Sanyukt Yuva Morcha: Spark of Hope for Unemployed Youth of India

From North, South, East, and West, youth leaders came together in the National Capital to form the Sanyukt Yuva Morcha to fight against injustice faced by the country’s youth. 

The youth alliance has emerged as a result of years of exploitation in the form of unemployment, they said. The youngsters grow old waiting for recruitment processes to complete and eventually succumb to the societal expectation of getting married or working a different job. 

“Only a youth movement has the potential to bring our country on the right course and help build a future of our dreams,” read the resolution of the Sanyukt Yuva Morcha (SYM) passed by 115 youth movements and independent organisations across the country. The meeting had representatives from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka in the South to Punjab, Jammu, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan in the North. 

The past few years have seen several aggressive agitations and year-long protests by distressed youth across the country regarding unemployment. The Morcha pointed out that students have been preparing for job exams for several years, but the paper for their particular exam is getting leaked. After the paper leak, the students protest on the streets, which is followed by a storm of lathis and a bunch of FIRs against them.

Applicants allege that over 22 lakh candidates in Uttar Pradesh have been affected by paper leaks. In Uttar Pradesh, tired of the discrepancies in vacancies, the youth protested for over six months in 2021. In October 2020, the youth protested in Allahabad, and an FIR was filed against five-six students who participated in the protest. 

In February this year, students were on the streets at the Ghanta Ghar area in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun, protesting against paper leaks and demanding the suspension of officials involved. Thousands of students were lathi-charged, and an FIR was registered against 13 of them under the charges of riots and attempts to murder. 

Seeing these regular protests, and negligible outcomes of it in the student’s favour, the youth groups have now decided to unite and fight against the same. However, these protests listed above are just a few examples. The problem, as discussed here, is much bigger and is ubiquitous in the country. 

‘If fair Vacancy is Released, Won’t Protest From Tomorrow’

Rajat Singh, a youth from Uttar Pradesh, aspired to clear the teachers’ exam under the state government’s employment programs. Despite several detentions and FIRs against him, he continues to fight for the youth of UP. 

As per Singh, at least 22 lakh unemployed youth are affected by the paper leaks of the teacher eligibility test (UPTET). He is an aspiring teacher himself.

Yogi Adityanath gave a statement in an interview where he said that the ones responsible for the paper leaks will not be spared. This was majorly talking about the irregularities in the 2019 teachers' recruitment for 69,000 posts. 

However, after all the dharnas and protests, in December 2021, Adityanath directed the Basic Education Department to find a “fair and swift solution”. As a result of months of protests in Lucknow and other parts of the state, when the movement peaked right before the elections, the Education Minister called Rajat Singh and others from the protest and assured them that 17,000 post vacancies would be released. But as soon as the BJP returned to power, and a new Education Minister was appointed, the matter was pushed aside.

Further, after the elections, an FIR was filed against Singh, where the complainant was Rohit Tripathi, the Apar Pariyojana Nideshak of the Basic Education Department. The same department had been asked to find a “safe and swift solution” by the CM before the elections. The charges against Singh included Section 505 of the IPC and Section 66 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008. 

"There have been times when I have been detained in the middle of the night. Back in 2022, when we had planned a protest for August 15, the police did not allow us to do so but arrested me on August 13 while I was still in my boxers. I had to remain so for the next two days till the police released me," said Rajat. 

“But the main problem was when an IAS officer filed an FIR against me. I was accused of misguiding the youth and plotting criminal activities against the government for the past six months,” he said. 

Singh alleged that the authorities called him names and said he was caught in bad politics and misguiding other students. “I myself am a candidate. I have cleared the TET exam and have been waiting for a vacancy for the past four years. Why do we protest? It is not because we like to do so, it is an expression that the government has failed in its duty to provide jobs,” he said.

‘Duly Qualified, Received Appointment, but Joining Pending’

Amandeep Kaur, a resident of Faridkot Jila, did her MA in Punjab and cleared NET and got Junior Research Fellowship later. She is a research scholar at Delhi University’s North campus researching racism in Punjab. Since Kaur has also done MA, she is qualified for a job as a school teacher and has cleared the Punjab TET. Then she cleared the specific subject exam for being a teacher as well. 

Kaur always wanted to teach, either as an assistant professor or a school teacher. In 2021, when the Punjab government released notification for the recruitment of 1,158 Assistant Professors, the vacancy for the post had come after a long halt of 26 years. She worked day and night to clear the exam, but since there were multiple flaws in the recruitment process, the vacancy was ultimately cancelled. When the flaws in the mark sheet and answers were protested, it led to a six-month-long case. Eventually, the recruitment was cancelled owing to flaws on the government’s end.

This recruitment was a pre-election promise from the then Indian National Congress government in the state. Even after the case concluded, the teachers protested and demanded the new Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to complete the recruitment or at least release new vacancies. However, they received negligible assurance. 

