Agnipath Scheme is a Welcome Step but Govt Needs to be Empathetic

The Raksha Mantri along with the tri-services chiefs and DMA additional secretary on Tuesday announced the controversial Agnipath Scheme for recruitment in the enlisted ranks in the armed forces to prepare the Armed forces for the 21st century warfare. The scheme is facing opposition from both the ex-servicemen and defence aspirants resulting in protests across the country. Just like any reform, it has both its advantages and disadvantages which have been discussed extensively in the past few days, but the need of the hour is to look at the bigger picture.
Warfare is as old as the human beings themselves; we’ve been fighting against other species and between ourselves since the beginning of time.

The first major war we fought among our genus was 5,00,000 years back between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens when both came face to face in modern day Europe. The Homo Sapiens won this war nearly annihilating the Neanderthals, despite being biologically weaker as compared to the Neanderthals. This was possible mainly because we the Homo Sapiens had to invent ranged weapons like Spear or Bow and Arrow for hunting large mammals like deer and wild hog as they were biologically weaker. These improvisations made the strong physical build of Neanderthals useless as the latter had to get close to Homo Sapiens to hit them.

Centuries later, the improvisation of Mughal Emperor Babar’s Army with introduction of Cannons helped it crush the Delhi Sultanate and the Rajput kings, the flagship Indian elephant charges were rendered useless as they were often frightened by the cannons and overran their own positions, beginning Babar’s rule in the Indian subcontinent and founding of the most successful ruling dynasty in our medieval history. These are just a few examples from our history depicting how small improvisations have rendered old time-tested tactics, weapons and tactical advantages useless in the heat of war.

The Indian Army has largely been a successful Army fighting wars across the globe from North Africa to Burma and our regimental system has mostly been successful in maintaining our territorial integrity since the independence in various wars and conflicts. The Army has opposed abolition of its caste-based regiments citing it as a time-tested structure. However, the nature of warfare has significantly changed with inception of ideas like theater commands, information warfare, cyber warfare, use of civil society for warfare etc. Hence it becomes imperative that the AFs welcome radical reforms to stay relevant.

Today, 54% of our $76 billion defense budget is spent on pensions and salaries, thus the net budget going into much neglected modernization of our forces which was exposed during Operation Swift Retort and indigenous R&D is even less than $36 billion, which is not enough to resist a two-front war. All it takes is one major conflict at the heated LAC and we could find ourselves in a war with China which is not only technologically miles ahead but has its proxy state Pakistan to put pressure on our forces. In case of loss of land, who is to blame? Obviously, the government and the armed forces will take the responsibility, therefore any proposal of reform reflects the commitment of the top brass towards improvement of quality of personnel and war-fighting abilities and must be welcomed with open arms and encouraged.

That being said, to bring radical reforms that affects the national security and large number of youth and due to the fact that India is a democratic country, it becomes imperative to educate the people about the idea behind this move. Announcing the scheme like an unempathetic autocracy isn’t the best way to go about it, rather all political parties should first be briefed about the reforms and all their concerns be addressed. A civilized discussion in the parliament could be a good confidence building measure.

The government has rightly provided age relaxation by 2 years and should also do justice to the already shortlisted candidates awaiting joining letters either by enrolling them or providing them adequate financial compensation. For matters relating to national security, it is vital to keep the political class and citizens in the loop to rise above politics to ensure the best for the country.