[Army training Agniveers]
As a labour-intensive force dealing with disputed borders in Jammu & Kashmir with Pakistan and the fungible Line of Actual Control in the Himalayan Range with China, the Indian Army has always been saddled with an unmanageable problem: How to have a substantial battle-ready force able to hold ground on two fronts and, at the same time, to curtail the mounting manpower-related payroll and pension expenses to ensure the latter does not crowd out the allocations for the former. This is, of course, as much an army problem as a Government of India problem and, in the larger context, a burning political issue.
It became a political issue once the political classes perceived the army as employment generator rather than seeing the Service as having a singular function — national defence. Once that line was breached, the follow-on troubles followed in its wake. Soon enough because of grassroots pressure for longer term, pensionable, army jobs the seven year colour service for the average jawan got extended to 15 years of active duty with a cushion of pension to fall back on at the end of it. The great thing about the original 7-year colour service was that the army boasted of young fighting men in the ranks who were fit and eager for use in aggressive actions. After all, the younger the jawans the more they’d be infused with the natural bellicosity of youth, which properly channeled with tough training, could transform collectively into formidable fighting units.
Once the service tenure got stretched to 15 years, however, the troopers aged and their fighting edge got blunted, and the army had to make-do with what they had. Except, the pension bill to the exchequer became a growing concern, and one can readily see why. Once a jawan is demobilised after 15 years of service, at 35 years of age or younger, he can look forward to the second half of his life on army pension indexed to the inflation rate, enjoying perpetual access for himself and family to good quality health care and to the canteen stores for everyday consumer items, including a ration of liqour, at wholesale rates. It is a financial drain on resources the country simply cannot afford. And because, wars have become rarer — even if death in military action has not, given the many insurgencies the army over the years has been called upon to put down in the northeast and in J&K. Still, an army career in the ranks became an attractive proposition for a goodly portion of the youth population in various parts of the country that were traditionally catchment areas for single-class regiments founded on the farcical notion of “martial races” the British sedulously promoted, but also in the rest of the country.
But single class units relied on a certain cultural homogeneity to bond members of a fighting unit together and to create the esprit de corps that, frankly, was a wonder for many advanced militaries of the world. On more than one occasion, I recall US military officers ruing the fact their army lacked such spirit, or could muster the elan that is a natural attribute of Indian Army regiments. I mean, a battalion of Virginia Volunteers does not exactly have the same ring or promise the fortitude in battle of a 3 Jat, 2 Maratha Light Infantry, Madras Regiment, 2 Kumaon, 1st Gurkhas, or any of a host of other storied units of the Indian Army. It is precisely this socio-cultural cohesion invaluable in operations that the Agniveer programme is blowing up with the Indian army becoming classless. Such, in any case, is the lament of the old timers.
Agniveers do solve the growing problem of the galloping spend on pensions. But they are not the solution of a return to the 7-year colour service norm. In Bipin Rawat’s time as army chief and then as first chief of the defence staff (CDS), it resulted in an unsatisfactory compromise that tried also to cling to the nativist tilt in the thinking of the Bharatiya Janata Party government of India as a martial nation. Commentators have noted that the Agniveer programme was, as Rawat had conceived it, only a pilot project to test the waters and to see if shorter active service norm could be reintroduced. But, as General MM Naravane, Rawat’s successor, reportedly claims in his memoirs, it was imposed on the three armed services by government fiat with no room for discussion or dissent by the services chiefs of the day. It is clear Naravane was unenthusiastic about the Agniveer concept but it isn’t clear he forsesaw the fatal problems now becoming evident, problems that because of the nature of the other two services, are less severe for the air force and navy.
