manish tiwari supports modi government’s new army recruitment scheme the path of fire
the path of fire: Congress MP Manish Tewari has gone against his party line and raised his voice in support of the new army recruitment scheme ‘Agneepath’. Supporting the Modi government over the new scheme, Tiwari has demanded its withdrawal amid a massive nationwide protest from his party.
Tewari said the process of defense reforms, including reshaping the military, began in the US in 1975 when Donald Rumsfield was defense secretary in the Ford administration and every subsequent administration has seen it. Rumsfeld introduced the conceptual basis of preparing the armed forces for future warfare because they could visualize the changing nature of the battlefield.
“Even the Chinese started the process of resizing the PLA right from 1985,” he said, adding that the size of the PLA was cut by one million in 1985; 500,000 in 1997; 200,000 in 2003; 300,000 in 2015 and China’s People’s Liberation Army since 2017 are being sized correctly from 20 to 1 million to 50 percent.
“Defense reform is part of a larger strategic horizon, not just an internal restructuring act,” he said.
Tiwari in his book ’10 Flashpoints 20 Years’ mentions why the country urgently needs defense reforms. He said that out of every rupee spent on defense in India, 25 paise only goes for pension.
The Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib said, “Salaries take an additional significant portion, leaving little room for capital expenditure on defense modernisation.”
He said the reforms now being implemented by the government were recommended by the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) in 1999 and the Group of Ministers constituted to review the recommendations also supported the reforms including the right size of the armed forces.
“Even the Naresh Chandra committee had endorsed several recommendations of the KRC and GoM that the defense forces need to be lean in their nature,” he said.
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