A significant impact of the global crisis caused by COVID19 pandemic is the loss of employment and, as a result, loss of livelihood to several million people. India is no alien to this hardship. The serious levels of unemployment, which was existing even before the pandemic, started to soar to alarming levels.
But beyond the statistics about jobs and livelihood, which are provided pathetic attention even in the national media, the stories of sufferings have been insufficiently reported almost everywhere. Hoping to bring these out more intensely, Democratic Youth Federation of India, Tamil Nadu started a campaign titled “Jobs in Crisis”. It launched a website asking people suffering from a loss of jobs and livelihood to tell their stories. State Secretary S.Bala remarked that the website is part of the ongoing efforts by the mass front to unite people and youth, especially in unorganised sectors and informal jobs within organised sectors. He said, “For several years DYFI has been in the forefront in struggles for jobs and livelihood. DYFI led a massive protests in 2019 seeking jobs and relief for 5 lakh people who were left straded due to shutting down of MSMEs because of demonetization and GST. Recently DYFI strongly protested against TN government policy to increase retirement age to 59 and depriving youth of jobs. This website will also help further in making people in power lend their ears to people’s sufferings”.
“Heart-wrenching” is an understatement to describe the responses from the campaign.
Youth and Educated Tormented
The stories of respondents reveal a picture of a bleak future facing the youth of the nation. A single sentence by a young graduate rips through this rotten system. The youth said, “The dream of my father, who gave be education hoping the toils of street-side business would end with him, have been shattered”. Such is the State of young talents in our country. Several young workers, who were hoping to provide their parents a happy retired life and take over the family responsibilities, are facing monthly expenses, bills, and EMIs with no job or significantly reduced salaries. Of the people who conveyed that they had contemplated suicide, over 90% were below 30 years of age.
A respondent brilliantly laid bare the cruel face of the Capitalist system. The response conveys how companies are firing a part of their employees to make the rest work extremely hard for more than 12 hours a day by dumping all the burdens on them and asks how anyone could hope to find a job in this situation. Having been laid off from IT firms, factories being shut down, forced to toil mentally and physically for inhuman hours, they are finding no hope for a happy future
Vanishing Income, Rising Expenses and Poverty
Each and every respondent was facing an unprecedented situation as their incomes have almost vanished, dipping into their savings, which too, in most cases, was emptied very soon. But the expenses haven’t diminished. Most families are burdened with house rent, which takes up a considerable portion of their income. Many were frustrated that the moratorium on loans announced by the government and RBI was hardly of any use, as they were constantly badgered by every institution to pay back their interest and loans. The extreme harassment by microfinance institutions in TN led to AIDWA and DYFI holding a massive campaign demanding the state government to put an end to such atrocities.
Chennai, while having a relatively larger percentage of the population utilising public transport, suffered through a very long haul of its non-availability. The criminal action of Modi government to increase the excise duty on fuel at a time when international crude oil prices have hit historic lows, which has resulted in an increased price of petrol and diesel, has severely affected the masses who are now forced to use private vehicles, since a majority of their meagre income is being spent on fuel costs. The recent massive strike by food delivery workers, with Chennai as its locus point, is a result of a series of assault on them by the Central government, which has increased their fuel cost, and the companies, which have reduced their wages. This rage was clearly visible in the responses.
Several people reported “Poverty” as a serious problem they are facing. The stories of struggle to find even the next meal is sure to melt even stones. Over 80% of respondents were earning less than Rs.30,000 a month, with 20% earning less than Rs. 10,000. The fear of being pushed back to “lower class” after hard-fought mobility to “middle class” was looming over most households. A taxi driver said, “after taking everyone to the safety of their homes, my livelihood is in a precarious situation now”. At the same time, a wage worked felt extreme pain when he said, “It appears that Coronavirus is here to stay for at least five more months, but we are not sure if we will”. Being squeezed by the ruthless system, almost every single respondent has been pushed into a state of extreme depression.
