The fundamental reason underlying the continuing and widespread violent protests by army aspirants over the Union government’s Agnipath scheme to temporarily recruit personnel below officer rank into the military for four years, is their visceral distrust of the state when it comes to providing promised employment to the demobilised servicemen.
Hundreds of agitated youngsters across several states in India have refused to believe official assurances of successfully re-employing 75% of over 45,000-50,000 ‘Agniveers’ (literally, fire warriors) – who will be discharged every four years – in either the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), state or railway police forces or other attendant security agencies.
They remain equally dismissive of the Union government’s intent to urge public sector banks, insurance companies and other related financial organisations, among others, to absorb, in due course, the discharged Agniveers.
Senior veteran military officers said that for decades the armed forces, particularly the Indian Army, had been demanding ‘lateral entry’ into India’s CAPF for jawans – a majority of whom retire at 37 years – but to no avail. They said successive Indian Army chiefs had periodically mooted proposals on maintaining a youthful army by ‘diverting’ jawans, even before they retired, into the CAPF and replacing them with fresh intakes.
But all such propositions, these veterans said, remained stillborn. They also warned that any attempt to initiate any changes, at present, would trigger a rash of litigation which, in India’s notoriously sluggish judicial system, could take years to resolve. Consequently, tens of thousands of potentially jobless Agniveers could end up jobless with accompanying risks.
Besides, for its part, the home ministry, even in recent years, had steadfastly maintained that the terms and type of service in the CAPF differed widely from that of the Indian Army, and that the two could not operationally and administratively collate. It also backed up this logic with the even more forceful argument that ‘fauji culture’ contrasted adversely with the CAPF ethos, and hence inducting army personnel into the latter, was simply ‘unworkable’.
It is difficult to classify annual CAPF hirings, but the intake of 54,000 jawans into several paramilitary forces was approved by the home ministry in July 2018. The CAPF inducts recruits aged between 18 and 23 years, with the upper age limit for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe candidates relaxed by five years, and those of Other Backward Caste (OBC) aspirants eased by three years. All CAPF personnel superannuate at the age of 60.
However, for many anti-Agnipath demonstrators, the abiding image of scores of ex-servicemen in their village, small town or city, re-employed as lowly security guards, doormen or contractual auto-rickshaw operators, endured, as they set about rioting, burning vehicles and clashing with the police to express their displeasure with the new scheme.
Such demoralising visualisation also fuelled their hostility towards the government’s decades-long yet feeble efforts to re-settle ex-servicemen, and one with which a wide cross-section of serving and veteran military officers privately concurred.
Re-employment obstacles
Created in late 2004, the eponymous Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare (DEWS) is one of the five departments comprising the Ministry of Defence, and according to its website, it is tasked with overseeing matters related to veterans pension, medical benefits, assorted welfare schemes, and above all, their re-settlement.
But many agitated youngsters told news reporters that DEWS had done little or nothing to resettle ex-servicemen, and that it was only their monthly pensions which had helped them maintain some modicum of dignity in their essentially menial jobs. Some demonstrators in Rajasthan and Haryana regretted that Agniveers would not even have that fallback financial option to salvage their moustaches, which across India were culturally associated with respect, privilege, honour and above all, machismo. Retired jawans at present receive an average monthly pension of Rs 30,000, alongside subsidised commissary facilities and access to free medical assistance, all of which amount to a considerable pecuniary package.
“Even though senior officials like home minister Amit Shah had promised absorption of potential Agniveers into the CAPF, these remained merely pledges, with no designated quotas or allocations yet specified,” said an 18-year old youngster in Punjab who had long aspired to join the army, but is now discouraged by the Agnipath plan and the consequent obstacles of re-employment. “The BJP government’s credibility on the job front has been highly questionable, as it had failed in living up to its promise of annually providing employment to over two crore people,” he said, declining to be named.
Furthermore, senior Indian Army officers pointed out that the government and all public sector companies had collectively cut back drastically on fresh recruitment, further depressing employment prospects for Agniveers.
Alongside, private sector corporations too, despite government fiats and veiled threats to provide jobs, had remained impervious to officialdoms’ employment schemes. In February, for instance, the Punjab and Haryana high court had granted an interim stay on a Haryana government statute demanding 75% reservation in private sector jobs for locals, which many analysts consider an ominous indicator of things to come.
