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How right is Rahul Gandhi on the Indian military and ‘the 10 per cent’?

Recently Rahul Gandhi held that 10 per cent of India’s population has control of the military, saying, “They (forward castes) have control over the army…And the 90% population (the rest) — you will not find them anywhere.”

While he may be wrong in the details, he is right - if prematurely so - on the essentials, since the ‘control’ is a work-in-progress, set to culminate when Agnipath changes the complexion of India’s army.

The Agnipath scheme is designed to get two birds with one stone. It has in its sights a deflation of the ‘martial races’ and ethnic groups of marginalized communities that have been advantaged by the class proportions (single or fixed) incident in some regiments.

The Agnipath scheme enables a rewind to the halcyon days of the purabiya sepoys, when forward castes formed the mainstay of the army prior to the upheaval of 1857. It will also re-affix the martial races into their place lower down in the social pyramid, while reinserting the marginalized back at the bottom.

The capture is incipient

Ideally, a federal polity of an ethnically diverse democratic state ought to have equitable representation from all its constituent regions and communities. Though India has been well served by a democratically subordinate professional military thus far, for the army to reflect India’s diversity would only be healthy into a fraught future.

For now, there is a regional, ethnic and religious imbalance in numbers within the army. On this the Agnipath scheme, now facing its first turn-over in inductees of four years back, only flatters to please.

Agnipath moves the recruiting paradigm from ethnically based recruiting to an ‘all India, all caste’ system. This undercuts the advantages the communities with an ethnic-based pass into the army had, either as so-called martial races or the carve outs for the marginalized groups, who were also accorded space within the army, such as Muslims, Ahirs and Mahars.

A second feature of Agnipath, brought in after its advent, is that the recruitment process now features the written test being taken by candidates prior to the physical tests. This advantages educationally forward communities, while downgrading the prospects of those traditionally signing up to the military in whom brawn supersedes much else.

The lack of diversity

Regional diversity is only of token proportions. It is well known that north India is well represented while the south and east are under-represented. Of the 331 commissioned in June 2023, 153 were from the cow belt, while only 28 were southerners. Curiously, of 11 from the north east, 8 were from Arunachal. It’s the relative absence of marginalized ethnic and social groups from the military that is concerning.

As for religious diversity, the relative absence of Muslims in relation to their country wide presence and proportion in the wider population is example. The numbers of Muslim officers once used to be at two per cent. The latest combined merit list for the National Defence Academy and the Naval Academy has 7 Muslim in a list of over 700. Since the two academies would at best take in some 500, merely 4 would likely make it gauging from their ranks obtained, which makes for all of 1 per cent.

Before Agnipath created an unthought-through problem for Nepalis in the army, Nepali Gorkhas were double in number than India’s own Muslims. Clearly, when the army declined to share numbers on the Sachar committee’s request, it was but hiding an embarrassing reality.

In terms of caste, fine-grained figures are unavailable. Reasonably, castes answering as warriors that include ‘martial races’ such as the Rajput, Sikhs, Dogras, Marathas and Jats are well represented. To these communities can be added a smattering of the upper rung of Other Backward Castes, such as Yadavs.

The onset of the Agnipath undercuts the ‘martial races’ by threatening the regimental system. The deliberate obfuscation by the national security adviser on this question indicates eventual of evolution of the regimental system away from its ethnic rootedness.

With their respective proportions withdrawn, these communities would require banking on the showing of their youth in the common entrance tests. This will likely dilute their numbers, that were otherwise protected under the regimental system.

Another outcome will be the already negligible numbers of marginalised communities getting fewer.

But for a regiment having a fair percentage of Muslims from that region, Muslim numbers are negligible. Likewise, the Mahar regiment only incidentally boosts figures of Scheduled Caste presence. As for the Scheduled Tribes, but for the Bihar and Naga regiments, their presence too would be truncated.

Added to this must be the situation in the central police forces and the paramilitary. Even the Assam Rifles – sentinels of the North East – has a large proportion in its ranks of groups not from the North East. The central police forces tried increasing the presence of Muslims, but only momentarily. Today no records are released on such data, so it can be assumed that the situation of marginalized and minority group presence is rather low.

