Sooraj Jatti was not yet a teenager when he told his father that he wanted to join the Indian Army. His father, Shankar, himself a retired soldier, beamed with pride at the thought that he had inspired his son. “For me it was an obvious choice because of the atmosphere in my house,” says 19-year-old Sooraj between training sessions at an academy in Palus, a town in Sangli district of Maharashtra. “As long as I can remember, I never thought about anything else.”
Less than a decade later, Shankar is no longer that proud father who was elated about his son’s decision. Somewhere along the way he became skeptical. To be precise, on June 14, 2022. That was the day Defense Minister Rajnath Singh held a press conference announcing the Agnipath scheme, under which “Indian youth will be given an opportunity to serve as Agniveer in the armed forces.” Before the introduction of the scheme, recruitment into the armed forces between 2015 and 2020 was 61,000. When the pandemic hit in 2020, recruitment was halted.
The Agnipath plan aimed to recruit around 46,000 youth into the Indian Army. According to the government press release, the eligibility age was set at 17.5 to 21 years, potentially reducing the average age of the armed forces by 4 to 5 years. Unlike a lifelong army career, this is a four-year commitment, at the end of which 25 percent of the group would get a job in the regular cadre of the armed forces.
Shivaji Suryavanshi, 65, an ex-armyman and president of the Sainik Federation in Kundal town, also in Sangli, believes the plan is against national interest. “Four years is too short a time for a soldier to be ready,” he says.