----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 3:33
PM
Subject: [Assam] Whither Assamese
Youths? - Sentinel
Now, now Ms. Das -
you can't go on blaming our youth.
"Indeed those people from Assam
who have stepped out of their shrunken boundaries leaving their lahe
lahe penchant behind, have fitted into the energetic ambience quite
well. And some have done extremely well."
Seriously, an article that
echoes many of our thoughts.
Whither
Assamese Youths?
Maitreyee Barua
Das
A
n editorial in this newspaper on the frustrated youths
of Assam unravels a chain of thoughts, about the present
against the past. About the halcyon days, our days, the days of our
fathers! Feeling nostalgic about the days gone by is a bane of middle age,
but in this context the sadness is called for. The old days were well and
truly good, no doubt about that.
Those of us confined to the
pristine perimeters of Assam and perhaps Meghalaya both in our living and
educational experiences did not have too many choices careerwise. It was
the government establishment, the teaching institutions and the few public
sector undertakings which offered openings to the middle class educated
youth. This limitation had its share of frustrations but did not include
the problem areas that have mushroomed today, namely kickbacks and
"connections". Merit was by and large the sole criterion for securing
employment. Yes, in those days too, there were some who were more equal
than others, but they did not form the bulk of the recruited lot. There
was little to fault the recruitment procedure because the deserving lot
usually got selected. Going further back to the time when many of the
established institutions were in the nascent stage, I remember my father
and his colleagues working through the nights to give shape to the
projects that the government had set up. Compared to the fat pay packets
of today the returns were meagre, but incredibly that mattered little.
People went with their families to the remote areas of posting and
cheerfully gave their best.
The malaise of big money
changing hands during recruitment to different departments today is very
much in keeping with the insincere work ethics that has steadily engulfed
us. We shun work and look for easy money. We fight shy of the competitive
selection procedure and prefer to buy our way in (shamefully some of us
even boast about our under-the-table dealings!) We would rather throw away
our money on bribes than put it on a business venture. We look towards the
omnipotent agency called sarkar to provide us with employment,
while people from different corners of the country come to our State and
set up successful commercial ventures. We have a peculiar aversion to toil
and sweat. So we hand over our lands and other occupational spaces to
immigrants, legal or otherwise.
Not that enterprise and the
will to work are totally lacking. Those among us who strive and persevere
succeed in carving out a niche for ourselves. Sadly though, this is
neither the general rule nor the dominant culture. The callous attitude
prevents us from taking full advantage of the IT revolution, the markets
that have opened up and the corporate sector that is creating numerous job
prospects. True, it is a competitive environment and nobody will hand us
these opportunities on a platter. So do we make an effort to grab these
chances offered, or fall back with an abject dependence on the government?
In the case of the Assamese people, it is usually the latter, while
thousands of other young and not so young people from every strata of
society have fanned out to different parts of the country and the world to
secure employment. They come from places like Kerala, Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, UP, Rajasthan, Punjab, all States
with more capable governments offering greater employment avenues! Indeed
those people from Assam who have stepped out of their shrunken boundaries
leaving their lahe lahe penchant behind, have fitted into the
energetic ambience quite well. And some have done extremely
well.
During my sojourn outside Assam and India, I
have come across a lot of my country folk earning their livelihood in a
hundred different legitimate ways. Only a minute fraction of them has been
from my State. I have never stopped wondering at what could have been if
more and more Assamese youths ventured out to take up these pan-Indian and
overseas jobs. Perhaps there never would have spawned an industry of
extortion and insurgency.