Only incidentally, some groups have been inducted, such as Naga hostiles being taken into army ranks from counter insurgency purposes. Likewise, some renegade militants were taken into the ‘home and hearth’ units of the Territorial Army and others into the hatchet wing of the Kashmir police. The numbers of Ladakhis in uniform went up after the Kargil War with Ladakh Scouts attaining regiment status. An effort to induct tribal communities from Central India is also on, but has counter insurgency motives as impetus.

Those with better educational access gain an advantage, while those from peasant classes and rural areas - the mainstay of soldiery so far - and the educationally backward communities – who are likely more robust physically - are liable to be left behind. The new-found need for a tech-enabled work force busts the earlier logic that high altitude deployments necessitated a younger, more robust profile in the soldiery.

A political consideration

That a federal democracy must have a military reflecting its diversity appears a no-brainer. What’s certain is there is no conscious policy on diversification flowing from a belief that a composition reflective of the lived reality in India would be healthy for democracy.

Absence of numbers in the open domain restricts logical, reasoned and credible consideration of this vexed question. The higher purpose of maintaining India as a federal democracy and making it more socially equitable requires security forces to be open to scrutiny.

The military will claim it is not in national interest to reveal such numbers. It would cite the potential for such numbers to become a political football. Taking the military’s reservations onboard, the exercise can be kept in-house, either in a blue-ribbon commission or closed-door sittings of the relevant parliamentary committee. This governments record of ‘surgical strikes’ on the nation, that included Agnipath, indicates that an off-the-radar consideration is possible.

If the impending caste census were to keep security forces out of its purview, it can only be a sub-optimal exercise. The monies that go into the security sector in terms of pay, pension, perks and privileges, will flow to communities advantaged by the Agnipath scheme. It would serve to strengthen their position in the caste pyramid. A more equitable spread – what the caste census is intended to bring about - calls for holistic stocktaking.

Given the regime’s propensity to support ‘control’ of the military by the ’10 per cent’, there is a need for a concerted thrust to broaden its recruiting profile to include all regions and communities. Current conditions of educational deficits in most communities as against the forward caste advantages preclude ‘All India, All Class’ and meritocratic dogmatism. Scope for state or district-wise reservations – as indeed is historically the case with the Indian army – needs to be built in.

Not doing so will lead to a narrowed catchment area, undesirable in country of continental size in terms of population and size. The aim must be to eventually erase the concerning and unrecognized reality of ‘stacking’ in India, wherein, of some 750 districts over 80 per cent of recruitment is from just over a 100 districts (impressionistic figures).

An undesirable political implication is that potentially a particular political ideology might find its way into the military if the mainstay of recruiting is from the Gangetic belt, where such ideology holds sway.

Alongside, ahead is also a likely dwindling in political power of regions as southern India brought on by a post-census delimitation of parliamentary constituencies. This would weaken any counter balancing heft of the south within the military. A north-dominated military would also constrain the south in maintaining an ethnic balance of power across the subcontinental landmass.

An operational implication is in regard to the military’s showing in internal conflict situations. Prejudices – such as the islamophobia fanned by politicos – can only have a baleful affect. The popularity within the military and the veteran community of the notion that the surgical strike on Article 370 was altogether a good thing is a case to point.

Rahul Gandhi gets it right

To dismiss Rahul Gandhi’s statement cavalierly is par for the thrust and parry of politics, intended to deny him credibility in keeping with the ‘pappu’ canard.

Understandably, the military’s political master does not want to put his hand into what promises to be beehive. However, the military would do well to introspect. If it does not course correct autonomously, it would only prove the point that Gandhi makes, that it already stands corralled by a certain ‘10 per cent’.

An internal inquiry getting to grips with the data is the start point. While its right-wing inclined veterans will likely raise a ruckus as the caste count looms, the military would prove befitting of a democratic state if it furnishes its figures for informing the caste census.

The claim that it has no records on religion is hogwash. How else does it know if it has to bury a member or place a body on a pyre? It must realise that one among the ninepins, it cannot but fall as have others listed by Rahul Gandhi, “... only 10 per cent of the country’s population (i.e., the ‘upper castes’) get opportunities in corporate sectors, bureaucracy, and the judiciary....”

A reckonable outcome is desirable given the current-day discussion surrounding inequality. Social and economic inequality is already self-evident. Political inequality is set to grow, in case inability to control population growth is rewarded with parliamentary seats.

What currently appears as Gandhi’s tilting at the windmills requires a holistic broad-front approach. Holy cows as the corporate sector and the military cannot be ‘left out of battle’ on the major political question in the life of the Republic.