Solving Goa’s employment woes the Soviet way
By: Shukr Usgaokar
Tags: Government Jobs, Satire, Humour, Soviet Union, Unemployment

Give government jobs to all and from power you’ll never fall.

Disclaimer: The following is a work of satire and should be read in a lighter vein.

Let’s talk about lifeguards.

A couple of weeks back, the Times of India reported a rather interesting story about 200 odd former life guards who threatened to go on a hunger strike after their demands to regularize their services were repeatedly ignored. Reportedly, the agitation has been going on for over a year, despite the State making it clear that it is not possible to induct them into government service.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

That India suffers from a white-collar fetish is no secret. And this fetish escalates into near-madness when it comes to government jobs, given the perks, next to nil accountability, negligible work pressure, security of tenure, and the chances of making a quick buck albeit by illegal means.

Put this alongside a highly status conscious society with a craze for stability and you have even PhD holders, chartered accountants, and management graduates applying for the post of a peon, so long as it is a government job.

Hence, one cannot blame out Chief Minister, Dr. Pramod Sawant for speaking his mind when he frankly said that “Even if God becomes CM, he cannot provide government jobs to all”. A bit obvious, but you need guts to say something like this in a country like India where people are prepared to give a right arm for a sarkari naukri.

In fact, this is not the only time our Chief Minister has raked up the issue. Last year, while addressing a job fair at Teligao, he had urged the Goan youth to be self-employed or absorb themselves in the private sector, while bluntly stating that in a state of 15 lakh people, the government can create only 6000 vacancies !

There’s no denying that even today, work in this state is hard to come by. Nearly a month after the CM’s above statement, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy had reported that the unemployment rate in Goa was 34.5%, the highest in the country. In other words, one out of three Goans does not have a job.

This means that subject to eligibility criteria, 5,17,500 unemployed Goans will be competing for 6000 jobs, excluding aspirants from other states and those who looking for a shift in their career. Thus, the probability of you getting a government job in Goa is roughly 0.0115.

Statistically, you would have a better chance of getting admission into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology. With 6,35,000 candidates taking the qualifying Joint Entrance Exam this year hoping to fill 16,053 seats, the odds of a candidate making it are a shockingly low 0.0252, but still higher than that of a government job aspirant in Goa.

One would have thought that all this would have put the youth of Goa off. But sadly, that has not been the case.

Hundreds of aspirants continue to queue up for “lucrative” government jobs. Okay, “queue” may be a poor choice of words. After all, we are Indians.

Anyway.

So, one thing is clear. By our Chief Minister’s own admission, even God cannot help us. So if not God, then who?

Not many might know this, but our Chief Minister’s ideological mentor Vinayak Damodar (Veer) Savarkar was an atheist.

It’s a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, an atheist republic may have the answer.

Voila, the Soviet Union.

As paradoxical as it may sound, the solution to joblessness in Goa may be found in a country with ideological leanings opposite to that of our R.S.S indoctrinated Chief Minister.

Private ownership of enterprises and property had essentially remained illegal throughout the Soviet era, with Soviet communism emphasizing national control over all means of production but human labor. That is till Mikhail Gorbachev played spoilsport with his market reforms. And we all know how that ended.

Thus, if we adopted the Soviet model in India in its purest form, there would be no private sector in India. In other words, there would be only one employer i.e. the government. In this way, Dr. Sawant would be able to give government jobs to everyone.

But alas, there is something by which even our government is bound. No, I am not talking about the Manusmriti. What I’m referring to is the Indian Constitution. Yes, this long, boring document. And these total pain-in-the-neck institutions called the High Courts and the Supreme Court whose duty it is to protect and uphold this document, stand in our way. So will our government’s dream of providing government jobs for everyone, remain a chimera? Something that can be hoped for, but never achieved?

Fortunately, not.

And the solution to this problem lies in the Constitution itself.

Article 19(6) of the Constitution gives the State the power to nationalise any trade, business, industry, service. The most memorable exercise of the exercise of this power was in 1969 when the then Prime Minister, (late) Smt. Indira Gandhi nationalised 14 major banks having deposits of 50 crores or more.

So, undoubtedly the Government has the power. Then, why not use it? What are they waiting for? Christmas?

With one legislation, our Chief Minister can give every Goan a government job. All of us will have a sarkari naukri. Our dream will no longer be a dream. It would have transformed into reality.

All of us will get plenty of leaves and a stable income every month, excluding various benefits and allowances, in return for doing very little work. Our work hours will be strictly from 9 to 5 with plenty of tea breaks and ample time for gossip and leisure. And even after retirement, a decent pension will ensure us a happily-ever-after.

And since everyone wants a government job, Dr. Pramod Sawant’s government will keep getting elected and returning to power, again and again, so long as they ensure that they faithfully and ardently carry out this policy of Sovietisation.

Looking at our lives, tourists will be tempted to quote the famous lines of Amir Khusrow which are inscribed in Shah Jahan’s Diwan-e-Khas in Delhi’s Red Fort:

Agar firdaus bar ru-ye zamin ast

Hamin ast-o hamin ast-o hamin ast

If there is heaven on earth

It is this, it is this, it is this!

But, will it be all bed and roses thereafter?

I may be nitpicking here but there are just two quibbles. What will be the financial implications of this policy? 3 years ago, our then Chief Minister (late) Mr. Manohar Parrikar had stated that the government’s liabilities towards payment of salaries and pensions to government servants is Rs 290 crore. Won’t our dream drive the state towards near bankruptcy?

Yawn. Who cares? Even today, when there are so few government jobs, the state is cash strapped and heavily indebted. The Statute of Unity was built at an eye-watering cost of Rs 2,989 crore. The new Central Vista Project which will involve the reconstruction of a new Parliament building, a common central secretariat, and a revamped 3km long Rajpath from the Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate is expected to cost a whopping Rs 20,000 crore with the new Parliament building itself costing Rs 971 crore. Rs 10 crores have been earmarked for the late Manohar Parrikar’s memorial. Despite there already being 2 bridges over the Mandovi river, the government spent Rs 860 crores on the Atal Setu. If its coffers are empty, then it is solely on account of misplaced priorities.

Hell, the Chief Minister’s new car itself cost the state treasury Rs 35 lakhs.

Even otherwise, once all industries are under state control, their earnings will become a part of the state revenue and will compensate for the expenditure incurred on paying the lakhs of employees who will now be on the state’s payroll.

So that’s sorted.

Now what about the second quibble? Won’t the quality of goods and services provided deteriorate as with everything else associated with the government? How many of us like to travel by Air India? Is B.S.N.L. our preferred service provider? Would we willingly send our children to government schools? If given a choice, would we opt for public transport?

Every dealing in every establishment in the state would be nothing short of working through a byzantine system of extremely complicated rules, endless red-tape, and a bunch of insensitive babus who would make your life miserable unless you grease a few palms. Will this be the rosy dream we imagined or a dystopian nightmare?

Oh well. That’s a price we have to pay. But it’s a small price.

A government job is our birth-right and we shall have it.

Dr. Pramod Sawant, are you listening?