Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Agnipath is not the reform the armed forces need

By Dilip -
The structure of the military has immense ramifications for security, and also for social organisation at large. The Agnipath scheme is a major structural reform with consequences both for the armed forces and society at large. Some reforms and restructuring of the armed forces was overdue. Sometimes, scepticism about reforms reflects an underlying status quo bias, rather than an assessment of needs. But it is also the case that this Agnipath is as much about creating a political illusion of reform as it is about addressing the armed forces’ needs. The spin given to the reform needs to be treated with a lot more caution....