The second batch of Agniveers has recently joined forward units without the army having the time to weigh the experience gained from their first year in service, and permitting it to tweak the programme accordingly. This did not happen. From its initiation, commanders in the field have been mindful of the political sensitivities attending on putting these short-termers in harm’s way — the fallout from the death of the first Agniveer in action with a Rashtriya Rifles unit in J&K in late October this year was salutary for Modi & his PMO, who had fast-tracked the Agniveer programme in the face of the army’s advising caution. The corrective measure the army adopted — with prompting from PMO — was to avoid further casualties in Agniveer ranks at all cost by tasking them with soft, time pass, missions — guarding depots, etc. in the rear areas. If the Modi government does not back down from its commitment and the Agniveers actually become the sole recruitment source, the endstate for the army will be the progressive thinning of a well trained bulk soldiery until it becomes incapable of undertaking any military action against China (and Pakistan), or even fighting insurgents. An army populated solely by Agniveers will then be good enough only to march down Rajpath in Republic day parades.
In other words, the Agniveer programme promises a younger force all right. But the army will soon find itself toothless — unable aggressively to field its all-Agniveer units. This will be its deathknell as a fighting force. From what I am given to understand, the army has decided to throttle back stealthily on the whole programme as prelude to — the political situation permitting — ending it altogether, but how it is going to achieve this with the Modi regime at the wheel, is unclear. With two years of the Agniveer experience, the army would prefer, it’d seem, a large pensions bill to a ceremonial force of mollycoddled short-termers.
The cruelest cut of the Agniveer programme is this: the Tenth Finance Commisssion in 1995 first proposed (incidentally in my report as adviser, defence expenditure, to the Commission), and accepted in toto by the Narasimha Rao government, that armymen retiring after 15 years colour service be the sole source of recruitment for all the paramilitaries – the Central Reserve Police Force, National Security Guard, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Industrial Security Force, and the rest of that wasteful and ineffective caboodle. The army veterans channeled into these organisations would sharpen the operational quality of these outfits, require minimal re-training to enable them to operate in civilian settings, and result in huge savings with the dismantling of elaborate and expensive training establishments of the paramils, with each trying to emulate army training infrastructure and procedures of the army but because officered by the Indian Police Service members, ending up being neither fish nor fowl kind of agencies.
The army as source of trained manpower for paramils would have rationalised human resources usage, and greatly reduced the army’s pension payouts by deferring them by some 25 years. It would have also annually made more capital available to the three armed services for modernisation and to fill the “voids” in the war wastage reserve and the war stock whose depleted condition have long prevented the Indian military from fighting long duration wars to a conclusion.
This recommendation was never implemented because the Home Ministry then and since did not want to surrender any control over its in-house armed forces by ceding the recruitment turf to the army. But with Modi intent on making the Agniveer programme a success, his chief lieutenant, Home Minister Amit Shah, has jumped on the PM’s bandwagon. The Agniveers will thus be rewarded for their painless army service with cushy lifelong careers in the paramils! This even as army jawans after 15 years’ hard service and, age wise, still in their prime will continue to be forced into the pension mode!
[the British Army’s Brigade of Gurkhas]
Talk of the 1st Regiment of the Gurkhas (Malaun)! From what a former Gurkha officer, retired Major General Ashok Mehta, has revealed, the Indian government is considering ending the hoary scheme of recruiting by the Indian Army of Gurkhas from mostly the Pokhara region of Nepal, with the strategic-minded Chinese People’s Liberation Army, who else!, likely picking up the slack, and replacing India as prime recruiter!
A more ridiculously shortsighted self-goal decision by the Indian government is hard to imagine. But trust our leaders to dig holes for the country to fall into! This has happened so often in the past, the surprise is that this decision, if true, is not a surprise!
The Gurkhas carved out a unique military reputation for themselves as doughty fighters and fearsome khukri-wielders, first by fighting the British (Anglo-Nepalese War, 1814-1816), winning their respect, and then fighting for them as the vanguard in many wars of the empire, including subdueing the 1857 “Mutiny”. The image of the Gurkha was so pumped up by then that on many occasions, such as in the trench warfare of World War One, a lot of Germans unwilling to experience the business end of a khukri surrendered once they espied Gurkhas closing in with their “Ayo Gorkahli” war cry. A long line of British commanders attested to the Gurkhas’ fighting prowess, includng the greatest Allied field commander of the Second World War — William Slim heading XIV Army in Burma, who fought alongside the 1/6 Gurkhas in the Gallipolli campaign (1915), and was so impressed he sought transfer from a Warwickshire regiment he was a subaltern in to the Gurkhas and the Indian Army.
