TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
For the members of a ruling dispensation who enjoy the dynastic privilege, albeit by default of birth, to be employed as Minister or Chief Minister, it may be convenient to ignore but the figures and statistics are too widely and tellingly published to miss the point that in the State of Jammu & Kashmir, out ofa total population of 1.25 crore, only 43 lakh are employed while the rest 82 lakh are unemployed which, in other words, means that 65% of the population of J&K is unemployed notwithstanding the present Government’s ‘‘heroic’’ initiatives like ‘‘Sher-e-Kashmir Employment scheme’’, ‘‘Consolidated Salary job scheme’’, ‘‘Fast track recruitment policy’’ etc.
What is even more disturbing is that while generation after generation of the State’s ruling political family continue to thrive by holding the highest State offices more by virtue of dynastic lineage rather that by any qualification or merit, the census figures released the other day make a startling disclosure that during the tenure of the present coalition Goverment, the dependency ratio has further increased and if, in the past, four persons in a family were dependent on a single bread-earner, today five or six persons are dependent on a single earning hand in a family
Now that is certainly not a flattering comment on the performance of a Government which came to power five years ago with the promise of not only generating new sources of livelihood or employment but also of providing stipend to every unemployed youth. And what to say about the ruling party’s promise of providing education to all when the literacy rate stands at 67% which is far less than that in the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
Taking a cue from Twitter savvy ‘‘young’’ Chief Minister of the State, more and more youngsters seem to be opting for vocations other than farming as a result of which there is an alarming decline in the population involved in agriculture sector regarding which the Joint Chief Principal Census Officer C.S. Sapru warns, the day is not far when we would have to completely import food grains from other States. And yes, what happened to the present Government’s much hyped crackdown on Ultrasound clinics and doctors facilitating female foeticide because the census reveals a further decline in sex ratio?
That takes us to ominous questions for introspection. Did the Government pursue its a avowed agendas without enough seriousness? Did the ruling party make promises through its election manifesto only to tide over the campaign phase? And, if the answer to both the above two questions is ‘‘yes’’, does this not contribute to erosion of credibility of the political class as a whole and incite cynicism in the citizen against politician?
In the contemporary age of evidence based inference and documented reference, our politicians, are perhaps, by and large, still far from coming to terms with the new milieu and are content to live in the illusion that they can continue to fool the common man by downplaying evidence of figures and data, and that they can continue to thrive through a rhetoric of mutually competitive politics. But, with elections scheduled in less than a year, the moment of reckoning is fast approaching as Umapathy holds out the ‘‘Ghalibian’’ warning “Sun To Sahi Jahan Mein Hai Tera Fasaana Kya!….”
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