In recent months the Indian government, including the country’s military brass has been assiduously rejecting its earlier assertions that the principal motivation impelling the Agnipath scheme to recruit Agniveer personnel below officer rank (PBOR) into the armed forces, was to economise on the services burgeoning pension bill.
On the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas in July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that Agnipath’s aim was to keep the forces young, fit and battle-ready, and not to save on pensions. He castigated ‘some people’- a euphemism for the Opposition- for spreading the misconception that the government had introduced the short-term lapsable recruitment policy for the country’s military, to save ‘pension money’.
But a quick rewind in the runup to the Agnipath scheme, mooted by the late Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat in 2020-21, reveals otherwise. Senior veterans also maintain that debunking Agnipath’s pension aspect was ‘highly disingenuous’ as it remained the principal plank underpinning the contentious PBOR recruitment scheme, principally to effect savings.
It’s a matter of record that initially the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) which Gen Rawat headed, had estimated that the pension saving on a solitary Agniveer who served out his full four-year term, instead of the standard 17-year ‘colour service’ undertaken by long-term inductees into the army-and their equivalents in the Indian Navy (IN) and Indian Air Force (IAF)- totaled around Rs 11.5 crores or cost-cut of Rs 11,500 crore for every 1,000 PBOR.
Deposing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in February 2020 Gen Rawat had lamented the services mounting pension bill. Consequently, he had proposed multiple schemes to reduce escalating pensions, which had steadily depreciated the declining annual defence outlay, which in recent years has fallen to below 2% of India’s GDP. Gen Rawat’s recommendations included paying officers retiring prematurely between 60 and 75 per cent of their pensions, depending on their service tenures, alongside other proposals to further engender frugality.
Ironically, Gen Rawat also told the Committee that he had asked the three Service Headquarters for their recommendations on allowing PBOR to serve till the age of 58 years, instead of retiring at 38 years, after which they were forced to seek alternate employment. “It (this job hunting) is not giving dignity to the man” Gen Rawat had stated at the time, in a statement that will doubtlessly find favour with 75% of the first lot of Agniveers who will be demobilised after their four-year tour of duty to face uncertain futures and even possible unemployment.
Under hectic official lobbying these proposals lapsed first into the Tour of Duty (ToD) plan which, in turn, morphed into Agnipath. But there is no denying the reality that the pivot for both proposals was driven essentially by pension saving considerations, from which the government and military is now distancing itself for shadowy and mysterious reasons and stressing merely the alluring aspect of fielding a youthful military through Agnipath.
Retired Air Marshal Anil Chopra, former head of the Centre for Air Power Studies think tank in New Delhi was also of the view that the national exchequer needed to save money on pensions which, in turn, could be employed to modernise the military. Writing in the Hindustan Times in June 2022 he cited the DMA’s calculations in ‘prospective life-term saving’ of Rs 11.5 crores in recruiting an Agniveer, as opposed to a jawan who left after 17 years of service with pension and other benefits.
National defence budget management, the former fighter pilot stated was essential, as significant funds were needed for capital acquisitions. Furthermore, he pointed out that no other major country had such ‘adverse capital to revenue expenditure and pension bill ratios’ as India, all of which needed righting “It is hoped that the money saved (on pensions via Agnipath) would be used to focus more on the advancement of technology and military modernisation” he declared.
The Indian military’s present capital to revenue ratio expenditure, which includes salaries and operating costs, is a disproportionate 62.18:37.82 per cent. Besides, in Financial Year 2024-25 service pensions accounted for Rs 141,205 crores of the overall budgetary allocation of Rs 621,540.85 crores- or a massive 22.79 %. Of this 22.72% was progressively escalating from a low pension base of Rs 12,000 crore in 2000-01.
But Agnipath was beset by operational pitfalls too. Retired Brigadier Rahul Bhonse of the Security Risks consultancy in Delhi argued that the disastrous performance of the largely conscript Russian army in the Ukraine war revealed the pitfalls in having a partially or inadequately trained force. Besides Russia, he cautioned, can choose which wars it wants to fight and how it wants to fight them, but India cannot and needed a ‘dedicated’ and well-trained army to deal with palpable and perennial threats from Pakistan and China in inhospitable terrain.
Furthermore, service officers conceded that the six months of training Agniveers would undergo was ‘wholly inadequate’ compared to the 2-3 years it took to adequately train jawans. They said the Agniveers’ inexperience and responses would be an impediment in forward areas for the rest of their units, increasing pressure on the more experienced soldiers of ‘minding’ these novices in ‘hot situations’.
Others questioned whether these four-year tenure recruits would have the ‘essential motivation and willingness’ to lay down their lives when needed, as they were aware of being in service for a limited period. “Will they imbibe the regimental spirit and the unit’s battle cry which makes them carry on through a hail of bullets and exploding shells, with comrades falling left and right and moving up impossible slopes to drive cold steel into the enemy, impassionedly asked former Deputy Chief of Army staff Lieutenant Gen Harwant Singh.
Writing in the Tribune in June 2022 he stated that the army’s fighting units had reached their present standard of battle worthiness after nearly two centuries of toil and sacrifice, centred on Naam, namak and Nishan (honour, loyalty and identity) and further accentuated by their respective units’ battle cry. This ferocity would simply not be there in the Agniveers, he warned adding that the officials responsible for such ‘uncalled for schemes’ had little idea of the military’s calling and were determined to ‘downgrade or perhaps destroy’ it.
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