Since 1947 per a tripartite arrangement, Nepali Gurkhas have served in the Indian Army (current strength — 42,000) and in the Brigade of Gurkhas (strength: 4,000) of the British Army for ongoing deployments in Asia — in Brunei, Singapore and until 1999, in Hong Kong, and with a Gurkha unit in the lead in the 1982 Falklands War.
The short point: Gurkhas are the most heralded readily marketable bunch of mercenaries that Nepal has long cashed in on. Given an opportunity, every country would want to hire them to fight its wars.
In Nepal, according to the latest available statistics, in 2020 20.93% of its male population was in the youth bracket of 15-24 years of age, military service age. Or 3,276,431 young men in all. (Index Mundi, https://www.indexmundi.com/nepal/age_structure.html#google_vignette ). It is a country with little else by way of job creation assets. There’s no industry to speak of, and the small mountainside and valley plots can barely sustain subsistence agriculture. The youth roughly constitutes the labour market and prime source of income and remittance revenue for that country. Most Nepali youth choose to find livelihood across the unpoliced order in India — something they are legally allowed to do. The annual intake of Gurkha youth in the Indian and British armies ameliorated the problem somewhat. In mid-2023, the pensions-remittances from Nepali Gurkhas in Indian Army amounted to some 4.5 billion Nepali rupees — a substantial sum in the Nepalese context. But with the Indian Army potentially out of bounds, the Gurkhas, will happily find military employment elsewhere. The Australian army, for instance, is contemplating a Gurkha unit along the British lines. But the real danger is from China.
At the core, the cosy mutually beneficial order of Nepali Gurkhas in the Indian Army is being disrupted by — you guessed it — the Agniveer programme of the Indian Army! Prachanda, the head Communist in Nepali politics, is ideologically driven to get Nepal to siddle upto China under the rubric of “parity”, but is prevented from doing so by the people’s sentiment for India. But he has offered China the service of Gurkhas in PLA! Who is to say Beijing won’t capitalise on the situation New Delhi has deliberately seeded for itself?
Consider what will happen should the Gurkhas enter PLA in sizeable numbers. Nepal will gain from remittances and pensions, of course. But Indian formations on the LAC may have to deal with PLA Gurkha troops! If that isn’t a mind bender, large numbers of Gurkhas processed over time through service with PLA will likely congeal into a vested anti-India front in Nepal and veer the country more and more China-ward. Further, Nepalese as Chinese hire could cross over freely into India and embed themselves in the societies of Indian border states. Acting as subversive element, they could roil the already volatile politics of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It is not hard to speculate how these in-India Gurkhas in Chinese pay could create cyber mayhem for starters, pose a real military danger by being spotters of Indian targets, for instance, for long-range Chinese guided munitions fired from Chinese aircraft, and for Chinese missiles, and even battlefield tactical weapons, and emerge as a joint internal and external security threat.
Such scenarios can get hair-raising, but is not something that apparently concerns the Modi regime. But then geostrategic catastrophes often happen unannounced, but not this time! And the combination of the Agniveer-populated Indian army and Gurkhas forced into PLA is a humdinger!
Security Wise 
When I read Gen. Naravane’s piece, I felt how can politicians decide on such a military matter! I hope the army succeeds in doing the right thing. We also need a professional defence minister, not a politician.
Not a politician, nor a tilaked bigoted idiot!
I don’t think it’s politically created it’s Armed forces doing. They oked it.
None of India, Pakistan as well as China will ever fight a conventional war.
All of them have invented nonsensical utopian ideas of Azad Kashmir, Taiwan, Aksai Chin, POK etc. to fool their domestic audiences and to act macho in front of others.
An apt example of the above is the “dandaa dandiyaa” played in June 2020 by PLA and the Indian army. None of them dared to even fire a single bullet.
What a huge waste of money buying weapons for this Indian army. Let 100% of the army soldiers and officers be agniveers.
Serve for three years and go home. India has enough “berozgaar lunghaads” to keep this army maintain its facade.
