Jun 11 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
SECOND OPINION - What a waste
Jug Suraiya
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India's undiscovered youthful talent goes abegging in foreign lands
In a piazza, in the historic centre of Rome, a man in the saffron robes of a yogi held a four-foot high pole on which another saffron-clad yogi sat with perfect balance. It was an amazing act, worthy of any circus. Here it was being performed for the small change passers-by might chose to throw into the box in front of the two yogis.All over Rome, there were young men from the Indian subcontinent earning a precarious livelihood by being streetside performers, or selling tacky souvenirs. Most were illegal immigrants, keeping a wary eye out for the police.
Almost anywhere you go in the world you will find young Indian men, on the fringe of the underworld, economic refugees in an alien land so remote in every sense from their home. To survive they must learn foreign languages, keep out of reach of the long arm of the law, and hone a variety of skills to earn whatever they can, however they can.
Financial desperation compels them to leave home and family to seek whatever scant and chancy fortune they might find in a distant and inhospitable clime. Unlike the contract workers who go to the Gulf, and earn enough to send remittances home, these gypsy-like vagabonds who swarm all over Europe and Southeast Asia have no regular jobs or source of income; they live on the edge, with no scope for savings.
We talk about the `brain drain' which depletes India of educated profes sionals like doctors and computer buffs who go to live abroad to better their prospects.
This represents a huge loss for the country in terms of trained human resources. Few, if any, compute the loss to the country repre sented by the unrecorded, and often illegal, flight of unskilled emigrants sometimes referred to as `kabutars', or pigeons who are forced by brute economic necessity to flee to foreign shores, more often than not with the untrustworthy help of unscrupulous touts and racketeers who exploit and fleece them before abandoning them to their hazardous fate.
The ability to survive against the odds, often in a hostile environment, is proof of the innate aptitudes, the `street smarts', that these self-willed exiles must possess. Properly harnessed, the talents that so many of them display could be put to use for the benefit of their home country .
The elections have witnessed an induction of more than 150 million firsttime voters. The greatest challenge that the new government faces is to devise ways and means to put to productive use this collective energy which could transform the country , economically and socially .
The solution lies not in the creation of yet more sarkari jobs and adding to an already bloated bureaucracy . The answer lies in out-of-the-box thinking: micro-financing grassroots entrepreneurs, encouraging self-employment through vocational training, creating sources of productive livelihood instead of creating unproductive government jobs.
Unless this is done, millions of India's `kabutars' will continue to fly out of the country to far-off lands, to perform tricks and sell trinkets and live on the uncertain kindness of foreign strangers, living evidence of India's begging bowl.
secondopinion@timesgroup.com http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/
Almost anywhere you go in the world you will find young Indian men, on the fringe of the underworld, economic refugees in an alien land so remote in every sense from their home. To survive they must learn foreign languages, keep out of reach of the long arm of the law, and hone a variety of skills to earn whatever they can, however they can.
Financial desperation compels them to leave home and family to seek whatever scant and chancy fortune they might find in a distant and inhospitable clime. Unlike the contract workers who go to the Gulf, and earn enough to send remittances home, these gypsy-like vagabonds who swarm all over Europe and Southeast Asia have no regular jobs or source of income; they live on the edge, with no scope for savings.
We talk about the `brain drain' which depletes India of educated profes sionals like doctors and computer buffs who go to live abroad to better their prospects.
This represents a huge loss for the country in terms of trained human resources. Few, if any, compute the loss to the country repre sented by the unrecorded, and often illegal, flight of unskilled emigrants sometimes referred to as `kabutars', or pigeons who are forced by brute economic necessity to flee to foreign shores, more often than not with the untrustworthy help of unscrupulous touts and racketeers who exploit and fleece them before abandoning them to their hazardous fate.
The ability to survive against the odds, often in a hostile environment, is proof of the innate aptitudes, the `street smarts', that these self-willed exiles must possess. Properly harnessed, the talents that so many of them display could be put to use for the benefit of their home country .
The elections have witnessed an induction of more than 150 million firsttime voters. The greatest challenge that the new government faces is to devise ways and means to put to productive use this collective energy which could transform the country , economically and socially .
The solution lies not in the creation of yet more sarkari jobs and adding to an already bloated bureaucracy . The answer lies in out-of-the-box thinking: micro-financing grassroots entrepreneurs, encouraging self-employment through vocational training, creating sources of productive livelihood instead of creating unproductive government jobs.
Unless this is done, millions of India's `kabutars' will continue to fly out of the country to far-off lands, to perform tricks and sell trinkets and live on the uncertain kindness of foreign strangers, living evidence of India's begging bowl.
secondopinion@timesgroup.com http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/
