On Thursday 20 August, Rahul Gandhi, in a video broadcasted by ANI, proclaimed that in the last 70 years India has not confronted such phase where it was unable to provide employment to the youth and that in the foreseeable future India will have to go through it.
“India will not be able to provide employment to the youth. This is obvious. It has never happened in 70 years that our country is unable to give jobs to the youth.”
“The media made fun of me when I warned the country that there will be heavy loss due to COVID-19. If you don’t believe me, don’t listen to me. Today I am saying that our country won’t be able to give jobs. If you don’t agree then wait for six-seven months.”
He further claimed that this is due to the collapse of the unorganised sector.
“90% of employment is in the unorganised sector. Small industries, farmers… PM Modi destroyed the system. You will see companies fall one after the other. Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) will be destroyed after the moratorium period.” Earlier, Gandhi made numerous “constructive” statements rather than allegations on the actions of the government for the containment of the virus.
“On behalf of the citizens of India, I want to ask the Government, with utmost humility and in a completely non-partisan manner, what is the Government’s plan to tackle this growing crisis? It is now clear that 4 stages of the lockdown haven’t delivered the results that were anticipated. What is the Government’s Plan B?”
“At that time the Prime Minister had said the war against the Coronavirus would be won in 21 days. 60 days later, it is now clear that the lockdown has not been able to defeat the virus. The number of new cases in many areas around the country are increasing exponentially. Clearly the PM and his advisors had underestimated the scale of the battle India had to launch to defeat the Coronavirus,” he said.
Let us examine his facts and allegations about unemployment and fall of the unorganised sector-
Condition of the Unorganised sector-
The pandemic has crumbled even economies seeing exponential growth in the past years. The lockdown has manifold consequences on the farmers, shopkeepers, child labourers, artisans, etc.
Gandhi’s anticipation may be valid to some extent. At the beginning of lockdown, small traders and wage-labourers lost more than 90 million jobs in April 2020 compared to the 2019-20 average according to CMIE. The report also says that while hawkers will be able to get their wages, the salaried labourers will face a bigger predicament. The migration of labourers back to their villages has left them with no means of fetching wages for the time being and the proportion of such labourers is massive.
According to CMIE data, India’s rural unemployment rate soared to 25.09% in the week ended 24 May from 22.79% in the previous week. The rural unemployment rate of 25.09% is one of the highest since India imposed lockdown.
Moving on to MSME, Suvodeep Rakshit of Kotak Institutional Equities said that MSMEs were already battling — in aspects of waning revenues and capacity utilisation. According to a survey he conducted in May on small and medium firms, only 7% said that they will be able to survive for three months with the cash in their hand.
Unemployment – How damaged is the road?
During April, 122 million people lost their jobs due to lockdown- out of which 9.13 crore were from the trading and labour sector and 1.82 entrepreneurs were forced to close down their shops. The April rate of unemployment soared to all-time high 27.1% according to the data revealed by CMIE- but it is a relief that after its great de-escalation in April, employment shot up to 35.1℅ in July. However, the overall unemployment rate documented for August 18 was 8.20 per cent (30-day moving average), against 7.64 per cent at the start of the month on August 1, Centre of Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data revealed.
Unemployment has seen a rapid pace in India for the past years and the lockdown has inflated the situation.
As per the United Nations, the youth population (15-29 years) worldwide stands at 1.8 billion. Out of the total, every fifth dwells (20 per cent) in our country. (366 million) As per the ADB-ILO report, as many as 6.1 million youths in the age group 15-24 may lose their jobs if the containment of the virus takes six months.
In 2019, India’s unemployment rate doubled comparing to the prior two years affecting the young graduates chiefly. The report shows the unemployment rate has gone up from four per cent to 7.6 in the previous two years (2017-2019)
Even the countries with high employment rates have descended to the trail of unemployment. Although, the schemes implemented by the government may surge the employment rate to some extent the demonstrations by various surveys and reports show a distinct condition. This brings us to the question- if there are likelihoods of a possible surge in unemployment- why does the media relent in covering these issues? Since the beginning of the coronavirus proliferation in India, the opposition has alerted several times of a possible pandemic- but why is the opposition straightaway being ignored or criticized for questioning the workings of the government?
The Corona Virus is an extremely serious threat to our people and our economy. My sense is the government is not taking this threat seriously.
Timely action is critical.#coronavirus https://t.co/bspz4l1tFM
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) February 12, 2020
Death of Opposition- The making of “Pappu”
In the Lok Sabha election of 2014, Rahul Gandhi was fastened with the name “Pappu” – or the one who does not know anything. He addressed the Confederation of Indian Industries on April 3, 2013, in New Delhi- during that day the trending topic on twitter was #PappuCII- during the same year, Amit Shah referred to Rahul Gandhi as the Pappu politician. He said, “The Congress thinks the prime minister’s chair is Pappu’s birthright. But this is a democracy, you need people’s blessings, and people’s blessings are with Narendra Modi. We have declared our, PM candidate (Narendra Modi). Who will be the Congress candidate? Pappu? No, they won’t make Pappu their candidate as they are afraid of losing,”- and so with the blended efforts of the government and the BJP IT Cell the name Pappu has been affixed to Gandhi since then.
The Institute for Propaganda Analysis IPA defined propaganda as, “expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups deliberately designed to influence opinions or actions of other individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends.” Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda during the Nazi regime- one of the most successful and brutal propaganda in the history leading to the death of millions- accurately said, “A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” and to this day the quote remains true. Gandhi’s image has been contorted to an idiot political leader who babbles his way through politics.
The media has referred to Sonia Gandhi as ” Italy waali Sonia” and Rahul Gandhi as “the Mughal emperor” and innumerable times Rahul Gandhi “has exposed himself” – the media has distorted the image of opposition- telling the same thing day in and day out so one day it gets forged the way they want in the senses of the citizens. The daily biased perspective broadcasted by the media channels had led to the cessation of opposition in India’s democracy. Rahul Gandhi flashing on the headlines- must be another meaningless statement shared, that’s our initial impression right? And so, “the making of pappu with the birth of a saviour of the country led to the eventual death of opposition from the elections.”
We have already examined and meticulously studied each of his points and it is with zero scepticism that some of them are actually true. In a democracy, the role of the opposition is enormous. The NCERT book of Class 10 depicts the opposition party as “voicing different opinions and criticising the government for its failures or wrong policies”. The work of the opposition, in a legitimate democracy, is questioning the workings of the government- and that has been tagged with “anti-nationalism” these days. The media, political leaders, IT cell netizens, etc all of them point towards a single trail of going against the country whenever questioning the government. While the opposition did their work as well- naming the “Chowkidar” as “chor”, however, the demonstrations of a true server of the country with a corresponding anti-national fool has done its job quite well.
The collective psychology of propaganda affixed to the void of extreme and distorted notions of nationalism with the alteration in the meaning of democracy has led the citizens to “believe rather than knowing.” We have been pushed to the verge of a deep abyss where truth and lies are stirred together to formulate a world of irrationality and irrationals.
Quoting the man who wrote our National Anthem, “I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it,”- the actual responsibility of the citizens is to protect its country from the government and not the vice-versa.
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