"Reform In Right Direction": Congress's Manish Tewari On 'Agnipath' Plan

The government's new Agnipath scheme for the army is a "step in the right direction" given the huge shift in the nature of modern-day warfare, Congress's Manish Tewari told  NDTV in an exclusive interview today, deviating from the party line on the subject. "In this day and age you need a mobile army, a younger army. You need more expenditure on technology and weaponry. That's not going to happen if you have a very big footprint on the ground and that's where the bulk of your money goes," he told NDTV in an exclusive interview.  

The announcement of the new radical, short-term recruitment plan has been followed by protests -- sometimes violent -- in many states by young people aspiring to a career in the army.

The Congress has been strident in its opposition of the scheme, saying it "compromises the armed forces".

Senior party leader Rahul Gandhi has also urged young people not to accept the scheme, tweeting, "No rank, no pension, no direct recruitment for 2 years, no stable future after four years, no respect shown by the government for the army".

Mr Tewari, who in the past has voiced his opinion even when it deviated from the party line, told NDTV that there is a "far more important and fundamental point" -- which is the change in the nature of warfare over the past decades.

"If you look at armed forces going back three decades, there has been a more mobile expeditionary force, which relies more on technology, which relies more on latest weaponry and which has a younger age profile -- therefore under those circumstances this is a much-required reform," he said.

Plus whether you like it or not, the burgeoning pension bill because of the One Rank One Pension Scheme, I think must have gone into the calculus of the government," he said.

Admitting that the young people of the country have a "legitimate concern", Mr Tewari, however, pointed out that the armed force of the union "is not an employment guarantee programme".

Still, in the current circumstances, the government, he said, should "build into the scheme" that after the four of service is up, there will be opportunities for people in paramilitary forces and the state police and there would be other forms of employment.