What will the Agniveer officers and men learn and do in three years? They will not even know their North, nor will they make an effort to find their North, when they know that they are there only for three years. You have only trivialised the role of the services. Why pay and maintain the Agniveers if you are so convinced that there will not be a requirement for conventional warfare skills, in the future? Disband Services and let the home guards deal with situations arising.
“large numbers of Gurkhas processed over time through service with PLA will likely congeal into a vested anti-India front in Nepal and veer the country more and more China-ward. Further, Nepalese as Chinese hire could lead to their crossing over freely into India and embedding themselves in the societies of Indian border states. Acting………”
Thanks a lot Mr. Karnad for guiding the Chinese government regarding its future course of action.
Please feel free to visit China anytime. We will shower you with the same level of hospitality, which we provided to your P.M. Modi, when he visited our country for the first time in 2005.
Email from Vice Admiral KN Sushil (Retd), former FOCINC, Southern Naval Command
Mon, 1 Jan 2024 at 1:02 pm
Well stated. The government moving to contributory pension scheme was a step in the right direction. Since a civilian has an assured job till the age of 60 he can afford to contribute manageable amounts for a viable pension scheme.
A modified version of that scheme could have been adopted for the armed forces. The government could continue its share of the contribution till the person reaches age of retirement….with the proviso that he will contribute to his pension fund should he be employed…even if in the private sector.
Sushil Nair
KN Sushil@ — Bhai pl come and devote few months at loc. All the doubts will be cleared permanently .ps- I experienced it being part of our elite armed forces 🙏
True!
Email from Vice Admiral Satish Soni (Retd), ex-FOCINC, Eastern Naval Command
Mon, 1 Jan 2024 at 5:43 pm
Thanks sir. Most incisive.
satish
Meanwhile Pakistan is now buying J-31 warplanes from China. This again shows that India must continue to worry about Pakistan, rather than treating it as a mere gadfly as you claim.
@manofsan,
I think India is handling Pakistan correctly so far. The issue is that we have the US and China, each with their own interests playing games in Pakistan. However, India is playing its own games. But agree totally that India should not ignore Pakistan. This seems to be a prestige issue with analysts and journalists maybe for propaganda value, to say that Pakistan is a gadfly. It’s untrue and the Indian govt and military do not think so.
@Amit,
If US is playing games by supporting Pakistan against India, then we need to respond in kind. There are many things we can do to increase the chances of military conflict between China and AUKUS, for example. There are many island nations in the South Pacific which we could focus on tying up with to tip the scales in the desired direction.
The gurkhas are loyal fighters.They can never be politically brainwashed. Their Hindu religious spirit is strong, like rock.
@Nair- Don’t generalize. Gurkhas are mercenaries. They aren’t loyal to anyone except the green bucks.
chatur chamar@ — Thats why they fought kargil for you. Thats why they sacrificed their lives for you. To see such comments that gurkha are not loyal. Hey buddy its easy to say such things while laying down on your bed with pitaji ka wifi or internet.
@ CC and Thapa:
You have made the undeniable fact that Gurkhas are mercenaries what the essence of this assessment of Professor Karnad is.
Thapa’s riposte implies that Gurkhas are loyal to Mother India and not to India’s “green bucks” – or not? If that were so, I need to recall here the history of Indian Mutiny of 1857. That Mutiny erupted for driving out the English colonialists who were subjugating the native population of India of that era to come to power as their masters. But the Mutiny fizzled out when the English brought in Gurkhas and Sikhs to fight for their army. This past historical record proves that the Gurkhas have been mercenaries all along and there is no reason to believe that China could not recruit them in future.
Nair@ — I don’t want to know your background, but one thing is clear from your statement that you are ignorant about military matters therefore you should abstain from making such stupid remarks. Gurkhas are the best fighters on this earth I can say it with conviction and courage.
“….rest of that wasteful and ineffective caboodle…” Does reflect on the depth of awareness of roles and responsibilities of paramilitary forces.
“Cyber mayhem for starters….” A possibility with or without Agniveer.
A sovereign state has its own right to do what is essential to maintain a healthy tradeoff between it’s combat readiness and financial overhead therein.