The Agnipath scheme which, September onwards, will permanently replace decades-old military enlistment practices, involves annually recruiting over 40,000 Agniveers aged between 17.5 and 21 years for all three services for a four-year tour of duty (ToD).
Thereafter, all Agniveers would be discharged, but a quarter of them would be re-inducted soon after to complete 15 additional years of ‘colour service’ in the army, and its equivalent in the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy, rendering them eligible for pension and related settlements. The remaining 75% of Agniveers would be discharged, each receiving Rs 11.71 lakh as a severance package, to which they would have contributed 30% whilst in service.
From thereon, tens of thousands of Agniveers would be at the mercy of the apathetic DEWS for re-employment.
“Each Agniveer could end up enduring a triple whammy of tension and insecurity,” said defence analyst Major General A.P. Singh (retired). Initially, he would face anxiety in anticipation of being selected, four years hence in expectation of being absorbed for permanent service and eventually, in the event of not making it, confront enhanced unease over re-employment, he said. “Disappointment at either stage would impact the Agniveer’s dignity in society and eventually even his marriage prospects for starters,” Major General Singh added.
A troublesome future awaits if promised re-employment does not materialise for some, once discharged. “With limited avenues for employment, the possibility of weapon and combat-trained Agniveers resorting to criminal activity cannot be ruled out,” warned a youngster from Rohtak in Haryana where anti-Agnipath protests on Thursday, June 16 were amongst the severest, with police vehicles and buses set on fire and scores of people injured in the day-long violence.
Unemployment for men in their 20s with military training, who have been accustomed to a reasonable monthly salary for four years, would be ‘nightmarish’ in a country rife with militancy, caste tensions, land mafias and gang wars, the protester added.
(Extract. Courtesy: The Wire.)
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In another article also published in The Wire, “The ‘Agnipath’ Military Recruitment Scheme Is Here but Questions About Efficacy Remain”, Rahul Bedi adds (extract):
The government’s new lapsable Agnipath scheme to recruit personnel below officer rank (PBOR) into the Indian armed forces for four years – with the twin objectives of fielding a more youthful military and economising pension pay-outs – has been variously received by serving officers and veterans.
While some senior officers, including the three service chiefs on Tuesday lauded inducting the “Agniveers” (fire warriors) under the Agnipath scheme – scheduled to begin in mid-September – as a replacement for the legacy military recruitment model inherited from the Colonial administration, a cross-section of serving and retired service officers vehemently disagreed.
Even retired Major General G.D. Bakshi, who crowns the bank of aggressive armchair gladiators dominating evening television news, stridently supporting the government on most military and security issues, tweeted on Tuesday that he was ‘flabbergasted’ by the scheme. “I thought initially it was a trial being done on a pilot basis. [But] this is an across the board change to convert [the] Indian armed forces to a short-tenure quasi-conscript force like the Chinese,” he declared.
“For God’s sake PLEASE DONT do it,” Gen Bakshi pleaded in his tweet, but to little avail as the Agnipath scheme is already done and dusted….
Service officers said that the ‘fine print’ of the four-year tour of duty, which was not highlighted by the DMA, was revealing.
They said that during his 48-month tour of duty, each Agniveer would, perforce spend six months undergoing training and instruction, before being operationally deployed. Once so, he will, like other regular PBORs be eligible for eight months of annual and four months of casual leave during his tenure, all of which aggregates to a total of 18 months. Thus, this would essentially imply that all Agniveers would be operationally employed for just 30 months, or two-years-and-a-half unless, of course, the services opt to downsize their time-off to ensure longer utilisation on the job and a bigger bang for the buck.
Furthermore, many serving and retired officers dubbed the six-month training spell as ‘inadequate’ and ‘unsatisfactory’, as it normally needed 3-5 years for all military PBOR – including those in the tech-oriented Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy (IN) – to be deemed ‘battleworthy’ and ‘suitably proficient’.
“There is no way to fast-forward training in the services,” declared military analyst Major General Amrit Pal Singh (retired). He said that an Agniveer joining a front-line IA unit after merely six months of rudimentary weapons and battlefield training would definitely end up becoming a burden on other grizzled troops in his battalion who, for their part, had undergone extensive training in varied high altitude, desert and jungle terrain.
“Besides, by the time the Agniveer does gain operational capability and proficiency, he will be de-mobilised and his departure would only jumpstart the entire sequence all over again,” the two-star officer added.
