WHAT CONCERNS YOUNG KASHMIR?

I never had any doubt about the ability of Kashmiri
youth to think and look positively towards making this
place better. But it is also a fact that they need to be
pushed to do something on their own. Dependence on
government jobs has always held them back from doing
something different. However, those who took a leaf out
in the non-governmental sector have proven that they
have the capacity to lead and be a source of livelihood
for many more.
It is not only the sense of job security when you join the
government, but also the inherent rot in the system that
discourages youth from taking entrepreneurship as their
career.
When Chief Minister Omar Abdullah recently revoked the
Recruitment Policy he had himself implemented in 2010,
a senior government officer told me: “He has done the
greatest disservice to youth who had moved towards
self employment with dwindling benefits in a
government job”. But Omar had to do it in a bid to
resurrect his party after the recent poll debacle.
ALOHA TEST
What ails the system is something that concerns even a
youngster in a school. Last Sunday I had a chance to
sit in the interview panel for General Ability Test (GAT)
conducted by Aloha Learning Center for 9th class. While
I was impressed with the budding talent and
understanding of the issues the young students have
been developing, it was also painful to see how
depressed they were with the corruption, nepotism and
favouritism in the system. That is why many of them
had set their goal to become an IAS officer. Whether
they will succeed in first realizing their goal and later
curbing the corruption is a different issue but the way
this threat is weighing heavily on their minds speaks
volumes about how the society is reacting to it. “Either
you have to be from an elite family or you have to have
money, then only you can succeed,” a young student
told the panel, adding: “I want to become an IAS officer
and curb the corruption”.
There were a few voices about the human rights
violations, repression and denial of political rights. A few
of them wanted to be doctors despite the fact that the
profession is losing the sheen for want of jobs in the
government sector. “They (doctors) have made it a
business and I want to become a doctor who can help
the poor,” was the response of a girl student who
narrated how her grandfather was “mistreated” and was
taken to Amritsar for eye surgery.
Refrain, however, was that corruption has eaten into the
vitals of the society and politicians and bureaucrats
have set up a system of favouritism and nepotism in
which merit is marred and the poor are deprived. The
youngsters seemed determined in fighting this menace
but the question is that can one or two or ten such
people overcome this challenge. The sense of
hopelessness in the existing system has dangerous
dimension of drifting these youngsters away to
something else. To me it looked that corruption should
be a separate subject in the school curriculum to
sensitize them at the young age.
RABITA
Earlier in the last week of May similar concerns came up
during an interaction with the higher level of youth. The
occasion was “Rabita—Business Leadership Summit”,
organized by Center for Business Leadership led by
young lawyer Nadeem Qadri. The summit had young
graduates mostly from business management
background as the participants. Their articulation of
ideas was simply brilliant and above all their penchant
to make Kashmir better was visible on their faces. We
cut a beautiful and tasty cake made at home by a
young girl Farah Tanki. Armed with a degree in Food
Technology she has set on the path of taking up the
cake making as a full time business. There were many
such young boys and girls who came up with pragmatic
proposals.
They listened to successful entrepreneurs and business
leaders and were ready to draw inspiration from them.
But again what was flagged off as a major concern that
had potential to halt their dreams was corruption.
“Entrepreneurship is the only solution to a depressed
Kashmir but does the system allow us to move
forward,” questioned a young graduate. Age old
mechanisms based on stale rules and regulations have
dampened the spirits of young people as they are forced
to run from the pillar to post to even get themselves
registered. They did acknowledge that Entrepreneur
Development Institute at Pampore had come up with a
changed insight and outlook to help youth and many
had succeeded in moving forward from that platform.
But the overall policy set up fails to change the mind.
They urged for having a single window system for
clearance of cases as they had to pay for getting their
papers cleared from various agencies such as Industries
Department, Pollution Control Board and SIDCO. The
individual authorities need to be abolished.
In case the government wakes up to the concerns of
these youth, entrepreneurship can become a reality and
help the government also to overcome the challenge of
unemployment. According to a survey conducted by
International NGO Oxfam, ‘Kashmir today is a sea of
unemployed youth, a place where infrastructure is
crippled and there is almost no effort to encourage
private enterprises and self-employment.’ The study
reveals that opportunities for professional education
remain very limited. Out of roughly 700,000 youth in the
age group of 18-30 years, close to 50 percent remain
unemployed despite higher education. In addition to the
fact that employment is a major issue confronting
youth, addressing the political conflict also occupies a
special place in the entire discourse revolving around
them”.
Glorifying the government job, notwithstanding the fact
that we need people in administrative services, is not
the solution. Government must instil confidence among
the educated youth that the system that has worked
against the people for many decades now will follow the
road of changed world. Corruption is a menace that is
now a concern for even a class 9 student, this can be
seen as hope for its end but it has other effects as well