Graduates to hell

OSAMA MANZAR on Ranchi’s educated unemployed

EDWARD Kujoor is a 40- year-old rickshaw-puller living in the heart of Ranchi. He is an M.A. in a ‘regional language -Kurukh’, with a good first di vision. Thirty-year-old Patricia Tirky is a domestic help, an ‘ayah’. She is also a commerce graduate with honors and married to Edward Kujoor Cicilia Toppo is 29-year-old agricultural labourer aving a post-graduate degree in Hindi. Nirmala Lakra, 35, an honors graduate in Hindi is a ‘reza’ (daily wages laborer).

The list is endless .... that too only in Ranchi, leave alone Bihar or the rest of the country. In backward Bihar, as a matter of fact, there are thousands of graduates doing menial work. They are looking for any kind of job possible, not just for a year or two after the university education, but hopelessly for decades.

Back home, Edward’s graduate wife, Patricia is more depressed with her three children. Her depression and frustration ends when she after domestic responsibilities, picks u ‘preparation material’ for ‘bank ing examinations’. Patricia should be complimented that she has not lost courage. She struggles to prepare for competitive examinations even as she works as a domestic servant. Unfortunately, she has not met with much success as yet.

Edward revealed that he wasn’t always a rickshaw-puller. For four years he was a lecturer at Jagannathpur College, Dhurwa, Ranchi. For these years of labor he was, however, not even paid a ‘paisa’, and took to puffing a rickshaw a year ago, in complete despair. Having been three years without a job after he graduated in 1984, he was thrilled when he got an appointment as a lecturer. Today, he is a broken man.

FOR women, Nirmala College is considered to be the best college in Ranchi. In 1981,Nirmala Lakra graduated from this prestigious institution. Unfortunately, the best she could get was job as a laborer in an electronics factory at a wage of Rs 300 per month Compared to her situation at the moment that was paradise.

The only one who appears to have extricated herself despair is the fate. She found that helping others is the best way out. Rather, she helped herself by starting off as a social worker in slums.

“I feel better now,” she confesses, though she’s not making any money, she feels she’s found her corner. Cecilia is probably fortunate in her step and she has, no doubt all the advantages of not being married. Her works in slums has, by now, been recog-nised by the Ranchi Regional Development Authority. The RRDA has in the meantime, hired Cecilia to help in slum administration.

The unfortunate part, however, is that Cecilia is the exception in an otherwise bleak scenario. Indeed, an enormous waste of human resources in the shape of highly qualified men and women in totally unsuitable jobs, or in chronic unemployment, is endemic to Bihar.

‘T’HE only hope, amidst despair and disapointment, particularly in Ranchi, are some fitful efforts initiated by right thinking people. Col. Subhash Bakshi, ex-Assistant Commandant, Army Headquarters, Ranchi, a pioneer activist in the field, has taken up on himself the task of drawing up a list of such highly qualified unemployed or unsuitably employed persons, and is trying to find jobs for them. “I have already talked to the Ranchi Regional Development Authority to provide them with part-time jobs, and I hope some thing positive will happen ‘,says Col. Bakshi. He is not the only one hoping.