it in spite of putting in their best efforts. Yes, let’s not be sympathetic towards them but be empathetic.