In another recruitment process under the Master's cadre 2022 (for school teachers), the process has been completed for a long time, but the joining of candidates is due. The candidates have left other jobs and have been waiting for a date to join. Kaur said, “We have even received appointment letters from the current CM Bhagwant Mann, but since we have not been given a joining date, we are left stranded. We cannot even do a private job, and joining seems like a far-fetched dream.”

In the past few years, Kaur has worked with several student unions and was also a part of the year-long farmers’ protest. She used to run libraries at the protest site and teach the young kids who were there with their families and were missing out on their education. However, as of now, with the current state of irregularities in Punjab’s recruitment process, she does not see any hope.

Centralised Approach From Sanyukt Yuva Morcha

The invitation for an alliance that touched all parts of the country was given by a youth movement based in Delhi, Yuva Halla Bol (YHB). The representatives welcomed the resolution that demanded accountability from the State in various matters. Over 100 representatives signed the resolution. 

The key demands of the resolution were as follows:

1) Right to Employment as a legal guarantee for every adult between the age group of 21-60 within a radius of 50 kilometres of their residence, ensuring basic minimum wage.

2) Filling up all the vacant posts in the public sector in a fair and time-bound manner.

3) Rampant contractualisation in jobs of perennial nature be abolished.

Anupam from Yuva Halla Bol spoke to NewsClick about how he sees the Sanyukt Yuva Morcha. “People who are working in their respective States, in terms of unemployment and other issues that affect the Youth, Sanyukt Yuva Morcha in a centralised manner is bringing them all together and giving them a political direction,” he said.  

Yuva Halla Bol believes that only the policies and the country’s politics are responsible for the dilapidated state of the youth. 

The Morcha, in one of its first moves, is planning to build an expanded legal team in over 100 districts, so that all the youngsters who are already under the clutches of the government (either having an FIR against them or are facing regular problems during the protests) could be given legal assistance. Plans for organising Youth Mahapanchayats in different cities of the country are also being formulated.  

Although there are organisations in the Morcha that have a full structure already, a huge chunk of the people are candidates themselves and have been agitating in their own states. Until now, their issues could not reach the national capital, but the SYM plans on moving in a direction where every piece of news can be circulated throughout the country. 

Two examples where issues have failed to reach the capital are of Jammu and Karnataka. 

‘Youth Suffered Post Article 370 Abrogation’

The most discussed vacancy in Jammu and Kashmir is the Fire Servicemen vacancy, which has been pending since 2013. Despite multiple attempts, no progress has been made, and the candidates continue to protest. The nature of the problems here is different.

Vinkal Sharma hails from the Kathua district of J&K. After graduating in Engineering, he wanted to go for a government job in JKPSI (Police Sub-inspector), Junior Engineer position, or Finance Account Assistant.

Following the opening of these vacancies in 2019 and 2020, Vinkal and a few others noticed that the eligibility level was severely high in every exam. In certain papers, the qualification mark was 118 and 119 out of 120. The reason given by the authorities was that the students had been preparing for four-five years now, and the level was reasonably achievable. Later, they realised that the answers marked by some students, even the ones which were incorrect in the answer key, were marked correct. "Certain students had marked an incorrect answer, which, although given correct as per the answer key, was a mistake by the examiner who marked it. This mistake was the same as what these students had marked in their OMR sheet," narrated Sharma.

Slowly, after a lot of analysis, Sharma realised that the paper might have been leaked. In the next PSI exam, the topper scored 140/150. "All the coaching centers and educators had predicted that the scores would fall somewhere in the range of 120-125. The students who had scored 140 were nowhere close in the test series." For the same syllabus and exams just 20 days apart, students scoring 30/150 in the former scored 140 in the latter.

In exceptional cases, members of the same family sometimes clear the exam, Vinkal explained. "But here, out of the total sample of 3,600 students, there were 50 such families where all siblings or members of the same family had cleared the exam,” he said.

The government later formed a committee, which found that the analysis was correct and that malpractices had occurred in the exam. Later, in another such exam, a similar thing happened, leading to all three papers being scrapped. Around 26,000 students had appeared for the Junior Engineer exam, 135,000 had appeared for Finance Accountant, and 97,000 students had appeared for the J&K PSI exam. The PSI exam was retaken, but the paper was leaked again.

On March 8, 2023, an exam was supposed to be held for the Finance Accountant position. However, protests stopped that from happening and the candidates were lathi-charged. The protest happened because the exam was being conducted by the company Aptech Limited. The company has been blacklisted in several other States, and has been found corrupt, cried the protestors.  

“The government cannot provide jobs to everyone, that we understand, but what it can do is create an environment for a secure job, and help create more. At least minimum wage should be catered to, and pension benefits should be ensured,” said Sarovar, an activist, and a representative from Karnataka. He hopes that the result of the formation of Sanyukt Yuva Morcha is along the lines of what the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha achieved during the farmers' protest.