To show their protest against the rising unemployment rates in the country, outside the NSUI office in Windsor Place, the Congress Student Wing has set up a stall where they are selling pakoras and tea — in what is decidedly meant to coincide with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 70th birthday. They also mockingly claim that they are observing as 'National Unemployment Day'.
The stall where the food is sold at Rs 5 a portion, they say, is their way of protest. "We do not wish to mock anyone through this protest. In fact, we are sticking to what the Prime Minister once said," says Lokesh Chugh, National Media In-charge, NSUI. For context, in 2018, during an interview, Modi has said that selling pakoras is also a means to employment. Two years down the line, the GDP of the country is on a downward trend, hitting a -24 per cent growth rate. Around 21 million salaried jobs were lost this year owing to the pandemic, between April and August, according to a CMIE survey.
However, with the nation celebrating the PM's birthday, we wondered if this unnecessarily inflammatory move was met with any criticism. "There is no criticism from any circles yet. If this is giving our young people a source of income during such tough times, why not take it up," says Chugh, rather sarcastically. At the same time, NSUI outfits in various other cities have also set up similar stalls. One such stall outside the Rajasthan University campus says 'PhD Chai Wala'. The hashtag #NationalUnemployementDay is currently trending on twitter with around 2 million tweets.
