For around ten years, Namo Narayan Meena, 28, kept trying to get a government job — with no success. Earlier this week, he was found hanging inside his rented room in Rajasthan’s Dholpur city.
According to his family, recognised as a Scheduled Tribe in the state, Namo Narayan left behind a note claiming the previous BJP state government kept announcing Ayurveda compounder vacancies but never hired for those positions.
“Five years of that government passed like a famine,” he wrote. “I waited since 2012 and kept wasting my family’s money.”
Namo Narayan’s fruitless wait for the job was similar to what many other aspirants in Rajasthan — including his own brother — had experienced.
The Ashok Gehlot government in 2013 had announced 1,600 vacancies for Ayurveda, Unani and Homoeopathy nurses/compounders, before all three were clubbed under the Ayush Ministry, according to Dhanush Ram Meena, the president of Ayurved Nurses Union, Rajasthan.
He said the new BJP government, elected in December 2013, promised to fill these vacancies but later cut over a thousand of them, leaving just 600 positions — which were filled by 2018.
Namo Narayan’s family claims he was among the 1,000 left in limbo. By the time new vacancies came about, the marks he secured in his General Nursing and Midwifery diploma would no longer have made the cut, said Dhanush Ram.
His father Bhanwar Singh Meena, 65, told The Indian Express over the phone that he sat for exams for new compounder vacancies, but was not selected when the results came late last year. “The same day he stopped eating for three days and kept crying. Everyone at home (in the district’s Nakatpura village) pacified him. We kept him with us for 15-20 days.”
“All these years, he lived and prepared in Jaipur, Dholpur, and even in Gangapur (Sawai Madhopur). After the results late last year, we comforted him and he seemingly recovered after about 15-20 days,” added Namo Narayan’s uncle Rambhajan Meena, a retired headmaster.
“Then he said that he wants to go back to Dholpur to prepare, saying that as one more examination is left I want to appear for it,” the father said.
After he had resumed living in Dholpur city by himself, the results for Patwari posts were declared. “Following the results on January 25 he again went into shock,” said uncle Rambhajan. “He died by suicide in the intervening night of January 25-26; we got to know about it on the morning of Januray 26.”
Family members say they then went to Dholpur city to bring back the body and discovered the note.
“I had five sons, of which four were studying. I am about 64-65 years old and can’t work as a labourer anymore. So I have one of my sons work as a labourer and he supports the family,” Bhanwar Singh said.
While Namo Narain was the eldest, the next, Madan, 26, lives in Jaipur and is preparing for a job with the Railways. The third one is a labourer while the youngest two are students of classes XI and XII. Two of Bhanwar Singh’s daughters are married.
Madan is preparing for the Railway Recruitment Board’s Non Technical Popular Categories exam. He said: “Ever since the BJP government has come, they haven’t given employment. They keep postponing and keep taking time for some reason or the other. It’s been about three years and this railway recruitment hasn’t been completed. So much time has never been taken.”
Madan appeared for the first stage of Computer Based Test in February last year, which he had qualified as per the results declared this January 15.
However, in view of protests, the Union government has constituted a committee to review the results. CBT stage two, scheduled from February 15, has been postponed.
Meanwhile, a police official said the family had brought out Namo Narayan’s body “quietly” without “informing the landlord”. Dholpur Kotwali SHO Adhyatam Gautam said: “His relatives came and took him away. They did not inform the landlord and we got to know later that he had died by hanging himself, as per what the relatives have said. We have lodged a case under CrPC 174 since it seems to be a suspicious case as the family recovered a suicide note. Further investigation is on.”