:: P.C. Alexander

Mobilise popular will to attack unemployment

P.C. Alexander

Feb.25 : In my previous article, Hunger for power discredits politicians (February 11), I had cited as examples the rebellion of three chief ministers — Kalyan Singh, Narayan Rane and K. Karunakaran — against their own parties and how other political parties had warmly welcomed them into their folds. Since writing the previous column, the Congress party has rescinded Narayan Rane’s suspension for indiscipline and he has rejoined as minister in the Maharashtra Cabinet. Further, a fourth former chief minister, S. Bangarappa of Karnataka, has announced his resignation from the Samajwadi Party and media reports say that he may rejoin the Congress very soon. If he does, this will be his fourth re-entry into the Congress. Such party-hopping when done by ordinary legislators does not shock people anymore as they have become used to this "Aya Ram Gaya Ram" culture of Indian politicians from the mid-60s of the last century. But when party-hopping has become common even among the top leaders of political parties like former chief ministers, ordinary people have begun to feel sceptical about the success of the parliamentary system of democracy whose basic requirement is a sound party system.

People’s misgivings about the parliamentary system in India have been aggravated because they find that these defections are motivated only by personal ambitions for power without any consideration for party principles or ideologies.

People are particularly getting disturbed at the fact that such changes of party labels are taking place at a time when senior leaders should have been actively involved in the task of preparing the nation to cope with the dangers of the ongoing global economic crisis which is right at our doorsteps now.

The whole world is passing through one of the greatest economic crises since the great depression of the early 30s of the last century and political leaders in the advanced countries of the West are exerting their maximum to prevent or limit the impact of the crisis on their economies. Unfortunately, this awareness of the seriousness of the economic crisis does not appear to have sunk deep into the thinking of the senior political class in our country for whom it is "business as usual" like engineering defections from other parties for adding a few seats more to their strength in Parliament.

Elections are, no doubt, an important concern of all political parties. But so should be the present global economic crisis.

Ever since we gained freedom we have been grappling with the problems of underdevelopment, but the important new factor to be taken into account at this juncture is the grave setback that some of these development programmes will encounter because of the global economic meltdown. The two most critical of such problems in India are unemployment and hunger.

Let us examine the special vulnerability of these two problems because of the fall out of the global economic meltdown. Even without a global economic crisis the employment situation in India had been quite worrying. It is obvious that the situation will become more worrying than ever before because of the global links it has acquired.

The US has been an important market for several labour-intensive products exported from India, and also for several advanced categories of highly skilled manpower. But with the alarming rate at which jobs are being lost in the US ever since the onslaught of the economic crisis started, India will not be able to evade its fall out.

Already 17,000 jobs were being lost every day in the US since the meltdown began and if this rate of loss intensifies, as it threatens to at present, the consequences on India can be disastrous. The fate of millions of Indian workers, both skilled and unskilled, in the Gulf countries is also becoming critical. It has been estimated that about three to five hundred thousand Indian workers may be back in India by the middle of 2009 because of loss of jobs.

The unemployment situation in most of the advanced countries of Europe is also fast getting out of control. Already demonstrations by unemployed British workers shouting slogans like "British jobs for British workers" have become regular scenes in the streets of London and other industrial centres in Britain.

Any large-scale addition to the ranks of the unemployed in India will have its unpleasant social and political repercussions.

The rate of layoff of labour in the manufacturing and services sectors of Indian economy may not be as large as it is in Western countries, but the pressing problem in India will be the handling of the unemployed returnees from abroad. India will have to be fully aware of the dangers inherent in such developments, and should be getting ready to handle them without causing avoidable tensions. But these issues seem to have been sidelined by political leaders because of their preoccupation with adding to their numbers in Parliament.

Equally important is the priority which alleviation of hunger should receive from the political leaders who are keeping themselves busy with the campaign for elections. People have the right to know the plans which political parties or coalition parties have prepared to handle the highly sensitive issue of the hunger of millions of the poor in our country. We appear to be not overly troubled at the distressing fact that India ranks 66th on the 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI) of 88 countries, according to a report recently released by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington. India’s hunger rate has no doubt fallen from 32.5 points in 1990 to 23.7 points in 2008, but the shameful fact is that we still have higher hunger rates compared with our poor neighbours in the region. For example, Pakistan with 21.7 points is in 61st place, Nepal with 20.6 points is at 57th place and Sri Lanka with 15 points is ranked 39th. All the progress India has made in fields like science, technology, manufacturing, services etc cannot compensate for the highly disturbing fact that India is in the list of 33 countries where hunger is a major threat.

The fall out of the global economic meltdown may reduce employment opportunities in the country and consequently increase the hunger rate. If this happens, any hope of our emerging as a developed country by 2020 may become an illusion. That is why issues like unemployment and hunger should engage the high priority attention of all political parties even at this stage of their involvement in the campaign for votes in the general elections. Postponing action on such issues till the elections are over, will be a highly shortsighted policy with disastrous results to the common people.

P.C. Alexander was former governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra