The political slugfest over the Agnipath scheme has spurred several announcements by the Ministry of Home Affairs and BJP-ruled states. They plan to reserve vacancies for Agniveers who cannot be retained after their four-year tenure in the Armed Forces. The home ministry announced reserved vacancies in the Central Armed Police Forces for Agniveers who have completed their tenure. BJP-ruled states such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Haryana have also promised to accord priority to ex-Agniveers for employment in State Police and other security-related jobs.
The connected issue thrown up by the resettlement of ex-Agniveers is that, over a period of time, there would be a fairly sizable number of trained soldiers seeking employment. The overarching employment ambience at the national level, in all likelihood, would be one where there are too few jobs and too many people chasing them. This would be particularly relevant to jobs that require lower skill levels.
Apart from discipline, the special skill set of ex-Agniveers would be their training in the use of small arms. Such skills are useful for police forces and private security domains. There is scope to absorb fairly large numbers of ex-agniveers at the central and state levels.
Growing ex-Agniveers, fewer opportunities
If ex-Agniveers are absorbed into these roles without considering their four-year experience, it could act as a dampener. The individual, in this case, would have been better off directly enrolling in the police force.
Though the promises of absorption in government jobs are being held out, one can expect internal resistance within government organisations. This would be due to an increasing demand for jobs driven by a growing, job-seeking young population. Desperate for jobs, there is the likelihood of some ex-Agniveers taking their skills to be utilised on the battlefields abroad. The deaths of Indians in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars should serve as a warning signal of these possible outcomes. There is also the chance of ex-Agniveers picking up the gun in support of existing and future insurgencies.
The central government must examine the above possibility, and take steps to prevent such undesirable flows. This is not going to be easy as the desperation level of such individuals would be high. And considering the lure of economic salvation, these youth could adopt the already prevalent route of illegal migration. Moreover, as geopolitical turbulence rises, the opportunities for ex-Agniveers in both domestic and international battlefields will only expand.
On the flip side, ex-Agniveers could be harnessed for unforeseen security considerations that demand speedy induction of additional human resources into the armed forces. However, former Agniveers do not have any reservist liability. Induction would have to be voluntary, unless legal provisions are introduced.
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Focus on structural solutions
Preferably, the skill sets acquired from tenures in the Armed Forces should be directed toward serving the nation. This cannot be easily fulfilled by the Agnipath scheme in its present form.
The structural solution toward directing the migration of ex-Agniveers to serve the nation lies in re-configuring the Agnipath scheme. The re-configuring must direct the flow of ex-Agniveers to justifiable causes. Stemming the flow toward illegal pathways would only be a lower-order effect but still useful. This solution has been suggested in the Takshashila Institution’s discussion document titled ‘A Human Capital Investment Model for India’s National Security System’.
The need for change is primarily based on the logic of India’s burgeoning defence pension outflow that is impacting resource availability for much-needed defence modernisation. The underlying logic of the document is at variance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent statement that the Agnipath scheme is unconnected to curtailing the pension outflow.
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Read the Takshashila document
The solution suggested in the document is based on the human capital of the Armed Forces being linked to larger national security structures such as the CAPFs, state police, and intelligence. It preserves the youth profile of the Armed Forces by instituting a system that facilitates a flow to and from the various organisations of the national security structure. The system also ensures that military effectiveness is not hampered and skill sets are gainfully utilised in various government organisations.
The Parliamentary Committee on Defence/Ministry of Defence would do well to study the above document. They would find that it addresses the political concerns raised by the Opposition. Admittedly, there would be a need to tweak the recommendations in some places but that is a matter of detail.
More importantly, there is a clear need for India’s political leaders to be educated about the burgeoning trajectory of the defence pension outgo, which can be arrested by the existing Agnipath scheme. At the same time, its real cost in terms of experience forgone – because of short tenure and low retention percentage of 25 per cent – could have a deleterious impact on military effectiveness, which is unacceptable.
It must also be understood that any such scheme will result in savings only after a period of 15 years or so, as this is how long it would take for reductions in pension outgo to take effect. To leave this problem for future governments would be a myopic move. Especially when the impact of pension outgo has been negatively affecting India’s military modernisation for a long time. And it will continue to do so unless the outlays in defence budgets are enhanced in a sustained manner at least in the foreseeable future.
A look at the capital expenditure in the current defence budget and budgets several years earlier suggests that capital expenditure, even when it has retained a marginal increase, is in real terms negated by inflation and the exchange rate of the rupee. The demand for revenue expenditure will also keep growing considering the commitments on the northern border and India’s expanding military footprint including joint exercises with friendly foreign countries.
As things stand, it has become politically inexpedient to acknowledge the problem of burgeoning defence pension. And yet, it will only continue to be boosted by the increased longevity of retiring defence personnel and the One Rank One Pension scheme.
Political leadership from either side of the aisle should therefore stop playing politics with the Agnipath scheme and focus on re-engineering it to meet the demands of national security. Let domestic politics take a step back in the larger interests of the nation.
Lt Gen (Dr) Prakash Menon (retd) is Director, Strategic Studies Programme, Takshashila Institution; former military adviser, National Security Council Secretariat. He tweets @prakashmenon51. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)