 Hello and welcome to Dispatches from India, a show by People's Dispatch where we bring you the latest news from the country, what Indians are talking about and its effect on economy, polity and society. Mr. Furrode Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari recently shared a government advertisement from his Twitter handle that stirred up controversy. The ad stars actor Akshay Kumar who is known to be close to the right-wing ruling party in India, the BJP. The ad shows a father who is weeping as his newly married daughter leaves with her husband in a car. Playing a cop, Kumar says it's obvious he's crying as he is sending off his daughter in a car with two airbags and not six. This official ad by the Government of India is intended to create awareness on road safety. However, soon after it was aired it received major backlash from the public and opposition parties alike, accusing the government of promoting and justifying the act of dowry. The practice of dowry involves the family of the bride paying large sums of cash and kind to the family of the groom during marriage. Women are often stigmatised or treated badly if their families do not cuff up enough dowry. According to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau or NCRB, there has been a 25% rise in cases of dowry in the country in the past year compared to 2020. We have with us lawyer Kirti Singh speaking on the dowry system in India. For the last few years, we have seen a progressive deterioration in the status of women and we have seen a decline as far as the statistics are concerned because they not only are we being ruled by a regressive ideology as far as women are concerned but also all kinds of regressive customs and traditions are being fuelled again and amongst them is the custom of dowry. So when people are and you see the many statements by the BJP government supporters who talk about how women should dress, what they should wear, who think of women as second-class citizens, who think of them not as equals and who therefore find nothing wrong with what is if dowry is given or taken. Even when you go to the police, the police don't think of investigating the cases properly. We see even cases of dowry death not being investigated properly. Now police don't collect the evidence, they don't get the statements reported in time. They do not think that it's a very grave offense if it is committed. Obviously the government should be acting to lessen the number of cases but I don't have any hopes of that happening because when you see that even in the Akshay Kumar case, I mean you see a normalization of the practice of dowry. So where, who, unless you think that it's an evil, unless you think that it is something to be stopped, who's going to stop it? The unemployment rate in the country is at its worst in the past year at 8.3%. In August this year more than 2 million people were unemployed according to data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy or the CMIE. The report reflects quite a quick increase in this rate as in just July this year the rate was at 6.83%. If one is to look at individual states then the BJP rule state of Haryana is the worst with an unemployment rate of 37.3%. The report also sheds light on the unemployment rate on gender lines. The unemployment rate in men stands at 6.6% and 15.2% in women. To understand the seriousness of these figures we spoke with Economics Professor Chirishi Dasgupta. Now why aren't there enough jobs and why is the number of unemployed and the proportion of unemployed going up in the economy? And for this we need to understand two things. At the time of liberalization there was the rate of profit that the organized capitalist sector, manufacturing sector used, the industrial sector used to make was around 25%. And this was with regulation. Now after deregulation liberalization while absolute shares of profits, an absolute amount of profit is gone up and as I said asset ownership, inequality in asset ownership has gone up. But in the Marxist sense the rate of profit has shown a tendency to fall over time and it was static at about 17-18% in about 2010-11. But in the last few years it has now fallen to 11-12%. And this actually shows a crisis of capitalism in India and the response to that has been to intensify what existed already which is called the process of labor cheapening which is by the share of wages in the economy has been falling and the share of the surplus that accrues to capitalism has been rising over time. Now when this happens what do you mean and because we have a large labor surplus that we inherited since independence and there was never really a post liberalization, the labor surplus has increased. So keeping wages low is more difficult and then there is a first command over unpaid work especially of women and of people who are lower down in the caste and religious hierarchy. So all this together what means is that the income of the majority of people is actually in real terms not rising. It is depending on social location, it is either stagnant or falling. And this means that there is a low demand in the economy and just by the demand of the 10% no economy can survive. So 90% of people are actually seeing a contraction in what they can purchase and consume. However, capitalists are very happy with this situation because if they can keep on getting absolute profits and the share of the surplus increases every year to the point where it is about 65% of the total value that is created in the economy then they are absolutely happy about it. And then like as long as this fiscal consolidation, fiscal compression not spending like you enough by the state continues that actually helps more and more privatization agendas which perfectly suits the interest of finance capital both domestic and international. And that is exactly what is going on and which indicates that there is a complete narrowing of the class basis of the state in India in favor of capital and against workers. And this in a sense is the institutional structural reason for unemployment rising which cannot be just looked at in terms of monthly fluctuations of data. The longer term trend has to be explained through what has been happening in India for the past three decades and especially after 2015 which is just simply an intensification of the process. In our final story more than 30,000 workers in small rubber plantations in Kanyakumari a major town in the state of Tamil Nadu continue to languish without minimum wages and job security. Rubber plantations are the primary source of livelihood in Kanyakumari's hilly regions. The workers say that they suffer immensely especially during monsoons when they are left without work and wages. Social welfare measures including medical aid remain a distant dream for them. Here's a ground report. In Kanyakumari, there are no other ways to get a job. Even if you go tomorrow, you will get a job like that. If you don't like it, you will get a job in the future. We have been working here for the past 50 years and now we are 66 years old. In 2022, we have reached Malai in Kanyakumari. There is no unemployment in the Palawet University of Kanyakumari. For 3-4 months, 5-6 months, we can get a job in Malai. After all this, we are not able to get a job. Tamil Nadu government and other governments are not able to get a job. We are not able to get a job. We have been working here for a long time. We are not able to get a job because of the rain. Tamil Nadu government and other governments are not able to get a job because of the rain. We are not able to get a job because of the rain. We are not able to get a job because of the rain. We are not able to get a job. We have to collect all theated work to produce a big amount. The management side is saying that Malay is not good because of the rain. But they are not ready to give full treatment to their own child. That is a big problem. They are going to think that they did something wrong. But this is happening in their workplace. This is a continuation of the agitation. What they are doing now is that they are giving full treatment to their own child. That is not possible. We think that treatment is not good. If there is a disease, we should give it to the state. We don't get any treatment from the government. We don't get any treatment from the government. We don't get any treatment from the government. What will the government do? Keep watching. We will see you next week.