Many regimental centres have not trained troops for nearly two years owing to the ban on recruitments on account of COVID
The social media is aflutter with confusing news about military recruitment, which has been suspended for more than two years on account of COVID. As unemployed youth yearning to become soldiers cannot suppress their zest, they are apparently running aimlessly. In neighbouring Nepal, from where Gorkhas have similarly not been recruited in nearly two years, youth in despair are distributing fake posters announcing recruitment in the border town of Gorakhpur. This is one of the unintended consequences in delaying the appointment of CDS as no one from MoD is clarifying the contours of the three (or five) years’ Tour of Duty Proposal in the elusive but dangerous quest of curtailing the pension bill which in 2019-20 was more than the allocation for modernisation of armed forces. Surprisingly, serving Army Commanders and Army chief who are in Delhi for their biennial conference are silent, presumably because the proposal is late Gen Rawat’s baby and has found favour with Prime Minister Modi.
India’s ad hoc reforms process has never followed a Strategic Defence and Security Review, except the unrecognised one in 1988 that was mentioned in Parliament. India has not even produced a white paper on defence. Indian defence planners excel in putting the cart before the horse. The entire reform process under the ambit of CDS is the outcome of a non-holistic approach leading to transformative reforms underway. Unlinked to the ongoing Magna Carta is revising the manning norms which have become a reform imperative to cut the ballooning salary and pension bills due to the growing internal and external threat spectrum. No country in the world — yes, none other than India — faces two unsettled and manned borders with adversaries thick as thieves. Similarly, the terrain challenges are unprecedented: From the highest snowcapped battlefield to dusty and desert plains to tropical and mountainous forests to a coastline ringed by the Indian Ocean. Enmeshed in this geography are Left Wing Extremism, insurgencies and a new wave of communal tensions. These are manpower-intensive missions in which technology can act as an aid, not the solution.
Last year, I had warned through my columns that Gorkha battalions of the Army were deficient by 100-150 soldiers even as some were deployed in east Ladakh. The shortages were exacerbated by mixing these single caste regiments with Kumaunis and Garhwalis in making up the shortfall of Indian domiciled Gorkhas rather than simply increasing the quota of Nepali domiciles. Many regimental centres have not trained troops for nearly two years due to recruitment ban. This is a preposterous situation, given that religious rallies at Kumbh, Ram Temple and Varanasi and several State elections have been held easily. Some regimental centres where training the backlog of recruits is being done report zero-COVID status.
Nearly 150,000 manpower shortage in the Army alone has become a reality over two years when 60,000 personnel are retiring annually. Clearly, this is the Government’s ‘saving by stealth’ on salary bills by imposing risks on fighting units. On Tour of Duty (ToD), there is no conceptual clarity except its aim in reducing pension bill. The Indian armed forces are drawn from the British military system which even with limited threats has a volunteer army recruiting 25,000 soldiers annually for minimum service of 22-24 years who can serve up to 55 years and not two to three years as envisaged by ToD. Highfalutin names like Agni Vir, Agni Path will not satisfy soldiers aspiring for a full-time military career. Our volunteers from villages across India are generational soldiers, having earned their spurs in the same ‘paltan’. For them, ToD is laughable. This is not the first time the Army is trying to tinker with manpower reforms. The Defence Planning Staff, of which I was a member, prepared the Volunteer National Service Scheme involving seven years’ regular and eight-year reserve service. A pilots’ scheme about which the Rajiv Gandhi Government (1988-89) was keen never took off. As manpower review is essential to arrive at a prudent tooth-to-tail ratio, cutting the flab is very different from trimming, slimming, downsizing or rightsizing the Army. Pradeep Mehra has not been running 10 km daily, nor did Suresh Bhuchar carry the national flag 350 km from his Rajasthan village to Delhi to join ToD which is ill-suited for Indian conditions.
ToD proposal seems unviable given that Infantry recruits undergo 44 weeks’ compressed training. Anyone suggesting a truncated programme must heed the lessons that Russian conscripts have learnt the hard way in Ukraine. The reach of technology can ensure destruction and demolition of targets, not the physical occupation of ground that Ukrainian soldiers have prevented. ToD in its public version is most unpromising. In the meantime, recruitment rallies must be resumed and measures expedited to make up existing manpower shortfalls by increasing recruitment and delaying retirement. Money for modernisation has to be found: Certainly by rightsizing not by ad hoc steps that will disturb cohesion of the forces. Last week, Army chief Gen Naravane speaking in Pune pulled his punches when he said investment in the Army should not be considered a burden. The Modi Government should review the freebies given for winning elections and utilise them instead for military modernisation.
(The writer, a retired Lt Gen, was Commander, IPKF South, Sri Lanka, and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff. The views expressed are personal.)
