Thousands of youth converge in National Capital to protest lack of jobs

Agitators are associated with dozens of students' unions and youth organisations, including those affiliated to opposition parties; will take out the 'Young India Adhikar March' from Delhi's Red Fort

Office goers in Delhi were intrigued by traffic jams in the central parts of the city on Wednesday morning. But much bigger traffic snarls are on the anvil on Thursday. An estimated 30,000 young men and women from across the country have converged in the National Capital to protest lack of jobs.

The youngters, associated with dozens of students’ unions and youth organisations, including those affiliated to opposition parties, will take out the ‘Young India Adhikar March’ from Delhi’s Red Fort to Jantar Mantar on Thursday. The protesters have invited Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal to the march. The agitators have said they will reserve a chair for Goyal at the protest site at Jantar Mantar, since Jaitley is currently convalescing in New York.

One of them will be Ashish Mishra, who had famously protested in front of Railway Minister Goyal in Lucknow on November 16. Mishra, general secretary of the All-India Act Apprentice Association, raised slogans for the “injustice” meted out to railway apprentices and rolled in front of the minister’s car before being bundled out by the police. Video clips of his protest went viral on social media.

Mishra and his associates said as many as 3,000 of the estimated 17,000 unemployed railway apprentices will join Thursday’s march. They have also asked Jaitley to take note of the protest march. “Jaitley ji recently said the country would have witnessed protests and chaos if joblessness was such a severe crisis. We would want to tell him that our small outfit has a few major protests in the last two years, apart from several minor protests,” Bharat Pardeshi, a youth from Maharashtra, said. These included the protest in Mumbai on March 12, 2018, where these apprentices brought the city to a standstill for several hours.

The Association has demanded the Railway Ministry induct all those who have apprenticed with it since 2012. In 2016, the Railways decided that it would reserve only 20 per cent of its jobs for those who have apprenticed with it, while the rest can try their luck in the open market. Until 2012, all apprentices were inducted, but first the Congress-led UPA and, subsequently, the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre changed rules, asking the rest to find jobs in the private sector. “It isn’t as if private sector runs railway networks. Where are we supposed to find jobs in the private sector? Our skills are useless there,” said association president Chandan Paswan.

On Friday, Jaitley had tweeted: “If there is no job creation, as alleged, there should have logically been a great social unrest in the country. Past five years have passed off without a single major protest movement.” The protesters have made a list of demonstrations and protests that have taken place on the issue of joblessness in the country in the last few years. They have also put together an online data dashboard on government figures, as well those released by the CMIE and draft National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), on joblessness. The NSSO report has revealed India’s unemployment rate to have hit a 45-year high in 2017-18.