Agnipath It Is.

It was Abraham Lincoln who once tried to clarify one of the basic elements of human nature in relation to one's desire to manipulate others. 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.' India has consistently been proving this well-known saying wrong. Conversely, the world also seems to have been willfully overlooking the BJP-led government's various successful attempts of fooling all of the people all of the time. As such, the world is in no mood to stop India from treading the pathway of fire. From annexing an internationally recognised disputed territory to its violation of human rights, subduing minorities, sponsoring terrorism, firing accidental cruise missiles and Arundhati Roy's claims, India has been fooling around for quite some time now. One wonders if the resolution recently introduced by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on designating India as a 'country of particular concern' ever sees the light of day.

This time, India is trying to fool its own people.

Introduced on June 14, the 'Agnipath' Scheme is meant to annually recruit around forty-six thousand youngsters between seventeen-and-a-half to twenty-three-year old's as soldiers below the rank of commissioned officers into all three services of the armed forces. Scheduled to be implemented in September, the Agnipath Scheme is expected to produce 'Agniveers', the 'Fire Warriors', a new rank introduced by New Delhi. The title of the scheme itself speaks volumes about the Indian mindset under PM Modi's leadership. Agnipath means the 'Pathway of Fire'.

Bulldozing the old system of recruitment involving long tenures, life-long pension benefits, medical allowance and other benefits, the Agnipath aims at compensating the aspiring soldiers for a three-year hiatus in effecting fresh recruitments. As around fifty to sixty thousand soldiers retire annually, affecting the operational capabilities of the Indian armed forces, the Government needed to address the ensuing manpower shortfall of around 165,000 personnel. Covid-19 is being attributed to this unprecedented oversight, a logic the thousands of protesters have refused to buy. Having less than one percent representation in the armed forces, Indian Muslims are already at a disadvantageous position. With the advent of this scheme, their will further reduce drastically, deepening the sense of discrimination in the world's largest democracy even...

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