Agnipath: 'Toffees' for desperate job seekers

Olympic medallist in boxing Vijendra Singh Beniwal, in a searing indictment of the Narendra Modi regime’s Agnipath, the four-year tour of duty in the Indian army as a contractual employment strategy for desperate job seekers, called it “toffees” given by a mother to a starving child. He warned that after the highly trained youth were released from the army and if there were no jobs for their skills, some of them would be targets for recruitment into crime and other avenues of unscrupulous exploitation.

Vijendra Singh is a voice that should not be ignored or dismissed. He came out of nowhere and through hard work and talent has become an icon. He represents the aspirations and achievements and discontent and the critical thinking of rural youth across India. His voice is exactly the same as the angry protesting youth in Bihar, who have poured out in large numbers into the streets, blocked railway lines, marched with posters rejecting “TOD” and demanded that the recruitment exercise of 2020 and 2021 be completed.

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The angry young men of Nawada, Jahanabad, Muzaffarpur, Saharsa, and Buxar went through gruelling preparations for the recruitment process. They worked for a couple of years to get themselves ready to take the tests. They paid agencies, invariably set up by retired army men, to help them achieve their goals. These young men want answers. Their question is simple; a recruitment was announced; we took the test; we did the medicals; we were waiting for full-time employment.

The Modi regime’s Agnipath that will produce Agniveers is nowhere near what these young men expected. It is a four-year contract, without pension and benefits and a lump sum severance pay. There is a promise that a quarter of the Agniveers would be absorbed as regulars in the defence services.

Coming as it does immediately after Modi announced that he was moving heaven and earth to recruit 10 lakh young people in government jobs by the end of his second term, the Agnipath scheme was another blow to the stockpiled disappointment and anger. Narendra Modi had, as Vijendra Singh pointed out, promised two crore jobs to India’s unemployed youth, the demographic dividend that is now being transformed by unintelligent policy and dangerous politics into a demographic disaster. The molehill that has been offered instead of the mountains is 10 lakh jobs and a four-year TOD with a severance package.

Agnipath is an outstanding example of the Modi regime’s policy mindset. It is a toffee. Young men, with nothing else on offer, may sign up, but it will not assuage the gnawing hunger for satisfactory long-term jobs that allow them to fulfil their dreams of marriage, families, asset building and a future that is not bleak. Vijendra Singh is correct in his fears that the trained young men would be exploited. Young men in Bihar are angry because they seek certainty; instead, they are being offered a precarious future. The youth are aware that they would be expected to die to defend the borders and protect the 'State' from the violence of equally angry citizens. They can calculate that their lives are cheap because if they die, their families will not be given the benefits of regular servicemen.

Agnipath is a typically toxic, totally biased, masculine ad hoc solution to a deep-rooted problem – unemployment. Agnipath is designed to exclude women. The Modi regime obviously does not imagine that young women are also looking for jobs and their needs have to be met, not through bogus schemes like a free gas connection which bolsters their customary role as domestic labour, or self-employed, which also bolsters their status as second fiddle. Women have not hit the streets as yet. If they do, the enormity of the crisis and the inadequacy of the regime’s policy will be revealed in full.

Also Read: Don't take 'agnipareeksha' of unemployed youths by making them walk on 'Agnipath': Rahul to PM

The reaction of protesting young men is what explains the truth of the recent survey report by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) that 60 per cent of the working-age population in the country are not looking for jobs. They have dropped out of the labour force. Labour force participation, a measure of the country’s working-age population, which is either working or actively seeking work, has shrunk to 39.5 per cent.

In 2019, the Modi regime’s labour ministry released data that stunned India; unemployment was at a 45-year low. Between 2019 and now, all that the Modi regime has come up with is Agnipath and 10 lakh jobs in the government. The irresponsible and callous disregard of the Modi regime for the employment-unemployment crisis is out in the open.

As Vijendra Singh explained, the Modi regime’s focus is elsewhere; the politics of communal hate-mongering and religious persecution are the priority. What Vijendra Singh said is a conclusion that young men and excluded women will independently arrive at, sooner rather than later. “Something is better than nothing” may influence the decision of many among the protesting young men who will sign up for Agnipath, but they would do so conscious that the four-year tour is a temporary reprieve.

The Modi regime’s rejection of independent knowledge sources in favour of sycophants who confirm what they are told is all too evident in the Agnipath scheme; veterans in the army, officers and jawans, have protested that the four-year contractual soldiers will impact the professionalism of the Indian army. It is dangerous to ignore the knowledge of former commanding officers and soldiers, whose job it is to lead men in war, when against every human instinct, the soldier is urged to fight and die, if necessary.

The Modi regime’s understanding of the army is through the prism of hypernationalism and rhetoric of martyrdom and sacrifice for Bharat Mata. It is limited to shifting the Amar Jawan Jyoti from India Gate to the National War Memorial and photo ops at funerals. It is shaped by promises of inflicting greater destruction against the enemy from across the border, namely Pakistan, a country which, in the BJP’s ideological mindscape, is the final destination for assertive Muslim citizens in India.

There are a lot of countries, including Russia, Israel, Brazil, Iran, Greece, South Korea, North Korea and Bermuda that have mandatory military service. The usual tour of duty is between six months to 24 months. The age of conscription is almost universally 18 years. There are countries that have a de jure system of compulsory service and then there are countries where service in the military is voluntary. There are 39 countries that have no standing army. Then there is Switzerland, which has an army that is small, where every male must undergo training and retraining.

And now there is Agnipath in India. It is a voluntary enlistment programme. The age of recruitment is peculiarly Indian; it is 17.5 years, whereas the rest of the world recruits 18 years or above into the army. The rest of the world requires voluntary enlisters to serve two years or less; India demands that the enlisters serve for four years. The top ten wealthiest countries, in which India is included, have carefully designed programmes for the young men and women as they end their tour of duty. India has blithely ignored the need and the wisdom of a programme that would enable the enlisted to upgrade their skills or knowledge and turn themselves into high-value assets for the economy.

Instead, an apprehensive Vijendra Singh thinks many of the Agniveers will end up as mercenaries with links to crime. There is also serious concern that these indoctrinated young men could be recruited by political, social-religious organisations as the muscular arm. The calls for Indian men to wield the sword by Yati Narsinghanand, a Hindu guru, with multiple FIRs against him, who is currently out on bail after delivering hate speeches and the prospective availability of trained soldiers is a terrifying possibility. It is a possibility that cannot be ruled out because Indian policymakers have produced a cheap version of voluntary enlistment that does not provide for re-training after the end of the tour of duty.

By cutting costs on further investments in the human capital that will have been created by Agnipath, Indian policymakers have exposed the foolish, destructive ad hocism that has permeated decision-making and produced failures instead of successful outcomes. The Modi regime is being challenged by angry young men. Instead of deploying State violence to repress the agitation, the government should go back to the drawing board and redesign the dangerously short-sighted programme, transforming it from a gimmick into something more productive.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.