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And in another article by Harshavardhan Purandare and Sandeep Pandey, “Agnipath – Path of Militarisation of Society?”, the authors add:
Narendra Modi government just doesn’t seem to learn from its past mistakes. From demonetisation to Farmers’ laws with decision on Kashmir, Citizenship Amendment Act and Covid lockdown in the interim the citizens of this country have had to suffer because of not just the unwise decisions of the government but also the manner in which decisions are taken. Once again we’ve a characteristic high handed decision without any consultation with either the general public or the people’s representatives.
Agnipath scheme, in spite of its popular Bollywood title and its hyped launch, has set the Indian youth on fire against the government within a day of its launch. In the present environment of economic uncertainty, the young Indians are instigated with the scheme announced by our prime minister, as it shrinks their job opportunity in the defense forces further. The ‘hire and fire’ logic of cost cutting will not only hurt the careers in the army, but it will also reduce the professional competency of the defense forces in the long run. While all this is discussed by defense experts, one must explore another side of this scheme, that it makes thousands of trained ‘Agniveers’ -75% recruits who lose their jobs after four years contract is over – simply unemployed. Government is saying that they can be absorbed in the state police force or other professional security requirements, but that can turn out to be a half truth. Most of them are more likely to be absorbed as private security guards by agencies out to exploit them. One dangerous prospect is – they will become easy recruits for political ideologies that believe in violence, to be used in the capacity of foot soldiers.
This announcement is clearly in line with recruitment processes in other departments where short term contract employees working at much lower salaries with no liabilities for the government are preferred over regular employment. But then why should we assume that they will give their best for the country? The reason why armed forces are revered is that they are willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of country. If a four years recruit is faced with a situation where he is expected to make a sacrifice with economic insecurity of his family looming large, we cannot be sure what decision he will take? With economic policies of globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation some areas have been opened up for employment of foreign nationals – teaching posts in private universities, airline pilots, cricket players in IPL and coaches for various sports, etc. If armed forces too proceed in this direction then what prevents the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in recruiting Indian youth at better service conditions? Afterall, we do have a Gorkha regiment of Indian Army, who originally hail from Nepal.
Traditionally, our civil society and armed forces do maintain a distance from each other. The mingling happens only through defined channels for honouring and celebrating men and women performing their duty in military uniforms. Armed warfare is not an everyday thing for the average Indian. Neither there is social support for including military education in the school system nor the military leaders aspire much to occupy the top positions in civil and political life beyond a few exceptions. Still, we have managed to create competent and professional defense forces who have defended us well after independence.
But Hindutva nationalists come to power and armed forces – security issues get hyped and become the core of the political narrative. As if the rulers want every Indian to live in fear of imagined attack, issues around the army get hyped and politicized. Suddenly, retired military generals appear on TV shows or become ministers, campaigning in favour of nationalism. Narendra Modi made an appeal to youth to vote in the name of surgical strike at Balakot in response to Pulwama attack. We have to view the outcome of Agnipath in light of such a political environment. What will prevent a jingoistic leader to goad the jobless youth trained by Armed forces in their twenties and thirties not mature enough to discern national interest from the interest of ruling dispensation to take up arms for a particular cause?
Beyond the political motives, one can say that branding of Agniveers and hype that is created around this recruitment is also a bad idea. There is a difference in celebrating the sacrifices, bravery of our soldiers and painting them as Bollywood superheroes in the imagination of young Indians through vicious Whatsapp campaigns. We do not want our next generations to fight imaginary enemies and live in fantasy of the violence. Neither the knowledge of how to use guns and weapons should become the pursuit of teenage India. We do not want the culture of video game psychopaths getting into the schools and killing the innocents. The US is struggling with moral dilemma of gun control laws in the aftermath of recent killing in a school. Pakistan has also witnessed such indiscriminate killing of children. The government support to militia in Pakistan is an open secret, the biggest price for which has been paid by Pakistan itself. In the days of the internet, the knowledge and fad of weapons will travel from one cell phone to another at the speed of light, if we hype the armed forces in civil society. Finding Desi Kattas in black markets or guns from the gun manufacturing cottage industry of Munger in Bihar for cheap is not at all difficult if motivation for violence is created. In the name of cause of national security, the campaigns with undertones of violence will only do harm to peace and internal security. Army should have public support and backing, but they are expected to perform discreetly. The defense forces are our last resort to be used to settle political conflicts at the borders or inside the country. We must let them operate independently.
[Writers are associated with Socialist Party (India).]
