From Unemployment To Tech: India's LOP Rahul Gandhi Makes A Splash In US

Donning a white kurta with a black jacket, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took centre stage at the University of Texas during his three-day visit to the United States (US). He said, “At its heart, Opposition is the voice of the people. Your main focus is to consider where and how you can raise the issues concerning the people of India. You think from an individual perspective as well as from the perspective of groups such as industries and farmers.”

Gandhi arrived in Dallas, Texas, on Sunday for his three-day US visit. He was welcomed at the airport by Sam Pitroda, Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, and members of the Indian diaspora.

India's Unemployment Crisis
In India, unemployment has created major issues especially for its youth and opposition parties have slammed the government several times on the same issue. In urban India, the top concerns remain unchanged, with unemployment (33 per cent), inflation (31 per cent), corruption (21 per cent), crime and violence (20 per cent), and poverty and social inequality (19 per cent) continuing to dominate the worry list, according to a survey report by Ipsos

Gandhi added, "India has an employment problem, but there are many countries in the world that don't really face this issue." He added, "If you look at the United States in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, they were the centre of global production. Anything that was made— cars, washing machines, TVs— all made in the United States."

Notably, production moved from the US to Korea, Japan and eventually to China. He stated, “America, Europe and India have given up on the idea of production and handed it over to China. The act of production creates jobs.” He added that consumption will not create jobs. There is a need to shift focus from companies like Uber that organize consumption to those like Mahindra and Bajaj that drive production and create employment opportunities."

In March this year, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a report stated that the unemployment rate of Indian youths is higher than for adults. The youth unemployment rate has been rising over the past several decades– from 5.6 per cent in 2000 to 6.2 per cent in 2012 and then increasing threefold, to nearly 18 per cent in 2018 and reaching around 15.1 per cent in 2020

Earlier, the ILO report had revealed that the youth unemployment rate has been rising over the past several decades and noted that unemployment among educated youth was particularly high and had exceeded global averages by 2018 to create more jobs by investing in infrastructure development, promoting entrepreneurship and by providing skill development programmes.

After expressing its concerns about a report of the ILO, the Modi government has questioned a Citigroup report, which revealed that India “will struggle to create sufficient employment opportunities” even with a 7 per cent economic growth rate. The Union Ministry of Labour and Employment said that the report fails to consider the positive trends and comprehensive data from official sources, such as the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the Reserve Bank of India and the Employees Provident Fund Organisation, which show consistent improvements in key labour market indicators.

However, as per the quarterly bulletin of the period labour force survey, the rate of unemployment in the urban areas declined to 6.6 per cent in Q1FY25. On the back of a fall in the unemployment rate among males aged 15 or above, the overall unemployment rate improved from the four-quarter high of 6.7 per cent in the January to March 2024 period.

Cruel, Cruel Tech
Talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI), the INC leader stated that it can be a good opportunity if one is positioned properly. He said that every new technology takes away some jobs and generates new ones.

"Every time you get a new technology, the argument is made that it's going to take jobs away. When computers first came [it was feared that] it is going to take jobs away. When calculators first came [it was feared that] it is going to take jobs away. ATMs came [it was feared that] it's going to take jobs away. What happens is- it does take jobs away from some people and then transfers them to other people. I'm not of the view that jobs will vanish, but different types of jobs will be created and different types of systems will benefit more or less," Gandhi said.

Elaborating on his view, the Congress leader said, "I think, for example, the IT industry in India is going to have a real big serious problem because of AI. But I don't think that Bajaj-making scooters are going to have such a big problem. It's going to take away some jobs, it's going to add some jobs and if you're positioned properly, it's an opportunity and if you're positioned badly, you're in trouble."

"I remember Mr [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee gave a speech that Indians don't need computers. And somebody else gave a speech that Indians don't need English. [But] Computers created millions of jobs in India. So it depends how flexible you are and how well you're looking at the future," he added.

About The Modi Government
While talking about his visit to the US, Gandhi said that the reason is that all avenues of communication in India were shut. No matter what we did, everything was blocked. He mentioned," We spoke in Parliament, but it wasn't televised. We even presented documents to the legal system, but nothing happened. So, all the avenues were closed, and for a long time, we literally couldn’t understand how to communicate."

Gandhi also talked about the general elections and said that the other thing that happened was that the fear of the BJP vanished. "We saw that immediately, within minutes of the election result, nobody in India was scared of the BJP or the Prime Minister of India," he mentioned.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) slammed the Congress leader and branded him a “black spot” on Indian democracy. BJP's national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia accused Gandhi of attempting to undermine Indian democracy through his comments abroad, allegedly in line with a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the Congress and the Chinese Communist Party during the UPA regime.

In a press conference at the BJP headquarters, Bhatia said, “Rahul Gandhi is widely recognised as an immature, part-time leader. Yet, the responsibility on his shoulders as the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha is significant.”

Abhishek Sharma

BW Reporters The author is a senior correspondent at BW Businessworld