Revise Agnipath rationally

Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

Alot of the debate on the Agnipath scheme has been about how it will benefit the Agniveers. Through advertisements and statements, government officials — including numerous serving officers of the military — are listing the benefits of the scheme. Following its somewhat less-than-spectacular beginning, Union and state governments are now also falling over each other in offering additional incentives that the Agniveers will be entitled to upon ‘retirement’ at the end of four years.

The scheme will transition the military into a kind of conscript force, with a 25 per cent core of professionals.

The key issue that does not seem to concern many of them is to explain to us the advantages accruing to the armed forces from the scheme.

An Agniveer in the age group of 17.5 to 21 years (now raised to 23) will be recruited, s/he would serve for four years and thereafter retire with a severance package. 25 per cent of these ‘retirees’ would be offered re-employment for a further period of 15 years and more, and presumably be entitled to a pension. As for the bulk of the Agniveers, 75 per cent of them, they would have options of various jobs which are now proliferating — public sector banks, insurance, police, and so on.

All this is good news for the young men. They are so desperate for jobs that they have been rioting across India, believing that they are being short-changed by the scheme. But, the big question remains: What does the Army get out of it?

Till now, the jawans entered service at 18-20 years and served till 33-35 if they did not become NCOs. In 2020, this was modified to give them two more years of service. The Army’s effort was to retain trained personnel to the age of 40, and certain technically skilled up to 50 years. Now, senior military officers selling the scheme are hailing the virtues of a younger profile for the armed forces, but whether the military would benefit from half-trained Agniveers is another matter.

At 17, it is unlikely that the Agniveer will bring in any skills with him. S/he would get basic training of six months (well short of the current norm of 44 weeks). S/he may have had some training in a technical trade, but would still need to learn the basics of soldiering through parade, exercise, and the use of weapons. Thereafter, even those with some basic skills as electricians, mechanic or machinists, would have to be trained to handle and maintain military equipment-radars, communications equipment, weapons, specialised vehicles and so on. Even the infantryman would have to pick up tactical skills of dealing with explosives and specialised equipment, teamwork, procedural drills, and so on.

This would take at least another year, but if you look at timeline (taking into account the total of eight months of earned and casual leave) the Agniveer will just about gain some skills by the time his/her tenure is over. Thereafter the military will have the option of re-enlisting just 25 per cent of them.

The authors of the scheme don’t seem to know that deshbhakti, josh and jazba alone don’t make an effective soldier, but hard professional skills such as those of a tank operator, gunner, signalman, radar operator, mechanic and so on.

The government’s compulsions are understandable. Given the sluggish Indian economy, it has just not been able to support the Indian armed forces in the way they should have. India’s economy was weakening even before the Covid pandemic and where defence expenditure used to be 2.8 per cent of the GDP at the beginning of the last decade, it came down to 2.1 per cent by 2021. Frankly, even if the defence allocations are increased over the next 10 years, they will not be able to overcome the deficit in defence modernisation.

The Indian Army cannot avoid blame for refusing to reform its manpower-intensive profile. They say they needed the 1.2 million-strong force to deal simultaneously with Pakistan and China. But after the 2020 surprise in eastern Ladakh, they hurriedly shifted six divisions to face the Chinese and reorient their prized 1 Corps northwards. So either they have left our Pakistan front vulnerable, or they had really not needed them there all this while.

There is perhaps another more rational way of revising the Agnipath. Start with cutting down the Army’s size by giving 2-3 lakh soldiers a VRS as the Chinese did in 2015 as part of their modernisation drive. Along with this, introduce a scheme of colour service of the jawans for seven years and thereafter retaining a proportion of them for a further 20 years. Thus, the soldier would serve till the age of 25. Even if it took three years for him/her to become proficient, s/he would give back a reasonable five years of service to the Army. And a proportion, perhaps 25 or 30 per cent, could go on to serve till the age of 45 and even 50 and get a pension thereafter.

Further, the government must guarantee the recruitment of the ‘retirees’. Why only a 10 per cent quota in the paramililtary? The civilians conveniently claim that the Army people will ‘not be suitable’ for the CAPF. This is merely an excuse to keep the control of the police recruitment process in the hands of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The government has trundled out big guns to threaten and coerce people into accepting the Agnipath scheme which will transition the Indian military into a kind of conscript force, with only a 25 per cent core of professionals. But hopefully, this semi-trained military will not have to face a real test as a certain other country’s military is facing right now, and be found wanting.