As you drive down the suburbs of Amritsar in Punjab, there are rehabilitation and de-addiction centres for treating depression and drug addiction. At one of the centres, young boys and men aged 15 to 30 years were being harangued on how to overcome addiction by Dr Bhatia, director of Hermitage De-Addiction Centre. Dr Bhatia tells News18, “I have seen for the last 15 years, nothing has changed, and cases of drug addiction have increased. This is also because the boys have no jobs and they get into depression.”
News18 spoke to three men, in the age group of 20 to 25, who stressed that the lack of employment opportunities have made many youngsters slip into addiction and then depression. One of the boys says, “It began with fun. I had it once and then I don’t know when I got into the habit of drugs. I had to take leave from work and I am without pay for treatment. Another says, “I just got married and then I lost my job. It’s so difficult to get work and I am hooked to drugs. My parents support me but I can’t help it. I can’t bear to see their tears but I am a slave of drugs. The third one, who says drugs are easily available in the state, stresses, “You go anywhere, outside a college or school, and ‘chitta’ (drugs) is so easy to get. Joblessness is the issue. How do we get over this depression?”
The cocktail of drugs and joblessness is hitting Punjab hard, and both the issues are highlighted only during the elections. In the 2017 assembly elections, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had created a stir when he said 60% of the youth in Punjab were into drugs. Despite the uproar it created, Rahul was not far from the truth. But Congress’s poll promise then of a “drug-free Punjab” is yet to be fulfilled. Sidhu has often asked, when he threatens to go on a hunger strike, whether the government did not table the Special Investigation Team (SIT) report on drugs.
Ironically, come elections, and the drugs’ issue becomes the poster boy for elections. The most interesting battle is being fought in Amritsar east where Sidhu will take on the drug cartel accused, Bikram Majithia.
Majithia is out on an anticipatory bail in the drug cartel case once again in Amritsar, which is vulnerable as drugs are easily accessible in there. But political experts say drugs are a major source of funds for several political parties and, therefore, at most, they are willing to do lip-service but not stop the trade.
Sadhvi Khosla, who has produced a documentary called ‘Fading Glory’ on the nexus between drugs and politicians, says, “You ask me and I will get drugs for you. It comes from Pakistan and politicians turn a blind eye (towards it). I can’t bear to see how the young continue to suffer.”
Along with the drugs’ issue, there is rampant unemployment in the state. If you travel through Jalandhar, Ludhiana and even Chandigarh, several offices offer easy immigration to as young as Rohit Singh of ESS Global Services. Singh said at least hundred people meet him on a daily basis because they want to go abroad. Munish, a 23-year-old man at the ESS office, says, “My friends who were abroad own a car which is worth Rs 10 lakh. I just have a small Alto. I too want to live big. I’m looking for a job but I’m not getting it here so I want to go away.” Sitting beside him is his mother who has sold off her land because she wants her son to get a job. She says, “I am worried that if he stays here in Punjab for long he too, like some of his friends, may begin to take drugs in frustration.”
Most political parties such as the Congress and Akalis had promised they would make it easy for the youth to go abroad. An app, in fact, offers easy loan and money to those in need. In fact, political parties, at this time, should encourage the youth to stay in Punjab and work here. Rohit Singh from the ESS Global Services says, “This is an acknowledgement of the fact that all political parties have failed to provide jobs (to the youth). Since they cannot do so, they want to use to go away but at what cost?”
At the Golden Temple, two young boys from Bathinda, who were whiling away their time sipping coffee, reiterated that they will not get jobs. “What to do? How to tell parents? Some of our friends have begun to take drugs. We are fighting this,” said one of them.
Elections will come and go, but, in Punjab, which sends many people abroad, the story is not of success but of frustration and failed promises.
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