The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-03-18

The result is that hundreds of thousands of
employees in the industrial concerns, in COM
mercial companies, in government service are
being dismissed, while the employers are ex-
plotting the unemployment situation to reduce
still further already miserable wages of their
employees.
Unemployment is most intense among the
educated middle class in the provinces of Mad
ras, Maabar and Punjab, but it has also be-
come extremely acute in Bengal. The political
consequences of the worsening condition of the
middle class of considerable Importance.
The intelligentsia, which S either unemployed
extremely ill-paid, has become radcalized
during the last few years and is taking an ac-
tive part in the struggle against Imperialism
and for national independence. Whereas for
merly they were more closely identified with
political programs of the bourgeoisie, they are
now being attracted increasingly to the organi-
cation of workers and peasants with whose in
terests they to some extent feel that their own
are bound up. The rapid growth of Yuoth
Leagues and Student Associations, the active
part played by them in workers strikes, in the
trade union movement, in the Workers and
Peasants Parties, in the cooperatives, in the
Peasant Unions, etc, are results of this in
creasing rehabilitation. The unemployed mid
die class youth are beginning to form them
selves in unions. An appeal issuel by the B.U.
Y.E. Bengal Unemployed Youth Union) tells
them that they SHOULD remember that they
have not been born to creep and crawl wal
lowing in the deep mire of penury, but to re-
volt against all tyrannies. 1t is revolution
airy age they are living in
But the middle class youths, Notwithstanding
their. growing unemployment and their radical
ization are still unclear in their aims They
are clamoring for industrial and agricultural
development, they are appealing to the Indian
capitalists to build more industries and pay
more attention to the educated middle class,
they want the government to establish a ship
building industry to employ them in the army
and navy, etc. These appeals to the govern
ment, to the Indian capitalists and to the Ma
tionalst leaders, are accompanied by, the threat
that 'the problem, if it remains untackled for
a further perodof time will compel the youths
of the country to oscillate between poverty and
revolution"
Another aspect of Indian unemployment is
that large numbers of Indian educated and
half educated middle class youths emgrate to
Burma, Ceylon and the Malay States in search
of employment, in the belief that the rubber
and tea plantations, the tin-mines, etc. offer
lucrative employment. But the unemployment
problem in those countries is just as acute as
in India, and the competition with Indians in
their own countries is leading to a growing
anti-1ndian feeling finding expression in the
slogans of Burma for the Burmans," "Ceylon
for the Ceylonese," MALAY for the Malayans."
But the pressure of imperast exploitation
in all these countries will lead to further
worsening of the conditions of life not only
of the workers and peasants but of the edu-
Gated midde-class also, and the radicaized in
teigentsia will learn in the course of the strug
gle that the only improvement in their lot is
possible by the complete overthrow of imper-
ialism and the establishment of workers and
peasants republic.
At meeting of the Bengal Unemployed
Youths union recently held in Calcutta it was
resolved to organize an Unemployment Day.
with demonstrations, public meetings, etc.,
throughout the country. Steps have been taken
that the Unemployment Day shall be the
sixth of March, that the unemployed in
India may demonstrate simultaneously with
their comrades all over the world on the Inter-
national Day set apart for that purpose"