Young soldiers of misfortune

Sooraj Jatti was not yet a teenager when he told his father he wanted to join the Indian army. His father, Shankar, a retired serviceman himself, beamed with pride at the thought of having inspired his son.

“For me, it was an obvious choice because of the atmosphere in my house,” 19-year-old Sooraj says, in between his training session at an academy in Palus city of Maharashtra’s Sangli district. “Ever since I could remember, I have never thought about anything else.”  Shankar was pleased with his son’s decision. It was the ultimate approval a father could have asked for.

Less than a decade later, Shankar is no longer so sure about his son’s choice. From an emotional and proud father, somewhere along the years he turned sceptical. On June 14, 2022 to be precise.

It was on this day that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a press conference and said, "Under Agnipath scheme, Indian youngsters will be provided an opportunity to serve in armed forces as Agniveer."

Before the introduction of the scheme, the five year average of recruitment into the armed forces between 2015-2020 stood at 61,000. When the pandemic struck in 2020, recruitment was stopped.

The Agnipath scheme would recruit less – around 46,000 youth, or Agniveers, into the Indian army for a “younger, fitter and diverse” force. The eligible age was decided between 17.5 to 21 years for the enrolment, potentially bringing down the average age of the forces by 4-5 years, according to the government press release.

Unlike a lifelong army career, this is a four-year engagement, at the end of which 25 per cent of the batch would get a job in the regular cadre of the armed forces.

Shivaji Suryavanshi, 65, an ex-armyman and the president of Sainik Federation in the city of Kundal in Sangli believes the scheme is against national interest. “Four years is too short a time for a soldier to be ready,” he says. “If they are deployed in Kashmir or any other conflict region, their lack of experience can put other trained soldiers in danger. The scheme jeopardises national security.”

It is also disrespectful to those being enrolled, says Suryavanshi. “If Agniveers die on duty, they don’t even get the status of a martyr,” he adds. “It is shameful. If an MLA [state legislator] or an MP [member of parliament] is in office for a month, he gets the same benefits as those legislators who serve their full tenure. Then why discriminate against soldiers?”

The controversial scheme was met with widespread protests across India after being announced; it was opposed by candidates and ex-servicemen alike.

After an underwhelming performance in the general elections of 2024, the BJP-led union government is reportedly considering amendments to it. The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered serious losses in states like Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, which are known to have a high recruitment in the armed forces. Two years on, the disenchantment with the scheme is as evident as ever in western Maharashtra – a region also known for a high number of recruitment in the armed forces. There are entire villages here that have sent at least one individual to the army from each household.

Jatti belongs to one such household. He is in the last year of a Bachelor of Arts degree. However, ever since he has enrolled in the academy to train to be an Agniveer, his studies have taken a hit.

“I spend three hours in the morning and three in the evening for physical training,” he says. “It is exhausting, and doesn’t leave me any energy to concentrate on my studies. I will have to leave before the exams if I get selected.”

His training involves intense workouts: sprinting, push-ups, crawling on the floor, and even carrying another person on the back while finishing a lap. At the end of each session, his clothes are drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. Then he repeats the exercise all over again in a few hours.

A year of this discipline and selection as Agniveer should get Jatti Rs. 21,000 a month in hand as an Agniveer, going up to Rs. 28,000 in the fourth year. If he fails to be among the 25 per cent of recruits from his batch, he will return home with Rs. 11.71 lakh at the end of his engagement as per the Agnipath scheme.

He will also be 23, in the market for a job and with no graduation degree to improve his chances.

“That’s why my father is worried about me,” Jatti says. “He is asking me to become a police officer instead.”

The Indian government said that 46,000 Agniveers would be recruited in the inaugural year of 2022 – so 75 per cent of those or 34,500 youngsters in their early to mid-twenties would return home in 2026 with no prospects, and having to start from scratch.

The upper limit for recruitment until 2026 is 175,000. The target is to increase the recruits to 90,000 in the fifth year, and to 125,00o from the year after that.

Most of the men in uniform are children of farmers, struggling with the agrarian crisis. Thousands of farmers have taken their lives due to rising debt, falling crop prices, lack of credit and devastating impacts of climate change. It is even more important for children belonging to farm households to land a job with stable income over a sustained period.

Prakash Bhore, who runs Yash Academy in Palus, believes the Agnipath scheme will worsen the employment crisis in rural India because it is designed in such a way that the youth often have to leave for duty before they can complete their graduation. “The job market is already not promising,” he says. “Not having a degree would make it worse for the kids. Upon returning home after the four year engagement, they would either work as security guards outside a society or an ATM.”

Nobody would want to marry them either, he added. “The bride’s family clearly asks if the prospective husband has a permanent job or is he a ‘four-year army man’. Imagine a pool of frustrated youngsters trained to use firearms and nothing to do. I don’t want to say more but it is a scary picture.”

Major Himmat Owhal, who spent 17 years in the army, and has been running a training academy since 2009 in Sangli, says that the scheme has actually discouraged youngsters to join the army. “We used to have 1,500-2,000 kids enrolled in our academy every year since 2009,” he says. “Post Agniveer, that number has gone down to 100. It is a drastic drop.”

Under such circumstances, the ones who still join do so in the hope of being among 25 per cent of their batch – like Jatti. Or, like Riya Beldar they have an emotional reason.

Beldar is a daughter of marginal farmers from a small town of Miraj in Sangli. She has been close to her uncle since she was a child, and wants to make him proud. “He wanted to serve in the Indian army,” she says. “It was a dream he could never fulfil. I want him to live his dream through me.”

Training under Owhal, she has ignored snide comments her neighbours have made for wanting to be in the army despite being a girl. She has been mocked at, and made fun of. “But I didn’t pay attention to them because my parents stood by me,” Beldar says.

The 19-year-old acknowledges that the Agnipath scheme isn’t ideal for her. “You train day in day out, you face your critics, you risk your education, you wear the uniform,” she goes on, “and in just four years all of it is snatched away from you with no future ahead. It is so unfair.”

However, Beldar has her plans for after she finishes her four year stint. “I want to come back and start an academy for girls and I will cultivate sugarcane in our farmland,” she says. “Even if I don’t get permanent recruitment after finishing four years, I can still say I once served in the army and fulfilled my uncle’s dream.”

Om Vibhute, 19, from Kolhapur city training at the same academy as Beldar, has opted for a more practical approach. He joined Owhal’s academy before the announcement of the Agnipath scheme, hoping to serve the country. But two years ago, he did a course correction. “I now want to be a police officer,” he says. “It gives you job security until the age of 58, and serving in the police force is also in national interest. I would have liked to become an army man, but the Agnipath scheme changed my mind.”

Vibhute says that the thought of returning home after four years made him extremely anxious. “What will I do after I return?” he asked. “Who will give me a decent job? One has to be realistic about your future.”

Suryavanshi, the ex-serviceman, says the biggest fallout of the Agnipath scheme is that it has diluted nationalism among aspiring servicemen. “I have been hearing some disturbing reports,” he says. “When kids realise they may not make it in the 25 per cent, they stop putting in the effort and disobey their seniors. And I don’t blame them. Why would you risk your life, why would you pour your blood and sweat into a job that will discard you in four years? The scheme has reduced soldiers into contract labourers.”