In September 2022, the Agnipath scheme (a four-year tour of duty for soldiers, sailors and airmen) got implemented in India and the Nepalese government responded by barring the recruitment of Nepalese Gurkhas for Indian Army's Gorkha Regiment of 43 battalions on the grounds of violation of the 1947 agreement.

The Tripartite Agreement was a treaty signed in 1947 by the United Kingdom, India, and Nepal to determine the rights of Gorkha soldiers in the British and Indian armies. The main points of the agreement are: The Gorkha soldier must be recruited as a Nepali citizen, must serve as a Nepali citizen, and must be resettled as a Nepali citizen. All religious and cultural observances must be preserved in accordance with the demands of the Hindu faith.

This Treaty resulted in a great contribution by Nepali Gorkha troops fighting with their characteristic high degree of valour and sacrifices for independent India in all wars, conflicts, Indian Army’s United Nations deployments and also being a strong pro-India community of pensioners in Nepal and as such a very valuable counter to China’s attempts of anti-India influencing. 

A great loss to the Indian Army since 2020 is that about 60 per cent of the soldiers in each of the seven Gorkha regiments who were of Nepali origin have not been recruited. The recruitment process stalled due to the pandemic in 2020 and soon thereafter, Nepal's opposition to the Agnipath scheme since its announcement in June 2022-four years.

Taking Nepal for granted

 Maj Gen Ashok K. Mehta (Retd), a Gorkha Regiment veteran, author and military analyst, stated that India neither informed nor consulted Nepal — over the Agnipath scheme applying to Gorkhas also — with which it claims it has special relations. Such actions, Gen Mehta opined, attract the traditional charge that India takes Nepal for granted.

Maj Gen Mehta reiterated what he wrote in The Tribune on August 18, 2024: “The impact of the Agnipath scheme will be huge. The salaries of 35,000 Gorkhas and pension of 1.35 lakh ex-servicemen (ESM) amount to $620 million — 3 per cent of the GDP. Nepal’s defence budget is $430 million. This major injection of resources into Nepal’s economy will be adversely affected and lead to job insecurity as pension is a status symbol and huge support for the ESM. 

Honorary Subedar Major Khem Jung Gurung, central committee member of Janata Samajwadi Party, Nepal, and president, Nepal ESM and Police Federation, in an audio clip at a seminar on July 25 at the India International Centre, New Delhi, said that the Agnipath scheme has military and diplomatic connotations. He confirmed the existing fears about lack of operational effectiveness and dearth of motivation and Gorkhali spirit, including ethos and values. Because of the short engagement period and no pension, only second-class recruits will volunteer. It will hurt Nepal’s economy and diminish the social status of the dwindling number of ESM……demobilised Agniveers could start anti-India activities, hinting that they may join residual anti-India Maoist groups. But the most worrying consequence was the weakening of the ‘diplomatic bridge’ between Nepal and India”.

 Sometime in 2023, The Eurasian Times reported that China is keen on recruiting the Gorkha soldiers of Nepal notwithstanding the continuing hostilities and the heightened tensions with India. Nepal’s reaction to India’s Agnipath scheme presents a golden opportunity to attract Nepali Gorkhas disappointment/frustration. ‘Determined attempts’ by the Chinese may well convince the Nepal government, even if it is not in favour of allowing recruitment of Nepali Gorkhas into China’s People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The recruitment of Nepali Gorkhas into the Indian Army being stopped after 77 years post-Independence is not only going to be a major loss to the Indian Army but also a serious and avoidable blow to cordial India-Nepal relations.

Scheme has serious flaws

The Agnipath scheme, which serving personnel cannot comment on, is full of flaws which Armed Forces veterans have been at pains to put across to the media. Former Army Chief, General MM Naravane, wrote in his memoirs that Agnipath was thrust upon the Armed Forces. But neither he nor other Service Chiefs protested.  There are many veterans of all three services including as high ranking as chief who have pointed out serious flaws of this scheme, which has been introduced by the bureaucracy by convincing the political leadership under the warped reasons of reducing a large pension bill and artfully presenting it as a panacea for unemployment. In 2017-18, the Defence Ministry’s personnel strength was 18,42,343, of which 14,43,921 were uniformed personnel and 3,98,422 were defence civilians. Not much has changed since then other than operational responsibilities of the uniformed personnel which have increased substantially despite no increase in personnel strength.

