The Congress party has announced five major policy proposals to tackle youth unemployment when it comes to power. Described as Yuva Nyay Guarantees, these include a clear timeline to fill vacant posts in the central government; a right to apprenticeship, gig workers’ social security, a startup fund, and curbing exam paper leaks. The party has also announced that it will scrap the Agniveer Scheme, a four-year tour of duty contract for soldiers in the Indian Army.
With this array of promises and guarantees, the Congress has reclaimed its ‘guarantee’ space that the BJP has tried to appropriate. Congress guarantees draw upon the guarantees promised in Karnataka, Telangana and Rajasthan. Most of them were legal guarantees quite different from BJP guarantees, which are more in the nature of commitments and assurances. While constantly mocking Congress guarantee schemes in the run-up to the state elections claiming that it would bankrupt the exchequer, the BJP was quick to embrace the word guarantee after the Congress won the Karnataka elections. Congress guarantees contributed, at least partially, to its victory in Karnataka and also in Telangana. The BJP started using the term guarantee after that.
The context for these proposals is the underwhelming economic performance of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government marked by its stark failure to address two related challenges. The first is the unequal distribution of the benefits of rapid economic growth, which have accrued predominantly to the top 10% to 20% of income earners, and as a result, economic inequality, has shown an alarming increase. The second challenge is high unemployment, which reached a 45-year high in 2017. According to the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE), India’s youth unemployment rate was 45.4% for 2022-23, six times higher than the country’s overall unemployment rate of 7.5%. The National Sample Survey Organisation’s Periodic Labour Force Survey for July–September 2023 showed that the unemployment rate for youth in urban India was 17.3%, three times higher than the official overall unemployment rate of 6.6%.
Congress foregrounds unemployment and livelihood issues
Congress proposals acknowledge the centrality of unemployment and joblessness.
This issue has figured prominently in the second leg of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra. Given its timing and given its emphasis on Nyaya (justice), the Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra would be assessed for its attempts to respond to specific political issues, and not just abstract rhetoric. The announcement of five guarantees is a step in that direction. The idea seems to be that governments can improve conditions of life and work for their citizens by providing employment and public services, which too can generate employment, and not just by simply distributing cash and rations.
On 17 September Youth gathered to celebrate the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as ‘National Unemployment Day’ in a manner of protest against wrong policies of government, unemployment and contract system in jobs. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Prajjwal3959/CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED
It is clear that the central ideological plank of the Congress for the 2024 elections is social justice. While the Bharat Jodo Yatra raised the issues of political authoritarianism and socio-economic discrimination, its second edition, the Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra is geared to achieve the constitutional ideals of political, social and economic justice. Political justice entails promoting the constitutional values of dignity and respect for all Indians; social justice involves participation of marginalised sections in decision-making, unity and harmony); and economic justice entails a job for every Indian youth, and ending inequality. These are the key planks of this effort.
Pehli Naukri Pakki (first job guaranteed) which is the right to apprenticeship is an important guarantee to tackle unemployment. It will be like MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) that gave legally guaranteed employment to lakhs of people on demand in rural areas. The proposed Right to Apprenticeship law, will mandate private or public sector concerns to provide a one-year internship with part-government funding to any college degree/diploma holder on demand along with Rs 8500 monthly stipend. This is for one year but it will provide skills that can facilitate employment in the future. Bharti Bharosa, a promise to fill 30 lakh vacancies in government sector jobs, is a really big guarantee. Another 3 lakh jobs could be created in the education and health sectors — including the centrally sponsored schemes like Anganwadi and ASHA workers and the educational and health institutions of the central government. Then there’s a proposal to establish a Rs. 5,000 crore national fund to fund to youth across districts. People below 40 years of age will be able to avail of this fund. Promising a law for social security for gig workers such as drivers, guards and delivery boys is another important guarantee. On the issue of paper leaks, the Congress said it will standardise the government recruitment exam process and ‘stop its outsourcing’. In addition, the Congress has promised a legally guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP). For the first time a national party has supported the demand for a legally guaranteed MSP, which is a guaranteed floor price for the farmer’s produce.
The Congress called its promises as Congress guarantees but the BJP calls them Modi Guarantee or Modi Sarkar ki Guarantee. The latter are essentially government funded programmes and schemes across sectors which have been named and in some cases, renamed as Modi ki Guarantee. These guarantees depend for their implementation on trust in the leader or as the prime minister himself said: ‘people trust Modi’s guarantee because all other parties make false promises’. Modi’s guarantee means he alone could fulfill them. These are not legal guarantees or rights, they are assurances of the prime minister to ease lives of people, business, and health etc. But the fact is that many of the economic promises made by this government over the past ten years remain unfulfilled as shown by status update of the major guarantees. The Congress on the other hand claims that more than four crore people have benefited from the successful implementation of guarantee schemes in Karnataka since the election of its government last summer. This will be its poll plank to counter the BJP in national elections.
The Congress party has foregrounded employment and livelihood as major issues in the party’s campaign for the general election. But much will depend on how these issues are communicated and whether the messages can reach people and whether it can surpass emotional issues, especially those surrounding the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
The five guarantees will be evaluated for the political and electoral dividends rather they can yield than effectiveness as policy measures. But irrespective of outcomes, the Congress’s schemes are notable in terms of shifting public attention back on the urgency of policies to deal with unemployment and the problems of those facing distress and destitution. The basic principle of the government’s responsibility to guarantee all citizens a decent life and a minimum standard of living is one that definitely should be supported. In this sense, it goes beyond the immediate impact that Congress’s economic guarantees may have on the upcoming elections. What matters is the emphasis they give to education, health and employment as rights which can promote a deeper transformation of democracy.
Zoya Hasan is Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
