No kudos is enough for Freddy Dias for his timely article, “India reeling under severe epidemic of joblessness” (Herald, August 6, 2016). It is a fact that India’s unemployment problem has, actually, been growing since the advent of liberalization of economy which is a blue-eyed boy for both UPA and NDA governments. Thanks to this policy, 2011 census has witnessed a phenomenal 5 per cent increase (23 to 28) in just 10 years in the number of households with unemployed members. Since India has started following the model of capitalism in its very primitive stage, in the name of liberalization of economy, without ensuring social security for her citizens, this is bound to happen.
But we must not forget that this kind of barbaric capitalism has, totally, been discarded by the countries in North America, Europe and Down Under. They have promoted themselves from police states to welfare states and are giving top priority to human development. Capitalism has completed a full circle after its birth in those countries. A welfare state which ensures freedom of an individual as well as guarantees his or her social security is a synthesis of the thesis of capitalism and antithesis of socialism.
The disinvestment policy and the policy of gifting the education and health sectors to the private players without meaningful control negate the concept of welfare state as they cause unemployment and robbing of one’s social security. The employment to population ratio is a clear indicator of what is the general outcome of our liberalization policy. While employment to population ratio was 58.6 per cent in 1994, it has, alarmingly, come down to 52.2 per cent in 2013.
The liberalization policy helps carry coal to Newcastle leaving suicide door open for the unemployed who have, now, become almost half of the employable persons in our country. Unemployed receive a handsome allowance from the state in the countries like the United States of America but there is no such security in India although protection of life (Article 21) is a fundamental right and right to work (Article-41) is a directive principle in our constitution. India needs to review her policy of liberal lopsided malignant growth that has catapulted her to the seventh rank in the list of top wealthiest countries in the world leaving the average Indian quite poor on per capita basis (New World Wealth Report).
While the richest 10 per cent of our population has 76.3 per cent of nation’s wealth, the poorest half is reeling with a meagre 4.1 per cent. The sucking of the blood of our labour force by the much pampered, blue-eyed market players has come to such a pass that it has trapped 18.35 million Indians as slaves (Global Slavery Index, 2016) and 10.2 million child workers that tells the tale of gross human rights violation. Not only does the astronomical number of child labour result in uneducated and unskilled future labour force but it also blocks employment to employable persons. It is a constitutional duty of the government to take the humane path of inclusive growth that can make our country a welfare state and promote industries like tourism that requires labour-intensive technology.
