The unemployment rate in India averaged 8.57 per cent from 2018 until 2021, reaching an all-time high of 23.50 per cent in April of 2020. This is what Google told me when I did a search. I do not vouch for the veracity of these statistics, obviously, because I do not represent the government of India and can’t speak for the government of India. Who is to say the numbers weren’t fudged by people paid by foreign governments jealous of our many achievements like the world’s tallest statue or world’s biggest thali?

I am simply quoting people who claim to be experts, and who spend their time documenting information like this, much of which may be wildly inaccurate. After all, even though I personally know a significant number of people who have lost their jobs and are desperately looking for work, it is always possible that my friends and their colleagues are pretending to do so only to malign the government of India. All the advertisements in our newspapers show smiling young men and women in offices around the country, and we all know government-sponsored ads don’t lie. So, I always take these statistics with a huge pinch of salt. If I have a job, everyone else is probably lying.