Agnipath Scheme: Daunting Problem, Inadequate Solution
The scheme is, at best, a long-term, untested solution to an urgent problem. At worst, we might be introducing a disruptive measure with serious national security implications. Go slow, maybe?
On June 15, 2022, the Government of India launched the “transformative” Agnipath Scheme, evoking a fiery response of the kind it hadn’t bargained for, hadn’t remotely anticipated, and wasn’t prepared to handle. But there they were: mobs of angry young men aspiring to join forces and serve the country going around destroying and burning government property in protest, including twelve trains. The extent of the protests can be gauged by the fact that over 450 people have so far been arrested for resorting to violence and damaging public property during the anti-Agnipath protests in Uttar Pradesh alone, which, if you recall, is the original bulldozer state when it comes to responding to the protests resulting in damage to public property.
But so far I have not come across any reports of punitive bulldozing anywhere in this case, which could be because of the Supreme Court’s stern directive to the UP government to hold its wild horses on its newfound bulldozer panacea and follow the rule of law (I would hugely prefer that explanation); or the Government of Uttar Pradesh is of the opinion that damage to the public property at the hands of the “nationalistic”, services-aspirant youth, though not altogether pardonable, was not quite as bad a thing as some other kind of protests by some other kind of people. So arrest them but hold the bulldozers, for heavy machinery is a special instrument to dish out special “justice” at the discretion of the state. And in all sincerity, I hope the reason for taking the bulldozing off the menu is the Supreme Court’s directive to follow the law rather than anything indicating that the UP government can’t even dispense injustice equally.
The Scheme and the Reason
Under Agnipath, the induction into all three armed forces below the officer level will henceforth be on an “All-India All-Class’ basis” and will be open to the youth between the ages of 17.5 and 21, who would serve for four years, after which 75% of the total inductees would revert to civilian life with a severance package of INR 11.71 Lac and without pension or benefits. The remaining 25% will be absorbed into the army as regular soldiers. The scheme applies to the sub-officer class of army personnel, which are army jawans, sailors in the Indian Navy and airmen in the Indian Air Force. For defence officers, there is already a provision for short-term service known as Short Service Commission (SSC).
Earlier, the soldiers were inducted for a period of 20 years, now cut down to four, which is what the protests are really about. The protestors see it as a loss of long-term employment opportunity. But it is more important to assess the scheme in terms of its overall, long-term and short-term impacts on the functioning and upkeep of the armed forces and its attendant national security consequences. The real “national security”, this one; not the “national security” that keeps getting routinely and conveniently threatened by just about everything that’s politically uncomfortable.
The government says the “broad objectives” of the scheme are “youthful profile” for the armed forces, “improved battle preparedness”, “selection of the best” (I thought we were already selecting the best), “harness benefit of SKILL INDIA” (the all-caps treatment is theirs, not mine), attracting “young talent”, extend the opportunity to the youth keen to “serve the Nation in uniform albeit for a short period of time”, to infuse in the youth the “ethos, courage, camaraderie, commitment and teamwork” of the armed forces along with the “abilities and qualities such as discipline, dynamism, motivation and work-skills so that the youth remains an asset.” The nation, informs the government, would benefit on the lines of National Integration and Nation Building, like they were new assignments for the armed forces and so far they had not played any part in it the way the new scheme envisages.
Much of the above is meaningless word salad to dress up the solution to a real problem as an innovation of sorts from the prescient fountainheads of infinite wisdom leading the nation into the sunrise of hitherto unimaginable and unachievable national glory. The fact is, the government is facing some hard facts and has to make some tough choices. It is sticking to its guns not due to its arrogant obstinacy this time, but because it has few ready choices in this regard. And the government has to look like it’s doing something. Whether or not the Agniveers of the Agnipath would really be the desperately sought solution is very hard to say for now, for it’s unprecedented in India although similar schemes are in place in many countries, including the US and China, and have been working fine there. So it might work in India, too. But let’s consider the problem this new arrangement is supposed to solve.
The Indian Air Force needs 42 squadrons with 16 to 18 planes in each squadron, and currently has only 32 squadrons, the lowest in a decade. The Indian Navy is managing with just 130 ships as against the 200-ship navy it aspires to be. And the Indian Army is short of a good 100,000 soldiers. Not to mention the shortage of 7,912 officers in the Indian Army, 1,190 officers in the Indian Navy and 610 officers in the Indian Air Force, as per the written reply submitted by the junior defence minister, Ajay Bhatt, in Rajya Sabha in July 2021.
In terms of active military personnel, India, with its 1,455,550 active military troops, has the second-largest military in the world, behind only the Chinese military with its 2,185,000 (or 2000,000, according to some sources) troops. But those numbers do not accurately indicate the strength of the armed forces because the actual military might is not determined by the number of troops, which is why the most powerful military in the world isn’t Chinese or Indian; it’s American. And the second most powerful military belongs to Russia. Indian armed forces face a standing challenge from two of its neighbours, one of which is China, whose formidable military strength cannot be overlooked, especially in view of its aggressive stance towards India in the past few years (more about its reasons in a later post).
The Solution
What we need urgently is a modernization of the armed forces, which is what military strength is about; while, currently, more than 70% of our total defence expenditure goes towards revenue expenses (payment of salaries, pensions and other expenditures for the upkeep) with over 50% specifically utilized towards pensions. We spend less than 5% on Research and development and about 25% to 30% on the modernization of forces, training troops and improving military infrastructure. So our military expenditure is dominated by pensions, which is the problem Agnipath is aimed at solving. But it would take at the very least a decade (more likely, two) for the funds saved by cutting down pensions to be available for the modernization of the armed forces while we are short of officers, soldiers, fighter planes and naval ships right now.
True, Agnipath is aimed at solving a real problem but the question is whether it’s really a viable solution. There is a huge difference between doing something and getting the needful done. The real problem is that the Indian economy cannot support the armed forces India needs, and while cutting down expenses might help (in this case way later than needed), it’s not the real solution.
The solution is to strengthen the economy by encouraging and promoting both small-scale and large-scale businesses. Have we been doing that in the past many years? It’s not an easy question to answer, but it seems we have been doing the same thing with the economy as we are doing with the problem of military expenditure. The demand-side problem cannot be solved by helping the supply-side, much like today’s urgent military expenditure problem cannot be solved by cutting pension expenditure, the benefit of which could only be available much, much later. It’s like a solution that solves today’s problem a week later, by which time either the problem will have been solved by an alternative solution, or there will only be rebuilding left to be done in the aftermath of the tragedy brought on by the problem.
And I am not even getting into the potentially devastating consequences of introducing such a massive change into the armed forces without a trial run or even a broad-based discussion. But sweeping changes without consultation has been the style for a while now.
Also, I was wondering why the Agnipath page of the Ministry of Defence website has only pictures of the announcement of the scheme, mostly featuring Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, but nothing textual about the scheme. I also searched “agnipath” and “agneepath” on the website, but the “request” “timed out” thrice. Maybe I am not doing it right, or maybe the Ministry has a “visuals only” approach these days. Thankfully, they did not employ the picture approach towards solving the military expenditure problem by starting to send only pictures of the pension cheques.
