00:00Every few months, India is confronted with images that should embarrass us, yet somehow
00:05no longer surprise us.
00:06This week, it was railway stations across Uttar Pradesh.
00:09Trains were so packed that people were hanging off the footboards, young men and women sleeping
00:14on station floors, on bed sheets, plastic sheets, on bare concrete.
00:18Some had been travelling for over 24 hours to appear for the UP police constable recruitment
00:22exam.
00:23Predictably, the debate has centred on overcrowding.
00:26Why weren't there enough trains?
00:27Why were the arrangements inadequate?
00:29And why were candidates forced to travel in such conditions?
00:32But that misses the larger point.
00:34The real story is that nearly 28 lakh people have applied for just 32,679 constable posts.
00:41That's roughly 88 applicants competing for every vacancy.
00:45And these are not positions that require advanced academic qualifications.
00:49Yet reports indicate that among the applicants are engineers, post-graduates and master's
00:53degree holders.
00:53People who spent years acquiring credentials that were supposed to unlock opportunity are
00:58now competing for one of the most basic entry-level government jobs available.
01:02A constable's life is not easy.
01:05The work involves long shifts, constant public interaction, physical risk, administrative pressure
01:09and increasingly scrutiny from every direction.
01:12It is an essential job, but it is not a glamorous one.
01:15The starting basic pay is around Rs 21,700, with total monthly earnings generally rising to
01:21roughly Rs 30,000-40,000 after allowances.
01:24There is nothing wrong with aspiring to become a police constable.
01:27There is something deeply troubling, however, about a situation in which millions of educated
01:32young Indians see such positions as one of the few dependable routes to economic security.
01:37There was a car standing there, 5km from the station.
01:42The people who have money, they can do their business, but the lower family or middle family
01:46do practice for a government job.
01:48And all this unfolds against a backdrop of repeated anxieties over paper leaks, cancelled examinations
01:54and delayed recruitment processes.
01:56For many applicants, the fear is not merely that they will fail, it is that the system itself
02:00will fail them.
02:01That is why the scenes from Uttar Pradesh should not be viewed as a transportation story.
02:05The real issue is that millions of educated Indians believe that enduring extraordinary
02:09hardship is a reasonable price to pay for the possibility of earning a modest government salary.
02:15And if that no longer shocks us, perhaps that is the most alarming part of all.
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