Agnipath violence

Another non-issue flares up into violence. First it was the CAA, then Farm protest and now this. Why do non-issues flare up? What is the goal of the violence?

Photo by Siddharth Singh on Unsplash

There is already a lot of information about Agnipath and how the Modi government’s communication leaves much to be desired. I want to draw your attention to some crucial points.

First, the only possible aggrieved parties are those people who are seeking lifetime jobs in the armed forces. Yet, the people protesting are not the ones who are employable in any position.

Second, the grievance would be understandable if the government retrenched a large section of the armed forces. The government is merely adjusting the hiring/intake numbers and retaining only 25% of the top performers who will get full employment with the armed forces. As it is, the number of people interested in joining the army has been declining. We do not have enough officers, nor do we have technical support.

Third, a famous joke says that you can’t get any job without some experience and you can’t get any experience without some job. This scheme breaks this chicken-and-egg problem and creates a base skill level in the labour pool. Others, without the base-level skills, will be compelled to upskill and we have improved labour quality. The Agniveers will definitely be MORE employable than the same youth with 4 years non-Agnipath experience.

Fourth, the protests are ways to saddle the government with increased salaries and pension costs within our defence spending. It is a form of economic warfare. NREGA, Right to Education, Suit-boot-ki-sarkar, opposition to privatization, the mess in defence procurement, and One-rank-One-Pension were all designed to weigh the government with an unreasonable financial burden. This extra-parliamentary imposition on army recruitment follows the same playbook.

Fifth, the amplified violence increases the risk premium for investing in India, increasing our capital costs. The violence also imposes economic loss and creates divisions in the country. In that sense, CAA and Farm-Law protests aimed at all three objectives. Agnipath protests are aimed only at 2.

But what is the goal of this violence?

I am NOT a conspiracy theorist. But I do like studying patterns. A pattern was emerging before my eyes from 1991-92 onwards.

Be it Purulia arms drop, Naxal movement, Kashmir infiltration. I had the opportunity of visiting the Nepal border, witnessing firsthand, how porous they were in the mid-90s. I later had the opportunity to visit the Bhutan border, Bangladesh border and Burma border in the North East. I witnessed the corruption at the borders too. I saw how the Bangladeshi influx was corrupting the North East. I saw illegal imports of basic goods and advanced electronic products from China in these markets. I spoke to the traders and middlemen. I also had the opportunity to exchange ideas with some NGOs supposedly working on poverty, rural development, etc. In my mind, a pattern was forming like a jig-saw puzzle. The pattern of NGO proliferation, money reaching anti-social elements, such elements engaging in weapons smuggling, weapons reaching Naxals or terrorists and resulting in violent events. I naively assumed the pattern I noticed was organic. I presumed that local interests, resentment of certain groups, politically fanned discontent, etc. aligned themselves towards something that was detrimental to the economy and country.

The Ukraine-Russia war opened my eyes.

The war brought to my notice a documentary by Oliver Stone. I searched for various interviews of normal people about the Orange Revolution, Maidan protests, etc. I was surprised to see similarities in these events in India.

Even in Ukraine, I found people wondering why certain issues escalated violently. The locals thought the issues were not the most critical social problem of the time. Unfortunately, the model deployed in destabilizing Ukraine seems to be operative here too. There are too many parallels for it to be a coincidence. Therefore I detailed some of the elements of this Ukraine Model in my previous post.

There was no reason to protest against CAA. It was not related to Indians at all. There was no need to protest against Farm laws, farmers wanted those laws since the 1980s. Yet, these protests were efficiently organised - tents for protestors, community kitchens, massage tables, press events organised in a disciplined manner, Left Liberals and their anti-India tirades, etc. Their location was strategically chosen and precisely executed. Even some of the protests in JNU exhibited remarkable planning and organisation. If Corporate India could plan and execute as well, we would be beating Japan and Germany blindfolded.

Agnipath also seems to be a part of the Ukraine model - create unnecessary protests, impose high costs on governments and destabilize the country with external help.

Am I paranoid?

I worry about it too. I wonder what is the probability that I am right. I would put that at 10-33%. That is a wide range.

Nassim Taleb once explained that we must watch out for the expected outcomes, not merely the probability of an event. The expected outcome is actually the probability of the outcome multiplied by the payoff. Taleb explained that some events have low probability but a massive impact. You are required to heed those events.

The cost of destabilised India will be far far higher. So even if we may assign low probabilities to the possibility, we better verify, counteract and fortify ourselves. These events are only going to get worse.