An Agniveer Comes Home for Leave and Engages in Crime. This is a Wake-up Call

In present times, expecting politicians to introspect and acknowledge their mistakes is to ask for the moon.

Thankfully, with a changed political landscape in the 18th Lok Sabha that has clearly given some bold reasons to introspect, will the rare call to be “open to changes” and review of the obviously flawed Agnipath, walk the talk?

(Photo: Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint)

An Agniveer comes home for leave, unsure about his future prospects. He buys a private weapon and joins the world of crime. He is then caught in a vehicle-snatching case and arrested with other gang members.  

This is what happened in a recent arrest case in Punjab's Mohali recently. It is true that a swallow does not make a summer – but the realm of security necessitates that you don’t take chances. Reading the signs, especially the inevitable, is key. 

As Sanjiv Krishan Sood wrote here, "We already have a large restive youth population facing unprecedented levels of unemployment, being exploited by fundamentalist organisations for hate crimes. The addition of trained but unemployed Agniveers in society could lead to its further militarisation."

Honest and acknowledged mistakes always make better soldiers. Contrary to widely held perceptions of infallibility (especially with the recent air of manufactured jingoism) that civilians often attribute to this institution, no other institution introspects its operations, procedures or even doctrines more dispassionately, truthfully, and ethically, as the Indian Armed Forces.

After all, beyond the penchant for Bollywoodising the ‘Indian Soldier’ with ‘How’s the Josh?’ type of rah-rah, there is a stark difference in reel-life, and real life – as the latter is a lot more serious. 

Every soldier from the top to bottom studies various situations to understand what went right, and more importantly, what went wrong and could be done better. It manifests in labouring over ‘sand models’, training modules, and physical ‘exercises’ entailing full formations to validate various assumptions, doctrines, and preparedness. This leads to a constant status of correction/updation mode, where a decision made earlier is put through the brutal test of reflection and evaluation, to correct, if required.

Within the institution, a more sobering appreciation of sifting the wheat from the chaff exists. Even operations like the fiasco of, say the Indo-China War (1962), or the spectacular outcome of the Indo-Pak War (1971), are deciphered and discussed threadbare. The overall and contrasting picture between 1962 and 1971 notwithstanding, there could be instances of operational brilliance to be celebrated within many battles of 1962 or instances of operational concerns in the overall victory of 1971.

Every decision and impact is studied, minutely. For the Indian Armed Forces, going beyond the simplistic binaries is critical, and so is the revered ethos of ‘questioning’, albeit to be done in a certain professional, measured, and apolitical manner. As the light-hearted saying of the US Marines goes, “to err is human, to forgive divine, however neither is Marine Corps policy.” While faltering occasionally is inevitable, not correcting the same, is the actual unforgivable part.          

Fixing Something That Was Never Broken

Yet, incredulously, let alone addressing the lingering institutional inequities, shortages, and affording more empowerment to the existing ‘system’ – it was this very ‘system’ of intake and ‘making’ of the Indian soldier that got challenged with the harebrained, surrogate, and deflective scheme of Agnipath. As any military professional (or anyone in any high-performance civilian/corporate organisation) would have instinctively and conclusively confirmed, the pitfalls of a guaranteed ‘short-term’ service for 75 percent of intake, it was persisted with the usual fanfare.

The same spirit of sloppy ‘experimentation’ that had birthed demonetisation, the clumsy implementation of GST, was now extended to the only institution ie, the Armed Forces, that had not failed the nation. This particular aspect of an Indian Soldier ‘wasn’t broken’, but they ‘fixed it’ nevertheless.   

The casualness was inherent with the genealogical intent of the ‘Tour of Duty’, as the Armed Forces ought not to be the realm of tours and travels, sundry exposures, or time-serving jaunts. It is also not a propaganda tool for “inculcating national pride” and certainly the performance of the institution till then warranted no urgency for “youthful profile” as was casually suggested – if anything, there was already a persisting conundrum of rehabilitating combatants, who in any case retired from active service in their 30s and early 40s.

Just how much younger could the institution get?  

Obviously, no one in the corridors of power talked about the elephant in the room, ie, pension bill concerns, as that would have made the Agnipath decision look defensive, unspectacular and ‘un-muscular’. The bombastic bluster of ‘game-changer’ was put in, for sound and fury. So, the experiment persisted to the dismay of most apolitical and professional observers, and the ‘support-fire’ submitted by some, came in handy, as it always does whenever a difficult decision has to be shoved down.

In the midst of unprecedented security challenges facing the country – Comrade Mao-like talk of building a disciplined populace, nationalistic fervour, and a talent pool were bandied, none of which were Military concerns. The time-tested ‘system’ of incubating the valorous Indian Soldier underwent a change for reasons best known to politicians, only.  

Now, it is futile to even talk about its deleterious effect in the neighbourhood such as with respect to Nepal (with its glorious tradition of soldering for India) or of its expected impact on the types of soldier intake in a unit deployed along the border. Does it strengthen camaraderie with trust or lead to strains of short-termism, unhealthy competitive spirit to survive, or lead to the natural curse of different ‘types’ within one unit? It is commonsensical to dread the impact it may have on the near-perfect ‘system’ that survived for decades.

But in present times, for the politicians to similarly introspect, evaluate and acknowledge their mistakes (honest or otherwise) is to ask for the moon. One mustn’t forget that only in India could the crippling demonetisation (with government data to prove the return of 99.3 percent of black money back in circulation) be subjected to a celebratory ‘Anti-Black Money Day’, a year after its painful implementation. In short, the political class has simply not shown the humility and magnanimity to accept a wrong decision or policy, and Agnipath risks the same hubris. 

Thankfully, with a changed political landscape in the 18th Lok Sabha that has clearly given some bold reasons to introspect, will the rare call to be “open to changes” and review of the obviously flawed Agnipath, walk the talk? There is a party in the ruling coalition that already has a stated commitment to reviewing the same.

Will the politicians for once behave like mortals who falter (not of some non-biological fount) and do what the Armed Forces routinely do without acting vainglorious, thin-skinned, and infallible? Will they show the courage to accept a wrong? Had it been up to the Armed Forces themselves, they would have surgically analysed the impact and course-corrected for the betterment of the institution, and by that extension, of the nation. It is this sort of inflexible, unrepentant and mule-headedness that differentiates a politician from a soldier.  

(The author is a Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)