General Naravane's Comments On Agniveer Lay Bare The Army's Stubborn Resistance To Reform

Former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane, in his upcoming book ‘Four Stars Of Destiny’, has expressed some reservations about the Agnipath policy for recruitment into the Indian Army, Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy.

In the book, General Naravane mentions that in 2020, he proposed a 'Tour of Duty' concept, initially intended as a recruitment model exclusive to the Army.

He, however, says he was surprised when, in June 2022, the Agnipath policy, an expanded version of his 'Tour of Duty' concept, was announced for all the three services.

“We in the Army were taken by surprise by this turn of events, but for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a bolt from the blue,” Naravane says.

While one could argue that the policy, like most others, is not perfect in its first iteration, the General's views regarding it only reveal a trend that has troubled the Army's civilian masters for long — its reluctance to reform.

One has seen the Army stall too many reforms to fall for this now — its resistance to the creation of the post of the Chief of Defence Staff, an initiative that the Prime Minister's Office had to push, is a case in point.

In his book, General Naravane notes, "Various models of the scheme were deliberated upon, with the army's initial argument being that 75 per cent of the jawans to be recruited should be retained, while 25 per cent could be released from service."

When the government revealed the details of the policy, the ratio had been reversed — 25 per cent jawans recruited under the policy were to be retained while 75 per cent were to let go with perks.

The main thrust behind the scheme was to lower the pension budget over a period of time to ensure the forces had enough money left for modernisation.

Letting go of only 25 per cent recruits (unlike the 75 per cent proposed by the government) would not have been transformational enough to achieve this end and the other stated aims of the policy in the stipulated time frame.

Given that the defence budget is skewed more towards paying salaries and pensions, the armed forces are spending very less on capital expenditure (the budget allocated for buying new weapons like, missiles, ships, submarines, tanks and fighter jets).

The bills for defence pensions alone are Rs 1.38 lakh crore, which is close to 20 percent of the total defence budget of Rs 5.93 lakh crore. Add to it the arrears of the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, allocation for which has swelled up to Rs 23,600 crore.

The revenue expenditure (allocated for the day-to-day running of the armed forces), including salaries, is Rs 2.72 lakh crore, with only a very small amount (only 27 per cent) of the total defence budget, viz, Rs 1.62 lakh crore, being allocated for capital expenditure (buying new weapons and big-ticket items).

This is a hike of a mere Rs 10,000 crore from the last year's capital expenditure budget of Rs 1.52 lakh crore. All in all, most of the spending is done on salaries, pensions, and keeping the existing warfighting machine running.

This leaves little to spend on modernisation.

There are insufficient funds for upgrading the armed forces' warfighting machinery, especially in light of the aggressive Chinese posturing along the entire Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayan watershed, and the lightning speed of construction of military infrastructure by the Chinese on the Tibetan plateau.

Take, for example, the proposal for acquiring six mid-air refuelers for the IAF. It has been languishing for more than a decade, and then some. The Ministry of Defence has torpedoed, twice, the IAF's selection of the Airbus A-330 MRTT over the Russian IL-78 refueler, citing a lack of funds.

The Navy's Project-75I for acquiring six new-generation submarines is still in the request for proposal stage and has not moved forward for close to 15 years, while the multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA) programme has still not seen the light at the end of tunnel, with only 36 Rafales bought from France as interim measures.

A comprehensive upgrade programme for the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI was also delayed due to a dearth of funds, with its approval coming only just last month (November 2023).

Considering this, the army, responsible for the majority of the budget with salaries and pensions consuming 70 per cent of its Rs 3.41 lakh crore allocation, should ideally have led the initiative for a program like Agniveer.

Instead, it finds itself in a situation where the government is compelled to use the top-down approach to ensure reforms like Agnipath are implemented.

The army is still not ready to adapt itself, at least not as fast as the fast-changing security scenario requires. This hesitation in initiating reforms, and a reluctance to adapt will prove to be costly.