The Beetle & The Elephant
The Beetle is very small. Only 30 million (3%) Indian adults have a proper, secure, formal organized sector skilled job. An even smaller number, 10 million (1%) mostly higher skilled workers, are in the private sector. Further, people who went to “good” colleges (IITs/IIMs/regional institutes) of any sort are barely a million (0.1%). It is important to recognize the minuteness of this number – its NOT “15-20%” as most drawing room conversations would have you believe.

The Elephant is large and has three distinct parts – trunk, torso, and legs – even though beetle folks mangle them all in to one.

Trunk: The functioning trunk of the elephant is the all-important but low-skill jobs that make India tick. About a 100 million people (11%) comprise the unorganized sector- including micro-entrepreneurs and the self-employed. Found in every middle town, this India works hard, has made peace with its livelihood and yet has great aspirations for their children to become beetles someday.

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