By Devsagar Singh
The Cockroach Janata Party’s much awaited renewed protest of the Gen Z scheduled from today has been cancelled, thanks to judicial intervention, but the issues raised remain far from over. This has given hope to the Opposition parties that the BJP-led NDA government remains vulnerable .
Rahul Gandhi is leading the charge from the front and missing no opportunity to raise issues of the young people like examination reforms, unemployment and their overall well being in the absence of job opportunities while lakhs of graduates and post-graduates are coming out from colleges and universities every year. He has visited states like Rajasthan and Maharashtra recently and addressed the youth and students. He received enthusiastic response and the Congress party is said to be planning more such interactions across the country.
Apparently sensing the situation, the Prime Minister, the BJP managers and even the RSS chief have begun to address the Gen Z and the youth in recent weeks making it obvious that the young in the country will now on drive the agenda. In many ways, the Gen Z set the ball rolling at its Jantar Mantar rally in Delhi recently. The Government was upstaged in its calculation. It had to buckle under pressure by sacking the education minister . It also yielded on the issue of arrests during the Jantar Mantar protest. The agitation showed up in different form in Jharkhand where young people forced the JMM government to cancel job examination results for alleged corruption and malpractices.
Buoyed by its success, the CJP announced its resolve to take up the conditions of government primary schools across the country. It began to expose UP schools which rattled the state government. Rajasthan came next in line. Orders came out to bar entry of “outsiders” (read CJP workers) in primary school premises who had begun to videograph the utter lack of infrastructure in government primary schools and expose through social media.
By all accounts, the Government managers are hard put to control the barrage of social media attacks , specially after the Gen Z event in Delhi and subsequent developments. A you tuber and a non-descript news channel showed how kindergarten children came out in the street to protest against Government inaction over inadequate school infrastructure. It was a shocking sight to see a police constable carrying away a protesting child.
So, what does it all reveal? A desperate situation? If so, it may require a desperate remedy. To begin with, the authorities need to fix problems concerning the youth and the Gen Z. Primary and secondary schools need proper buildings, adequately qualified teachers and facilities like clean toilets and playground. Why does the Government need to give free ration to , as it claims, 80 per cent of the people? We are no longer a least developed country (LDC) in the UN format to qualify for doles.
Surly, the Government has got its priorities wrong. If it wants to genuinely make India a developed country by 2047, as it professes, it must take things in right earnest. PM Modi’s “Swatchha Bharat Abhiyan”, for example, achieved commendable results when the poor in the villages were given modest house with toilet. A similar movement is needed in case of government primary schools.
The other, and most important, agenda should be job creation at various levels—villages and smaller towns in particular— where majority of the moderately educated youth live. A country which boasts of surplus electricity can certainly create manufacturing jobs, like China, to satisfy the job seekers. Winning elections should not be the sole motive.
Devsagar Singh is a senior journalist