© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
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Journalism of Courage
While the BJP and JD(U)-RJD alliance worry about social combinations ahead of a face-off in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, conversations at village chaupals, and tea and paan shops are dominated by issues of mehangai (price rise) and berozgari (unemployment).
Mahesh Das, 50, a Dalit daily wager at Hajipur, who until recently worked in a Punjab factory, says, “Inflation has gone through the roof. Edible oil is selling at Rs 200 a litre and my daily earning is just Rs 300-400. Even wheat flour is selling at Rs 35 a kg. How will we survive?”
His 24-year-old son, Jitendra, is a graduate. After having tried his luck at several government jobs, he now runs a customer service centre for a bank in his village. “Each time I appeared for a government exam, the paper got leaked. There were long delays. And there was a lot of cheating in the exams. I saw undeserving people getting selected. After that I lost hope,” he says.
Prabhu Sharma, who belongs to the tribal community, is a small farmer in Terasiya Tola in Hajipur. He sold off his land to send his only son to college. “Pet kaat ke padhaye ladka ko (I went hungry to give my son education). But he is not getting a job. Now he can’t even do farming… He starts sweating profusely when I ask him to even operate the handpump. Now I am feeding him,” he says.
A few kilometers away, at Kalyan Bigaha, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s ancestral village in Nalanda district, Shivam Pandey, 20, a BA student, pins his hopes on the new Gathbandhan. “RJD had promised 10 lakh jobs in the last elections. Ok, they have lost one and a half years. But then they should deliver at least 7.5 lakh jobs,” he said.
When asked about the new political dispensation in the state, Raja Malik, a Dalit from the Dom sub-caste in the village, says, “Rajneeti ki baat chhodiye, hum log berozgaari se pareshan hain (Forget politics, we have the bigger problem of unemployment). Please write about that.”
Malik is a graduate who has been trying for a job for the past five years without success. “I even applied for a safai karmachari job, but was told there is no vacancy,” he said.
Saying governments should do more to create jobs, Gautam Kumar, from Lalganj village in Hajipur, says, “The problem is, governments, be it Modi’s or Nitish’s, have failed to even bring in investments in the state. At least set up factories, have company offices, so that youth can get employed. Or else they will just brew illicit liquor.”
The Agniveer scheme of recruitment into the armed forces, which saw widespread protests in Bihar over its short-term contractual nature of employment, is still a simmering issue. “Just getting one job is so difficult. Now you are asking me to start looking for another after four years,” said an army aspirant in Saran district.
Many acknowledge that the Modi government’s free ration scheme was a huge help to landless labourers during the pandemic and even after.
Santosh Kumar, a Dalit daily wager from Baurbani village in Saran district, says, “We have no land and no house. During the pandemic, we had no work either. Had the Modi government not given us free ration, we would have been in big trouble. We hope the scheme continues.”
Yet, the scheme now appears to have precipitated a labour crisis for farmers.
“The free ration has meant that farm labourers do not want to work most of the time. They have a place to live and get free food. All they need to earn is a little extra for clothing and medicines,” says Mukesh Kumar, a farmer from Harnaut in Nalanda.
Though many BJP and JD(U) leaders that The Indian Express spoke to acknowledged that unemployment and inflation are factors that could influence how Bihar votes in 2024, few had convincing solutions.
“Bihar has no land bank for industrialisation. We were trying to use the shut sugar mills to set up small units, but that did not take off in a big way. And now we are out of the government,” said a BJP leader.
The leader conceded that price rise was an issue among voters but said the Modi government was taking steps to ease inflation and that the effects would be visible in a few months.
A JD(U) leader said, “Inflation is for the Centre to handle. As far as unemployment is concerned, at least the BJP cannot corner us on this. They were with us all this time. But the new alliance is committed to creating jobs and this matter is being discussed within the alliance.”