Women, Children and Elderly Suffer
Women, children and elderly have been severely affected. Several families were unable to meet the medical needs of pregnant women and elderly people. Moreover, the very fact that there is a pregnant woman or elderly person or a child in the house instils fear to go out and seek a job and income during the pandemic.
Working women were extremely frustrated by the state response to the pandemic. A single mother from Madurai raising three children said, “The government talks about ways to stay safe, but not about ways to stay alive. How can we cope with Rs.1000 for four months?”, pointing to the poor relief response of the government. Many other people, especially women, were enraged by how the government took away even the meagre amount of Rs.1000 by opening liquor stores, while even necessities like schools are remaining shut. Teaching staffs complained how the society and government term their work as a “noble profession” but does nothing to assist them, as private schools are not paying them properly while continuing to extort high fees from parents. A faculty in a private engineering college in Chennai revealed how she was betrayed by her college by not paying her salary, about the similar situation in all institutions across TN, and government’s blind eye towards these crimes. Several working men reported that their family is running only with the income from the daily wage work by their wives, who are toiling at their jobs.
Small Businesses’ Large Troubles
MSMEs are claimed to be the backbone of the economy, as they employ one-fourth of the workforce and contribute to almost one-third of the GDP. But the entrepreneurs of the country feel thoroughly betrayed by the State and society. A youth belonging to a group of innovative entrepreneurs told the shocking story of how his partner committed suicide during the lockdown, and angrily pointed out how the system is not for such small margin business but only for “moneyed-crocodiles”.
The government, without addressing the problem of lack of demand in the economy, simply announced a grand loan scheme of Rs.3 lakh crore, as part of their relief. Only 6% of the MSMEs in the country have availed the loan. This shows that small businesses are finding no way to stand back on their feet.
The fact that less than 25% of the MSMEs in the country are utilising at least half their capacity talks of much deeper problems faced by both MSME owners and workers. One of the respondents, who works at a small-scale factory, vividly explained the situation of MSMEs. He said that since the operations of MSMEs are small, while simultaneously facing constant expenses like rent, electricity, etc., the disruption in operations have completely forced several businesses to go down, which has severely affected workers and owners alike. Owner of a small shop rued that he has no idea why he is still running the business, as his income is meagre after paying the employees, while the expenses are incredibly high.
The proper response from the government to support such an important sector would have been to revive demand through an urban employment scheme and support small businesses by meeting their fixed expenses. But the government let these MSMEs to fend for themselves by merely announcing a loan scheme at a time when purchasing power has plummeted in the economy.
Tip of the iceberg
These are only a few stories from a large set of responses. ~120 million people lost jobs at the peak of lockdown in April and May. Post relaxation of the lockdown, the country saw a sharp drop in unemployment rates, primarily driven by informal sector jobs and sowing season in agriculture in several parts of the country. But today, we arrive at a situation where the unemployment rates are again seeing an increasing trend, especially among the salaried class, where ~2 crore people are yet to find jobs, with ~5 million losing their jobs in the most recent month. Dwindling agricultural jobs and re-migration of workers to cities are ringing alarm bells in the informal sector too.
But through all these terrible hardships and precarious livelihood situation of several hundred millions of people, the Modi government has failed to do even the bare minimum to assist the population. Hardly sufficient cash transfers, poor distribution of cereals and pulses despite sitting on top of massive reserves in its godowns, a meagre additional allocation for rural employment scheme, to state a few of the failings of the Indian State. The people have faced unspeakable sufferings.
The state of TN alone has crores and crores of such stories of pain and agony. But there is no hope in sight for these sufferers. BJP-RSS in TN is busier stoking communal tensions in the state, rather than forcing their government at the centre to provide proper relief and funds to the state governments. The centre, too, is happy to see its cronies climb up the ladder of “richest people in the world”, rather than worry about its poorest citizens.
There is no reason to expect a government headed by fascistic organisations to take pity from these stories of extreme pain. But it will definitely move the common masses. It is the responsibility of the left and democratic forces to bring these stories to the people of the country and unite them against the anti-people agenda of the State. DYFI has taken a crucial step on this front. We can be sure that a massive people’s uprising is definitely on the horizon.
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