Thought Papers

Praveen Swami

National Editor, The Indian Express

India's Capacity Crisis

For the last 10 years or slightly longer we’ve seen a consistent decline in every conceivable theatre of violence – our North East insurgencies have diminished to very low levels, most of our ethnic insurgencies are at all-time lows, we haven't had a major terrorist attack since 2010-11. Even in Kashmir, if you get past some of the hype and look at the numbers, the annual fatality rate in population adjusted terms, is lower than most US cities, and a small fraction of what violence was there in 2002-03. Why then, do we have this conversation around it? 
We know some of the answers. We’re talking about a society in our country which is undergoing unprecedented social change. The strains are everywhere for us to see. We should have been creating 10 million jobs a year for the last decade. In not one of those years have we come anywhere near half that number in terms of job creation. By 2040 the number of young people out on the streets looking for work is going to be unimaginably high. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that in the next 10 years we’re going to find any magical solutions to this.