Job anxiety and identity 

Shantanu Thakur

(thakur.santanu@gmail.com)

Job anxiety is a worldwide  phenomenon. Everyone needs a job of some kind or another. Yet, jobs are never available enough. In emerging nations like ours, job creation constitutes a major headache for governments and planners. The scarcity of jobs is basically what leads to the clamour for jobs to be reserved for the sons of the soil. It would be unfair to blame the states that frequently raise this issue. The unrest is not necessarily so much out of parochialism or chauvinism as much as out of scarcity. The core of the problem lies in the ground reality of too few jobs for too many seekers. The United States of America has also suffered from the same anxiety, hence the burgeoning cries for America first: anti-immigration, high taxation on imports, and the like. Most other nations are also not immune from the same malaise.

When the qualifications, skills, and expertise needed for an average job (in government, in the public, or in the private sector) are available within the local aspirants of a state, it is understandable why resentment runs high when people from outside the state corner these openings. Whatever the legal position on this, whenever there are two eligible candidates with the same required qualification for a job—one a native of the state and the other from another state — natural preference should be to lean towards the local guy. There’s a sense of natural justice in this, irrespective of legal niceties. Most average jobs can be managed with an average qualification; one doesn’t need to be a master in rocket science to be able to handle jobs at any level, I would dare say, of the bureaucracy of any organisation. Most recruits to jobs also pick up the required skills only after they land on them, picking up the ropes as they move along. Exceptions only prove the rule. Then, there are tools like on-the-job training, compulsory departmental exams, etc., that have been tried and tested to make an employee capable of delivering. Except for those cases where specialised qualifications are called for, and when and if these are not adequately available amongst the local aspirants, should one think of recruitment from outside? Hence, it raises local resentment whenever the third- or fourth-grade openings, say in departments like the Railways or India Post, go to a majority from outside the state. One is not including the All-India Cadres recruited by the UPSC or the premier cadre services recruitment made by the state public service commissions. Enshrined constitutional provisions made for the recruitment of these cadres cannot be wished away.

In a state like Assam, which has unfortunately been plagued for decades by threat perceptions over the survival of language, culture, and regional identity, jobs going to outsiders attain severe dimensions that add fuel to the threatened identity crisis. The issue of a mandatory PRC (Permanent Resident Certificate) and a compulsory basic qualifying test in the official state language for non-Assamese job seekers from outside has been raging all over again. A sensible grasp over the history, culture, and customs, especially over the state’s official language, is a vital, basic requirement for any individual serving in any state of the country. Every state has its own unique culture, customs, and language, and an employee needs to be familiar with these. It is also important not to forget that the Indian states were reorganised on the basis of language, and implicitly, a person on a job in these states must have adequate grounding in the vernacular official language. One is stressing the word vernacular because several states also have English as their official state language, in the north-eastern states as well. The UPSC already has set procedures for this. Every recruit, after his or her state cadre allotment, has to take an introductory, crash course on the official state language during their post-selection stint at the respective academies, like the LABASNA at Mussoorie or the Police Academy at Hyderabad, before they land in their allotted states. In addition to these, the all-India-cadre officers are also required to clear a departmental exam on the tribal language of their allotted state. Some, out of their own interest, even end up as experts on these aspects of the state’s culture. The APSC recruits to the ACS/APS, and the allied services also undergo the same process. Increments in the pay scale are withheld unless a probationer clears these requirements. His or her services are not confirmed until these tests are successfully taken.

Incidentally, in the seventies, eighties, and probably in the nineties as well, a compulsory, qualifying paper on the vernacular was not in the APSC. After this paper was introduced, interestingly enough, it was some candidates whose mother tongue was Assamese who moved court against it. One of their prime arguments was that only the Assamese students whose mother tongue was the same had to shoulder the additional burden of taking this paper. The Bodos were free to take theirs in Bodo; the Bengalis were free to take it in Bangla; and the others in Hindi and the like. Why should only the Assamese candidates, whose mother tongue itself should be enough to make up for the requirement, be forced to take it? The general perception was that those candidates whose mother tongue was not Assamese would be required to take a qualifying test on the state language, but the demographic reality of the state left these groups with enough opportunity to skip this test. The courts, understandably, saw this and ruled accordingly, which is why that controversial paper was taken off. In a beleaguered state where even the fundamental question of ‘who’s an Assamese’—the d definition of which is yet to be arrived at—fishing in troubled waters has been the only game that has prospered at the cost of millions of genuine job seekers in the state. And it’s not the fault of our children that their parents decided to put them in English-medium schools.

From what we have gathered from some candidates who are preparing for the APSC competitive exams, the APSC syllabus has been updated and structured on the lines of the UPSC. This has expanded the syllabus parameters, thereby increasing the load on aspiring candidates. These boys and girls tried to tell us that an additional qualifying paper in the vernacular for them alone would not serve the desired purpose at all, as the candidates from those sections whose mother tongue is not Assamese don’t need to sit for it at all in the first place! They further added that government servants have many more important objectives in which to serve the people of the state; improving the quality of the Assamese language is hardly at the top of these requirements. They need to be competent in several other subjects (including AI today) if they are expected to be on the same page as times demand. A working, operational grip over the basic requirements of written and spoken local languages can be made compulsory for the non-Assamese recruits during their probationary period, a system that is already in place. For non-Assamese candidates from outside the state who try to enter into grade II, grade III, and grade IV posts, a qualifying test to assess their basic knowledge of the state and its language should not be as Herculean a task as it is being made out to be. There are existing templates for this, and the recruiting organisations themselves are capable of devising the best possible methods for it.

As has been said earlier in this write-up, the priority aspect of raising enough jobs for the eligible aspirants of the state lies in addressing the economy in the direction of job creation, which alone can, gradually, take care of the increasing tension of job anxiety amongst our qualified youth. The ominous fallout of failing to do that will be slipping down the slope of confusion and cofounding an essentially economic issue with hate-mongering over religion and language, which only help in muddying the waters. Conditions for such a play-out already exist. Often, the state itself might indulge in such distractions. But it must be remembered that state, or constitutional, protective measures can only be limited to certain electoral and representative safeguards, not beyond, and certainly not perpetually. The educated youth must also realise that merit alone and not reservation will see them through in the long run.

Protectionism is not known to have helped in cultural issues like the promotion of languages, which prosper or perish depending on how they are lived and practiced in everyday life. Nor do average government servants contribute to language in any major way. Individual exceptions have always been a case apart and not connected to their jobs anyway. We need to focus on job creation. There’s no gain in ignoring the elephant in the room any longer through scapegoats.