A few weeks back, more than 46,000 graduates and postgraduates applied for the jobs of contractual sweepers with a State-owned corporation in Haryana. Photo for representation.
| Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE’s) monthly figures have pointed to a steady and disturbingly high unemployment rate for India throughout this year; it rose sharply to 9.2 per cent in June from 7 per cent in the previous month and after some cooling in July, the numbers for August were back up at 8.5 per cent.

If that makes for grim reading, consider the numbers for Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir. In October 2022 CMIE predicted that Haryana, with a 30.6 per cent unemployment rate, would have the highest rate among Indian States, followed by Rajasthan (24.5 per cent), and Jammu and Kashmir (23.9 per cent). By December that year Haryana’s unemployment figures stood at 37.4 per cent. Even by the government’s preferred data yardstick, the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the unemployment rate among the youth in urban areas of Haryana stayed above the national average for as many as six quarters through the last two years. And though government data states the unemployment rate is now declining, in this case, seeing is believing.

There is no greater stinging portrayal of the situation in Haryana than the fact that a few weeks back, more than 46,000 graduates and post graduates applied for the jobs of contractual sweepers with a State-owned corporation. It drives home what people of the State have been voicing for a while. Youth make up the vast majority of the unemployed population and within that large segment, educated young people are suffering much worse in the jobs market, women are even further down the ladder.

While youth unemployment in itself is a core challenge in the State, the BJP has made no friends in recent years over the emotive issues of farm laws, which it eventually repealed, and the Agniveer scheme, which increasingly reads like a self-made disaster. A majority of Haryana’s population is connected to farming and a large section of the State’s youth were defence services aspirants before the Army’s enrolment drive was halted post pandemic.

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A third blow to relations with the people of Haryana has been dealt thanks to the manner in which the Centre dealt with protests over alleged sexual harassment of the State’s most outstanding women wrestlers by former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Prime Minister Modi’s response, or the lack of it, and a palpable fear of similar harassment has hit the morale and trust levels among families keen on sending their daughters into the sport. Wrestling leviathan Vinesh Phogat’s decision to join the Congress and contest the election has seen support from the wrestling community because it has brought to the fore deeper systemic issues around measly financial rewards and barely any government jobs for Haryana’s wrestlers.  

The tale of Jammu and Kashmir

From these new fissures in Haryana to the deeper, older wounds of Kashmir. For generations that have grown up in the shroud of violence and fear, the last few years have seen an exacerbation of unemployment woes, shaky public infrastructure and a raging substance abuse crisis. The International Labor Organization’s most recent report found that in Jammu and Kashmir, the unemployment rate of educated youth (aged 15–29) went from under 22 per cent in 2005 to 35 per cent in 2022.

In August 2019, when Home Minister Amit Shah announced a repeal of Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir entered a long and severe period of lockdown lasting over six months, where all  means of communication were barred. Even as there was hope for life to normalise, came another lockdown. This time pandemic induced. A trade body estimated losses of close to Rs.18,000 crore in just the first four months of those restrictions and shutdown. What the full financial extent of damage through that period was, we will never know.

Rebuilding Jammu and Kashmir’s finances is not as straightforward either. Since the abrogation of Article 370, there is not only extremely limited space for Jammu and Kashmir’s Assembly around areas such as ‘public order’ and ‘police’ but Reorganisation Act of 2019 has rendered it impossible to introduce or even amend any financial bills unless the Lieutenant Governor approves. Limited revenue raising capacity and low levels of budget execution have left its economy in a gridlock. Of course, these are the financial wounds.

Also Read | Kashmir braces for its first Assembly election in a decade with hope and scepticism  

A study by the Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Srinagar documented an “exponential rise” in substance abuse in the Kashmir valley and a Parliamentary standing committee estimated that the Union Territory had around 1.35 million drug users in 2023. An NCRB report found that after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, there was a spike in cases of suicide. Over 450 cases in 2019, the highest in a decade and 586 cases in 2021.

Internet bans are only one way voices in the region have been clamped down. Travel bans, arbitrary detentions, passport revocation: anti-terror laws have been wielded with great zeal in the last seven years. Ironic that despite all these measures, Jammu and Kashmir continues to have the country’s highest concentration of boots on the ground.

In all this, the BJP has also, it seems, burnt bridges financial and otherwise with a former ally: Jammu. What has traditionally been a BJP stronghold has seen a slew of shutdowns, with protests around decisions related to excise duty changes, the Sarore Toll Plaza and a steady erosion of jobs. The message in the protests is clear; the people of Jammu feel unseen and unrecognised even as they watch their employment, industry and transport businesses disintegrate.  

Many of the challenges faced by Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir may sound both familiar and long running. So what is the different this time? The key difference is this. There is no more space to deflect, divert and delude. Unemployment has now become a beast too large for the Central government to tame or vanquish. Joblessness and its impact on the lives of millions is being felt so acutely that it would take a superhuman effort to distract voters to think about anything else. There were clear signs in the general election this year of just how acute the jobs problem was, and for the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir going to vote, it is a clarion call.

For Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, there are no more games to be played and no more villains to conjure up. For every man and woman stepping up to cast their choice in this state ballot, it is the answer to the question; What is the value of a vote?

Mitali Mukherjee is Director of the Journalist Programmes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. She is a political economy journalist with more than two decades of experience in TV, print and digital journalism. Mitali has co-founded two start-ups that focussed on civil society and financial literacy and her key areas of interest are gender and climate change.