It will be relevant to briefly mention the history of India’s civil-military relationship since 1947, when it was globally reputed to be the best army. While there is mention in some books and media of how Jawaharlal Nehru and his defence minister, V K Krishna Menon demeaned Indian Army’s top leadership and interfered in their functioning leading to the great fiasco of China attacking India in 1962, what is not much mentioned is the relationship between the bureaucracy and the armed forces. It will not all be an exaggeration to state that the bureaucracy hates the armed forces.  Many decisions related to the armed forces taken by India’s powerful bureaucracy since Independence make this adverse relationship obvious. After each war since 1947, particularly the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the armed forces leadership was moved down in the Order of Precedence, armed forces were given short shrift in pay commissions, they were denied non functional upgradation (NFU) in pay, to mention just a few.

Soon after Independence a major move adverse to the Indian Army was its officer-rank badges based on the Ashoka Lions and the five-edged star being made applicable to the Indian Police Service (IPS). The IPS misused the rank badges by making them applicable to police officers with less amount of service than army officers. This causes problems when the army and police are pitched together in counter insurgency/terrorism operations.

What also became obvious was the bureaucracy’s partiality towards the IPS. One of the major negative effects of this is that IPS officers trained only for law and order duties occupy senior positions in central armed police forces (CAPFs) like Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) etc and the intelligence services, depriving the cadre officers of these forces/organisations and reducing their morale. Some very deadly successes of Maoist terrorists against CRPF were because of wrong decisions/poor leadership of non-cadre officers, i.e. IPS officers.                                    

While colonialism was never an issue related to the armed forces till mid-2014, after that it has become a convenient ploy for the bureaucracy to use to do away with some old traditions/customs, including some good time-tested ones or introducing/instituting new processes or schemes. Agnipath too is related partially to this aspect because, by instituting it, the traditional regimental camaraderie is bound to get eroded.

This tour of duty being named Agnipath (path of fire path)/Agniveer (fire warriors) has come under much fire by serving personnel silently and veterans volubly. Veterans have used terminology like "short service entry" to debunk the scheme. An important question asked by veterans is how much can soldiers, sailors and airmen be trained in four years, that too with almost twelve months/one year being spent on leaves? After their four years, how many will be laterally employed in CAPFs? 

Growing frustration in communities

The history of such absorption has been very poor despite many efforts made by former Army Chief, General B.C. Joshi in 1993-1994. While there have been announcements now and then of increasing the tour of duty and avenues/percentages for lateral employment, it is still far from maintaining an effective cutting edge or a guarantee of lateral employment which will keep the released Agniveer protected from being motivated or nabbed by enemy countries or their proxy terrorist organisations? These and many other questions will keep coming up because India is a country most highly targeted by terrorism from not only by Pakistan, but by China too. 

There is growing frustration in many Indian communities who have contributed very substantially by voluntary enlisting in the Indian Army for three quarters of a century and maintaining it as the best in the world. They include families with, in many cases, up to four generations of soldiers who have served in the armed forces. Such an ethos has proved to be a very high war-winning factor for the Indian Army. Many veterans have expressed great resentment and are perceiving that there is a ‘deep state' that is deliberately degrading the Indian Army’s fighting spirit and fighting capacity which is so vital for winning wars.

Another apprehension among veterans is that the bureaucracy playing down the possibility of a war with China, and believing in constantly managing asymmetric warfare with Pakistan, can be presented as the warped logic for justifying the Agnipath scheme. They hope and pray that our armed forces do not have to undergo humiliating defeat to learn a lesson about doing away with the Agnipath scheme and some other "anti-colonial" moves.

(The author, a military affairs analyst, is a former spokesperson, Defence Ministry and Indian Army. Views are personal. He can be contacted at wordsword02@gmail.com)