Short service commission has been a successful scheme akin to Agniveer albeit for officers. We must give Agniveer
some time to stabilize.
It must be remembered that it is the Govt’s prerogative to take decisions regarding “Terms of Service” for Army personnel. Its primary concern is financial ie. Pensions etc, especially when there is No War. The Agniveer Scheme is driven by such considerations, and there would be repercussions during the Next War, after which, corrective actions will get taken! Leave it at that.
Regarding recruitment of Nepali Gorkhas into the Indian Army, the Nepal Govt wants exemption for its citizens from the General Rule. That cannot be agreed to. So a useful and successful mode of employment for its citizens is getting dried up! The fact that its the Communist Party which is ruling in Nepal is also a factor. So their attitude may also change when their Govt changes.
The apprehension that Nepalis will get recruited into the Chinese PLA is too far-fetched. China does not have a Policy of recruiting foreigners into its Army. Its Army also follows a 5 Years Draft System.
The apprehension that Nepalis will get recruited into the Chinese PLA is too far-fetched. China does not have a Policy of recruiting foreigners into its Army.
Exactly there isn’t a single Gurkha serving in PLA and here this Professor is putting ideas into the heads of the Chinese.
Ukrainian army needs Lakhs of solders;
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67767246#
So does the Russian army.
These agniveers can go and join the Ukrainian/Russian armies. Marry local girls and get Russian/Ukrainian passports.
They can then send a thank you note to Vishvguru Modi for bettering their lives.
It will be cannon fodder, meat for grinding army at best not the martial army , no more at best 7 years term with assured reemployment is the best way forward . dheerajpao@gmail.com
@ Sidharth Thapa- They didn’t fight for me neither did they sacrificed their lives for anyone.
Every soldier in the army, no matter Gurkha or not is there to do his job. He gets salary and other perks for it.
I don’t subscribe to the nonsense of so called martial race or putting up army personnel on an unnecessary high pedestal.
Indian Army is not labour-intensive but manpower intensive organisation due to terrain configuration with low to very high mountainous profile,the highest being 22000 feet or so.
The military spectre portrayed is not in right perspective as the agniveer scheme has a progressive facet of retaining 25 percent of agniveers after 4 years and govt is contemplating to make retention 50 percent.In other words,agniveer scheme is an alternate to traditional recruiting schemes.
Let govt release the performance quotient of the agniveers over a period of 4 to 5 years for politico-military analysts to take a call on continuity of the scheme.
While late Gen Bipin Rawat,the strong proponent of agniveer scheme,has practically closed the military gates for Nepali Gurkhas ,the same remain open to Indian domiciled Gurkha.In other words,he has given impetus to Aatamnirbharta in terms of soldiering ie boots-on-the-ground.
I would suggest GOI to remove the names of all soldiers at the India Gate, who died fighting the British colonial wars plus WW-1 & 2.
Honoring the aforementioned mercenaries this is an insult to the sacrifices of true freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Subhas Bose etc.
This article confirms the Modi-Govt’s Agniveer Project as being penny wise pound foolish. The one thing the PLA lacked (among others) was quality manpower, which gave us a definitive edge o er them. With Agniveers, that has been so callousness thrown to the winds, giving Reds the Gurkha troops on the platter. The repercussions will be felt in times to come. Sad days ahead.
We Nepalis are ready to serve in any army provided we get a good salary and pension. Let Indian army as well as PLA hire us.
We will then play “disco dandiyaa” with dandaas at the border (like Indian army & PLA in 2020). The winner will then get to decide the border.
PLA cannot pay them. We have enough manpower who can be employed!! do away with Gurkha regts
Gurkhas can be recruited from within the country. So far agniveers have done better in basic training.
It is evident that this is a political article. A stance is taken first, to oppose Agniveer. Then, a script is generated to achieve the goal. I am sorry to say that no status of a military analysis can be accorded to this.
Proof of the pudding is in the eating. By now, a reasonable quantum of ground report is available. Based on what I am privy to, it is thumps up all the way from unit commanding officers. You may like to check.
