Joblessness set to be poll issue, RSS groups push ‘self-employment’, blame Nehru for ‘people running after govt posts’

With unemployment likely to be a key issue in the 2024 polls, the Sangh Parivar is pulling out all the stops to change the narrative from, what it defines as, “seeking jobs”. For two years now, this has included a focus on self-employment and on helping youngsters along that path.

On January 12, 2022, close on the heels of the government’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, the RSS launched its own Swavalambi Bharat Abhiyan in an effort to persuade youngsters to become entrepreneurs under the aegis of its economic wing, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM).

In the past two years, the SJM and other organisations associated with the RSS have conducted 4,413 programmes in 511 districts, securing participation of more than 82,000 youths, engaging 400 industrial units and felicitating 3,938 entrepreneurs. It has now also opened 448 Zilla Rozgar Kendras (district employment centres) that help youngsters raise funds for their businesses, arrange required training, provide legal advice and help with government clearances.

“To make this country self-reliant and to obliterate unemployment, we will have to change the mindset and narrative of seeking jobs. Due to Jawaharlal Nehru’s policies, people started running after government jobs. Then, due to globalisation, people started running after jobs with MNCs. But given that crores (of people) enter the job market every year, neither the government nor MNCs can give so many jobs. The only way to deal with this is to create entrepreneurs. India was once a land of entrepreneurs. We have to recreate that India, and this can only happen with the cooperation of society at large,” SJM national co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan says.

As part of this, the SJM has conducted Entrepreneur Development Programmes