NEW DELHI: The Indian army is planning to draft young civilian professionals as officers under a voluntary three-year tour of duty program to make up for a shortfall in the upper ranks.
“We will benefit by getting younger manpower and the society will benefit by getting people who are disciplined and have imbibed the ethos of the army,” Army chief Gen. M. M. Naravane told reporters on Wednesday.
He said that the idea emerged from interactions with students at schools and colleges.
“When our officers addressed youths in colleges, we came across the feeling that they want to experience army life, but not as a career. Taking a cue from this, this idea was born of why not give them an opportunity to serve for two to three years,” Naravane said.
The army has called the program “Tour of Duty” (ToD), or “three-year short service,” and is planing to trial it in the coming years.
Media reports quoting an internal army study said that the idea of having civilians for three years was to save a large amount of money on gratuities, severance packages, leave and pensions.
Under existing rules, personnel are released after 10 and 14 years of service.
Opinions are divided, with many retired army personnel and senior officers questioning what they call “diluting the professionalism of the armed forces.”
“The army by the nature of the job it performs requires different level of commitment and the first three years of service are critical to young officers in terms of the grooming that happens. So you need a higher degree of commitment which comes with a longer time span,” Ravinder Malik, a retired brigadier, told Arab News on Friday. The cost-saving argument, according to him, was “too premature.”
“Military service does not have a price; it is priceless. Army and defense cannot be weighed in terms of economic costs,” Malik said.
However, Col. Anil Bhat, a retired public relations officer in the army, hailed the program: “Young people have a greater sense of nationalism today than before and it is time that the youngsters should be exposed to the idea of army discipline to build a new culture in the nation.”
Another retired officer told Arab News on condition of anonymity that the “entry of civilians would dilute the professionalism of the army” and was an attempt “to play the card of hyper nationalism.”
“This government does not have any constructive program to build the nation,” he said. “It wants to exploit the raw sentiment of the young people and create a nation where majoritarian nationalism becomes a defining feature.”
According to Delhi-based political analyst, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, the new program is “the first step in the compulsory conscription in the army on the model of Israel.”
“I find it very disturbing that such a kind of proposal is being debated at a time when India is facing an unprecedented crisis in the face of COVID-19. What is the tearing hurry to discuss such an issue at this particular juncture?” Mukhopadhyay said.
“I feel it will have a huge resonance with the voter base of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) but it can also be self-defeating for the BJP,” he told Arab News.
