Nuggets in the dust

I quote from The Tribune dated October 18, 2025: “Sehjaldeep Kaur, daughter of a marginal farmer from Chotala village, 30 km from Hoshiarpur, has secured the 13th rank in the National Defence Academy merit list, thereby becoming the pride of her village and a symbol of hope for countless rural girls.” She studied in rural schools and trained at the Mai Bhago Armed Forces Preparatory Institute in Mohali.

As I sat writing down these thoughts, news came in regarding the Indian women’s cricket team lifting the World Cup. This team includes about five girls from rural Punjab, Haryana and HP. In my opinion, they are a beacon of hope not only for rural girls but also boys. These girls from the lower economic stratum, whose parents have never been near a cricket pitch, let alone played on one, have proved that single-minded devotion to excellence enables you to lift yourself out of poverty without looking for shortcuts. Again, self-motivated, mostly self-taught with lots of parental encouragement and yes, latter-day recognition and professional coaching.

These girls prove that it’s possible without fancy schools, that there is no need to give up studies to chase mirages in foreign lands, no need to sell your land and borrow money (Rs 40-50 lakh) to take the ‘dunki’ route and rot and die on the way.

The old days have gone, and the West no longer appears to need cheap foreign labour, IT and engineering professionals, or for that matter students. This can be seen in the increasingly protectionist stance being taken by the US in its trade policies, in its new visa policies for professionals and students, and its stance on illegal immigrants. Jobs are being denied or being made conditional to citizenship status.

Racism, too, is raising its ugly head, with incidents ranging from rape to physical and verbal abuse as well as killings. On the streets, in front of their shops or at their homes, immigrants are facing hatred which spouts in many forms. This trend is not just limited to the US; increasingly, right-wing ideology is coming out in the open in the UK and parts of Europe and even as far as Australia.

Many factors are leading to this: (a) Their own economies are slowing with anaemic growth and are severely challenged by the rise of China and its industrial muscle; (b) The advances in technology and the advent of AI have brought in automation and computing, which are increasingly reducing the need for cheap foreign labour and techies. A new disruption is enveloping us whose full impact on employment is yet to be seen and understood. Much will change, for that is the very premise of disruption.

The message from the West is clear — ‘go home’. The question is: Where does India stand in the coming of this new age? India received $135.46 billion in foreign remittances in the last fiscal year (The Times of India, June 2025), making us the largest recipient for almost 10 years running. A nation of approximately 1.5 billion people, the most populous in the world, with nearly 6 per cent living in extreme poverty and about 13 per cent of the youth unemployed, with the figure rising to 29 per cent in tertiary education graduates (World Bank), faces tremendous challenges.

The past three decades have seen a sea change in our economic trajectory, with the Indian economy now becoming the fourth largest in the world. The levels of poverty have fallen remarkably and yet we have to go far to become a middle-income nation, let alone a high-income one. Do keep in mind that 6 per cent of the citizens living in extreme poverty translates loosely into 9 crore individuals; that is more than the population of Australia and Canada combined. The World Bank currently defines us as a lower middle-income country bracketed with Angola, Ghana, Myanmar, Cambodia, etc.

Suffice to say that as a nation, we need a lot of jobs to ensure equitable growth. The question is: As the West closes its doors and youth unemployment continues to haunt us in India, from where will the solution come?

Our demographic dividend is supposed to be our greatest asset, but it won’t be if the youth are not educated, motivated and channelised into the development of this nation. In fact, the danger is that unemployed here and deported from abroad, they could become our greatest problem. For decades we have exported both labour and talent as we have plenty of both. The world lapped it all up while it needed it and lots of families have been able to transform their economic situation thanks to this opening, but what now?

Strangely, our governments and the Opposition are silent while witnessing this debacle. The ongoing trade negotiations with the US, Europe or Canada find no mention of it. The remittance is not only important to the families of NRIs but also helps finance our trade deficit (it covered nearly half of the merchandise trade deficit of $300 billion in the last fiscal) and serves as a vital source of foreign exchange which helps strengthen our current account.

Our political leadership across parties is focused on freebies and sops, on bribing their electorate to obtain power. None are driven to deliver quality education, healthcare or good governance. Even as our cities grow, so do the mounds of pollution and slag, so does the income disparity in an increasingly jobless growth. I’m reminded of Oliver Goldsmith’s lines, “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates, and men decay”.

We should not be caught unprepared to receive this flood of desperate people further adding to the existing unemployed. The Government of India and state governments will have to judge the extent of the problem and develop ways and means to relocate them. The government, in conjunction with the private sector, must draw up a contingency plan to create infrastructure for employment, for unless we tackle it today on a large scale, our country is bound to face turmoil.

The roots of most extremist movements are found in this problem. Doles and election-time sops are not the answer, employment is. Does the government have the vision and will to generate it? Today’s youth are aware of their environment and developments in the far reaches of the globe, thanks to technology. They know how their country fares and treats them vis-a-vis the advanced nations. The tide is turning in the US, Canada, UK, etc. It will crest sooner than we expect.

Sehjaldeep and the girls of the Indian cricket team have shown the way of sheer grit and hard work. Left to their own elements, these girls have risen and shown a ray of light to their contemporaries. It is a path not easily traversed. Young students should learn from their example, poor farmers should learn to support children’s activities, the government and the industry should recognise talent and find ways to keep this talent here and growing. We owe it to our past, present and future generations. Let us not fail them.

History will not recount how many elections or byelections we won — it will judge us on how we developed our human resources.