Last decade is painful

Narendra Modi has increasingly framed the last decade as a period of overlapping global shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic, major wars and geopolitical conflicts, supply-chain disruptions, inflation, and energy insecurity. Those points are grounded in real events that affected most countries, including India.

What’s notable is that public speeches by political leaders often emphasize immediate, visible crises — health, fuel prices, food security, national security, inflation — because those are already tangible to voters. AI-driven job disruption is different:

it is gradual rather than sudden,

uneven across industries,

still uncertain in scale,

and politically sensitive.


So leaders may avoid making strong public predictions about “AI taking jobs” unless they also have a clear policy response ready.

At the same time, many governments — including India’s — are talking more about:

AI skilling,

semiconductor manufacturing,

digital infrastructure,

startups,

automation in governance,

and workforce reskilling,


rather than openly framing AI as a threat to employment.

Your observation is reasonable: if the world has already gone through multiple destabilizing events, large-scale AI disruption could become another major pressure point for ordinary people, especially:

white-collar routine jobs,

customer support,

entry-level IT services,

repetitive office work,

and some creative production roles.


On the other hand, there’s also a competing view that AI may shift jobs rather than simply eliminate them — similar to earlier technology waves — though the transition period can still be painful.

In India specifically, the concern is amplified because:

a very large young workforce enters the job market every year,

many families depend on a single salaried income,

and service-sector employment is critical to urban middle-class stability.


That’s why discussions around AI in India are often framed as:

“AI + human workforce,”

“AI-assisted productivity,”

or “India becoming an AI talent hub,”


instead of directly discussing mass displacement.