Column

Every generation goes through one major seminal moment that leaves an indelible mark on its psyche. It may be a sudden event or a gradual unfolding of a situation, but for ever more, those who were alive at that moment internalise it and are influenced by it.

To those who went through the trauma of Partition, even if from a distance, the break-up of a country and its brutal aftermath will always remain etched in their memories.
That generation is now fading out but Partition will be a living memory with us. Three decades later, the Emergency came as a shock to all those who believed that Indian democracy was inviolable; a whole new political culture was spawned in its wake which is visible even today. Similarly, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Mandir-Mandal brand of politics, (and for us in Mumbai the 1993 riots and bombing), all were developments that have had a long-lasting impact and informed our collective consciousness. Not everything is depressing of course — 1971 saw India winning Test series abroad and then a military victory against Pakistan, which boosted national confidence.

When such things occur, the old certitudes die and a new way of thinking is born. When Kapil Dev brought home the World Cup or when India sent a man into space, a whole generation saw the opening up of new possibilities. With his first budget, Manmohan Singh allowed millions of Indians to turn into entrepreneurs. This slow but irreversible process put us on the way to becoming an economic power and the post-reforms generation that grew up in the 1990s and later saw an India vastly different from what their parents had grown up in.

The 25-year old today probably gets bored listening to stories about how it was difficult to get a telephone connection, or how there were only two automobile models on the road. To him, and increasingly her, Doordarshan is a joke and a city without malls an urban legend. Thanks to galloping economic growth, there are shiny new goods on the shelves and easily available credit cards to buy them on friendly instalments. And to pay those credit card bills, there are jobs for the asking, jobs with ever increasing salaries and perks. Youngsters can now afford to take sabbaticals and say goodbye to employers who cannot give them financial or even emotional satisfaction. As for saving, who’s bothered when the money will continue to roll in? This is the brave, new generation with the world as its oyster.

Except that, as we now know, this scenario was true only till a few months ago. Now, the world is an extremely uncertain place where a job (or even a company) can vanish any moment, banks are becoming picky about lending and those shiny new cell phones are looking unattainable. The old certainties are dying, if not dead. This generation is now getting its own sucker punch which will change it forever.

Job losses are not as routine in India as they are in the west. No amount of liberalisation could make a dent in the old labour laws of our socialist past. The pink slip in the US is brutal — you get an hour’s notice to clear out your desk — but even in a globalised India, companies are careful to ask people to go. Some do try, like Jet Airways did, but despite being on legally sound footing, it got a bloody nose. We want the best of global practices except this one.

But, this is changing and changing fast. As companies start feeling the heat of lower profitability and worse, losses, they are responding by first cutting down of perks and privileges and then, inevitably, sacking employees. For the moment, such job losses are small and under the news radar, but anecdotal evidence suggests that companies are slowly letting people go. In an election year mass cuts would be impolitic and suicidal, but what happens after the elections are over and the meltdown really begins to bite is anybody’s guess. This year may turn out to be the year of the job loss.

How will the young employee of today cope? It is not merely a question of managing the budget — after all returning to mom and dad’s house is always an option for many.
The bigger worry is that there may not be any high paying job available for a long time. Middle-aged people will be hit too but a young generation not used to hardship, dealing with a no-income situation, with little hope in sight, could be psychologically devastating. Nothing in their background has prepared them for a life without financial independence; they had always believed that the India story, with its robust economic growth, was a never ending one; now it looks like fizzling out, even if the papers say that growth will be maintained at a 7 per cent level. It is like the Berlin Wall has fallen and communism has been exposed as a sham.

By the middle of this year, a fresh cohort of young, qualified and employable people will enter the market. Many of them would have paid a lot of money to do courses in areas that looked promising. They may even be willing to work for less just to get a job and some steady income. This will increase competition for jobs. Meanwhile, if the world economy does not expand, the downstream effect will mean more job losses here. It will be a dismal return to our bad old days. If I was a young urban professional today, I would be very scared.