The weak labor market and paper leaks are breaking the promise of the first prime minister, says the MP

Rajya Sabha MP and Chief Advocate of the Supreme Court of India Menaka Guruswamy speaking at an event organized by the S. Jaipal Reddy Memorial Foundation in association with the Manthan Foundation in Hyderabad on Saturday (29 August 2026). NALSAR Vice Chancellor Srikrishna Deva Rao is also seen. | Photo credit: NAGARA GOPAL

“The EMI will arrive in time but the contract may not arrive in time,” Rajya Sabha MP and Supreme Court lawyer Menaka Guruswamy said at the S. Jaipal Reddy Memorial Foundation lecture on “India’s Constitution and its Protection”. Getting to the heart of the paper leaks and their impact on the society, Menaka Guruswamy said that the paper leaks and the weak job market were against the promise or promise made by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his speech on August 14, 1947. A promise that Indians still believed in.

“For generations, Indian families have been taught a simple pattern of mobility. Study hard, get an education, get a degree, get a job, build a better life. It’s one of the most powerful social contracts in modern India. Parents sacrifice, the child studies, the family saves, and education is supposed to turn effort into opportunity. But the first question is increasingly vexing. Who pays for this opportunity?” she said she linked the breakdown of trust to the killing of protests in Delhi, Jharkhand and Bihar.

She recounted the background of the protests in Delhi in the third week of July: “For lower-middle-class and middle-class Indians, NEET is not just an exam. It’s a chance for a stable, better life. It’s coaching fees. It takes away a year or two from the job market. An entire middle-class and lower-middle-class family invests their savings so that their child can speak this exam,” but a young citizen said about this exam before we start talking about it. the Scottish dreams of the country’s young people.

Menaka spoke about her family’s ties to the city in a packed Institution of Engineers auditorium on Saturday, attended by parents Meera and Mohan and a group of her teachers, as she received warm applause for everything she said.

She divided the address into two parts, one focusing on the labor market, paper leaks and the country’s demographic dividend, and the other part on the delimitation exercise which she said will adversely affect southern states.

“The Delimitation Amendment Bill 2026 gives the government unlimited power to determine the arrangement of seats and territorial constituencies based on the numbers of any census it deems fit. This is being misused to politicize the exercise. Moreover, there seems to be no reason to increase the number of seats from 550 to 850 seats,” she said.

“In effect, it would mean that if the Delimitation Amendment was passed, for example, Uttar Pradesh would have 120 seats and our state of Telangana would have 26 seats. So that means you, as a government or as a political party, can capture the five big states of North India and form the undisputed government of your time. It left out the possibility that every other state would make off with that account.” The lecture was organized by Jaipal Reddy Foundation in association with Manthan.

Published – 29 Aug 2026 21:41 IST