The controversy over the Indian Armed Forces Agnipath (Path of Fire) scheme of temporarily recruiting personnel below officer rank (PBOR) refuses to subside, after former Indian Army (IA) Chief of Staff, General M Naravane dramatically flagged the matter in his forthcoming biography.
In selective excerpts from 'Four Stars of Destiny', which is yet to be released, Gen Naravane stated that he had recommended recruiting a limited number of PBOR on an experimental basis, but only into the Indian Army (IA) for a limited period, analogous to the existing Short Service Commission scheme for officers. His proposition to the government had envisaged eventually retaining 75% of these PBORs and demobilising the rest following an unspecified 'short tenure'.
Months later, as per the former IA chief, the Prime Minister's Office unveiled a 'much wider scope' to this proposal and imposed Agnipath upon all three services. Additionally, the PMO also reversed Gen Naravane's counsel and opted to retain just 25% of PBOR or Agniveers (Fire warriors)-recruited between the ages of 17 and 21- disbanding the rest following a four-year tour of duty.
"We in the army were taken by surprise by this turn of events, but for the navy and air force, it came like a bolt from the blue" writes Gen Naravne, whose book is being published by Penguin, and tentatively available by end April, as government clearance for its publication is awaited. He states that it was left to him to explain this outcome to his naval and air force counterparts. The IA chief is also believed to have objected to Agniveers being paid the paltry sum of Rs 20,000 per month, which he likened to a daily wage labourer earnings, and based on his recommendation, each PBOR monthly emoluments was hiked to Rs 30,000.
More recently, defence analyst Major General Ashok Mehta (retired) revealed that former IN Chief of Staff Admiral Karambir Singh, who superannuated in November 2021, had also roundly rejected the Agnipath proposal, as disclosed by a formal naval chief at the Army's Chanakya Dialogue on national security in New Delhi last November. But despite these objections, Gen Mehta stated that the government's 'manipulation' of the incumbent service chiefs in praising the Agniveer/Agnipath project was 'astounding'.
The formal launch of Agnipath in June 2022 triggered countrywide protests and rioting by youths in Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana and Gen Mehta categorically stated that 'pliant serving generals and their equivalents had become 'His Masters Voice' in the new recruitment scheme. He further declared that it was also abundantly apparent that the purported 'consultations' with veterans over Agnipath must only have involved those who consented to the misguided venture.
This, in turn, had prompted a cross-section of veterans maintaining that if Gen Naravane and Adm Singh were so vehemently opposed to Agnipath, they should, in accepted military traditions of honour, up-rightness and service-before-self, have resigned on principle over this controversial measure. They believed that the resignation of any of the service chiefs at the time could have made a 'huge difference' by either abandoning Agnipath or at least inducing a rational and measured approach towards its implementation.
However, Gen Naravane's successor, Gen Manoj Pande, defended the Agnipath scheme in his annual press conference in early January. He declared that the final framework of Agnipath was instituted after an 'iterative process and consultations' that considered various issues. "The acceptability, positivity, ownership, and integration of Agniveers into units is happening well" he stated, but admitted 'challenges' prevailed in training these recruits. Till now, two Agniveer batches had joined the IA and the other two services, following 31 weeks of training and instruction.
But muted criticism of the Agnipath scheme continues, albeit articulated sotto voce and all attendant realism finds little or no mention in official circles.
"No wise commanding officer will use these Agniveers for real soldiering, when it is a matter of life and death" declared former Brigadier Advitya Madanv. No operationally committed unit can sustain a high wastage rate of 75 per cent and yet maintain high professional standards, stated the former Punjab Regiment officer who had also served with the United Nations in an op-ed in The Hindustan Times in mid-2022.
He even went a step further by irreverently reinforcing this point via a witticism, which he claimed was 'doing the rounds' in army circles. This involved a major-level officer who, after receiving intelligence regarding the presence of militants, instructed one of his junior commissioned officers (JCOs) to assemble a quick reaction team to tackle the insurgents.
Weary of receiving such daily inputs, the grizzled JCO responded : Saheb, is this information a hard intel input, or is it a run-of-the-mill input? If it is hard intel, he said, I will get a team of permanent soldiers ready. Or else, I could give you a pack of Agniveer's.
This anecdote reinforces the lack of confidence many senior veterans believe will suffuse the part-time Agniveer's eventual unit deployments. "It is anticipated that few, if any, units will entrust even basic tasks like kit or armoury duty to Agniveer's, as these needed handling by more experienced jawans with two-or three-years of training and supervision" said defence analyst Major General Amrit Pal Singh (retired).
Similar doubts, he cautioned, would persist in Agniveer's handling varied ammunition and ordnance in infantry, armoured and artillery units and receiving and issuing assorted classified stores like radio sets, night vision devices and even fuel.
Besides, few, if any, in most battalions and regiments would be willing to invest in Agniveer's for fear of something going wrong in the army's rigidly enforced error-free milieu, the former armoured corps officer stated. All and any inquiries launched into slip-ups would be jeopardised, he added, by 75 per cent of Agniveer's being demobilised with little or no accountability thereafter.
Additionally, these temporary PBOR's would generate administrative and operational concerns for the army to resolve besides formulating a slew of revised standard operating procedures.
Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether Gen Naravane's memoire will eventually be released. For, other than his trepidation over Agnipath, it also reveals grainy details of the ingress by China's People's Liberation Army into eastern Ladakh in May 2020, which intrepidly challenges the government anodyne version that no Chinese incursion had ever occurred.
[Note: Views Expressed are the author’s]
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