ON RISING UNEMPLOYMENT

The 17th Congress of CPI(M) expresses deep concern at the galloping rates of unemployment which is having a devastating effect on the lives of the people, on all sections of job seekers, men and women, educated or uneducated, skilled or unskilled, urban or rural. The path of "growth’ in the name of economic reform chosen by the Indian ruling classes encourages capital intensive industries which provide profits not jobs. This has led to growing inequalities and impoverishment among a vast section of the population. In the years of so-called economic reform even Government statistics admit that of a workforce of roughly 40 crores people 12 crores are unemployed. The Prime Minister Republic Day declaration three years ago that his Government would provide one crore jobs every year has been exposed to be a cruel mockery. The Government as the largest employer has not only implemented a virtual ban on recruitment but also is going in for a massive downsizing. At present there is 0 employment growth in the public sector, 0.11 per cent in the private sector and 0.04 per cent in the total organized sector, according to the Economic Survey. Women’s employment in the organized sector, which was already negligible, has been further cut and more and more women are being forced into the unorganised sector and home based industries where there are no protective legislations. Affected by Government policies, which favour big business and MNCs, over six lakh small industries have been caught in a vicious crisis leading to closures throwing lakhs of workers out of jobs. In Delhi, the capital of this country in the name of environmental protection thousands of industries have been closed down rendering around twelve lakh workers out of jobs. In the rural area with the Government cuts in expenditures on employment guarantee schemes abolition of food for work programme and a general decline in rural infrastructural expenditure there has been a big cut in work days with a decline in average numbers of work days both in agricultural as well as non-agricultural employment. This has led to a huge army of unemployed and underemployed workers, men, women young people. The 17th Congress of the CPI(M) notes with serious concern that the NDA Government led by BJP has given a new thrust to open up the agricultural sector to monopoly capital and foreign multinationals. The budget of 2002 boasts of this new "direction". It causes greater alarm because huge number of agricultural workers and poor and middle peasants are bound to be displaced and jobless without having any scope of viable alternative employment. It is not difficult to imagine the combined and cumulative effect of de-industrialization of urban areas and rapid industrial farming in rural areas, so far as employment is concerned. The crisis is all the more intense in the regions designated as "backward’ which have already suffered years of discrimination by successive Central Governments like the north east region and tribal dominated areas. In all these areas it is Government investment, which must be the engine of growth, but on the contrary the Government is retreating from even its minimum responsibilities of providing work. This has serious political implications as past experience has shown that the frustration of the youth when all channels of development are blocked for them are utilized by reactionary forces bent on dividing the nation. The educated unemployment has grown up phenomenally in the recent past. In this background and experience it is only too clear that the pattern of "jobless growth" being followed and the NDA policies of cutting jobs not creating jobs leading to widespread frustration among young people, can have the most disastrous political and social consequences. In this context, struggles for unemployment allowance as also the demand for the right to work as a fundamental right to be accepted as a constitutional right have an added urgency and significance. The 17th Congress of CPI (M) takes a pledge to fight the NDA government’s policies that generates only unemployment. This congress calls upon the entire party to take up the cause of the unemployed and organize struggles and actions to defeat the dangerous policies of the government and force them to retrace their steps so that employment generation becomes the focal point and main objective of all the economic programmes and policies undertaken by the government. In this regard a new dimension can be provided by organizing joint struggles with the unemployed youth and the workers who have lost their jobs and by all the mass organizations in co-operation with trade unions.