The larger benefit to the nation is a bonus.
Regards.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/nepal-bans-citizens-from-working-in-russia-or-ukraine-after-deaths-in-military/ar-AA1mwff0?ocid=msedgntp&pc=W000&cvid=34ae2431fe9542b8bf6e143ade7af7e9&ei=15
This report in foreign news has been rightly tailored for the military-strategic insight presented here – agreat credit to Professor Karnad for bringing this out in the open. I wonder how low the Nepal government (and Nepalese people) can stoop in their self-esteem, not to mention their moral fabric, that they have been allowing themselves to be treated as cannon-fodder of other sovereign states. And some Nepalese in the forum is even “boasting” about this state of affairs!
Professor,
From what the U.S. and China are doing and saying, it is becoming more evident that the structure of global power is changing. The Chinese economy is stalling and is acknowledged to be smaller. The biggest evidence that China is less of a threat to the U.S. is how the U.S. is behaving towards India. It is actively trying to contain India. Another piece of evidence is the harmonious notes emanating from the political mouthpiece the Global Times, on India. To me this sounds like a China is acknowledging India’s relative power vis a vis itself.
Major General Rajiv Narayanan did a very good piece today on how the U.S. maybe instigating the Middle East conflict and trying to keep Eurasia and Africa subdued through proxy wars. His analysis made a lot of sense.
However, the U.S. is still heavily dependent on Chinese supply chains. So decoupling will be a priority and in this aspect India will still be a good choice for it. However, on the other hand, the U.S. is already doing multiple things to contain India in addition to the stalled engine supply – supporting Pakistan, opposing Sheikh Hasina, media warfare and not really aligning with India on Myanmar. It’s open indirect warfare on India.
India should therefore open up the game with China and Russia to balance this behaviour from the U.S. I won’t be surprised if there is cooling of tensions between India and China. No border resolution expected, but perhaps other signs of cooling.
Of course the situation is fluid – so things can change. But the security scenario seems to have changed in the past few months. So state behaviour will also change. Interesting times indeed!
All Agniveer will be released after four years. Thereafter, the best 25% of volunteers will be enrolled as regulars. This has already generated competition with almost all achieving Excellent standards in just six months.
This will ensure a common merit list for all services and trades, so units that are really good may have more Agniveer retained in service.
Why are Nepali Gurkhas afraid of the competition? Why the feeling of entitlement for regular recruitment and guaranteed pension? If they are good enough, maybe all of them can be retained.
The process of regular recruitment after four years may have a common screening to identify erroneous/ partial assessment or drop in standards.
We have always had a competitive atmosphere in the services, which cannot be diluted.
Slim, the greatest Allied field commander in WWII?!? Greater than Zhukov or Rokossovski? That’s a laugh.
Touche! Barring Marshals Z and R of the Soviet Red Army, of course.
Sir, humbly request you to write on the sabotaging of the Tapas drone by the usual suspects in the tri-services HQrs. It was flung into the trash can for having a few hours less endurance and 6,000 feet less altitude than Reaper. The irony is the US itself has torpedoed the tri-services’ mouth watering Reaper deal. Serves them right.https://m.thewire.in/article/security/us-drone-sale-sky-guardian-pannu-killing-investigation
From Air Marshal Vinod Kumar Verma (Retd)
Fri, 5 Jan at 1:02 pm
So well analysed.
Self goal for India.
Professor, you might want to look at what Col. Bakshi (former commander, Technical Support Division) had to say about General Naravane: “A man without any moral uprightness. Naravane (earlier Corps Cdr) knew GCM [General Court Martial] proceedings were a sham. Told me he will only do what his superiors tell him to do Reminded him, if not for the uniform he dons, stand up for 300 yrs of Sikh [history], but to no avail. He was my CO for disciplinary proceedings as Cdr 1 Bde. Let me Quote him: “I know there is nothing against you, but you know how the army works, I will do what will be told from top. I will not withdraw charges unless I get a call from the chiefs office” Why do most of our military leaders lack spine? Why do we continue to reward yes men in the system than the few brave strategic officers who don’t even make brigadiers in the system?