Recruitment of soldiers has declined almost continuously since 2015. Between 2020 and 2023 there was virtually no recruitment at all. Instead, the government introduced the Agnipath scheme, appointing young men as Agniveers. The training is rigorous, but the appointment lasts only four years. There is no pension; they receive a certificate and are released. Only one-fourth are retained afterwards.
W hat are those who have received the training required to defend the country supposed to do after four years? The answer is becoming clear. Strengthening monopoly capital and corporate power— to put it bluntly— have created parallel criminal systems. Are these trained personnel expected to serve as protectors of this capitalist order and its criminal networks? Are they meant to work as bouncers for the rest of their lives? The government trains them, employs them for four years, then hands them a certificate and abandons them— so they can later serve as security guards at lavish parties, entertainments and pubs.
Meanwhile the military itself is being run temporarily with Agniveers while relying on high technology and drones imported from abroad. The country’ s defence and security system remains completely dependent— dependent on foreign capital, on imperialist countries and imperialist forces— not on our own soldiers. Imports of critical military equipment are extremely high and continue to rise. What is even more striking is that these imports are deeply entangled with scandals and scams.
I am not saying this on personal authority. Transparency International, an organisation that studies government corruption, reports that India’ s military system falls within a“ dangerous risk zone.” Corruption is at a high level. We must speak of the Rafale scam, the Bofors scam, and others like them. September-2026
Regarding national security, Nagi Reddy had already observed in the 1970s that dependence was increasing, that we had no independence, and that our defence system was not under our control. That observation, made so early, still strikes me as remarkably clear-sighted.
Today that dependence has grown even stronger and become more severe.
Many studies claimed that with Soviet assistance India had reached the take-off stage, that the country had attained the top level of industrialisation and even its peak. Nagi Reddy Garu rejected these claims outright and stated clearly that our movement towards industrialisation had not even properly begun. Even now we remain at essentially the same level.
W hen Make in India was launched in 2014, the stated goal was to raise the manufacturing sector’ s contribution to GDP from 15 % to 25 % within ten years. After a decade it had fallen from 15 % to 14 %. The target of increasing annual industrial growth from 7 % to 15 % also failed; growth declined marginally instead. The promise of creating one hundred million additional jobs proved an utter failure— a fact that is never mentioned. While Make in India is loudly proclaimed a success, nowhere is it claimed that significant employment was generated.
Even the growth of the service sector today is entirely dominated by foreign capital and foreign technology. It is highly capitalintensive and technology-intensive, generating very little employment for us. After 2000 people spoke of“ jobless growth”; now we are witnessing“ job-loss growth”— existing jobs themselves are disappearing. Within the formal sector, informal employment continues to rise.
The latest draft documents insist that we must link up with global value chains. But who benefits— the people? The youth? Will dignified jobs appear? None of these materialise. Workers are left with self-employment, casual work and outsourcing. Agents at the top levels profit handsomely, while those labouring in the most degraded and unbearable conditions at the lower levels created by this system have no real connection to the global value chain. There is no reason to believe that linking to global value chains will somehow improve the condition of our country.
The crisis has reached its peak. Added to this, the rupee has collapsed— one dollar now equals one hundred rupees. When the exchange rate approached this level, supporters of the ruling party treated it as an achievement and even wore T-shirts celebrating the milestone. Is one dollar equal to one hundred rupees an achievement? We are living in a situation where even this is not understood.
A fall in the value of the rupee against the dollar intensifies labour exploitation. Why? Because since the 1980s India has been systematically converted into an export-oriented economy. Exports are made ever cheaper. When the prices of other inputs cannot be reduced, the only remaining option is to intensify the exploitation of labour. Thus the depreciation of the rupee is directly linked to deeper labour exploitation, a sharper working-class crisis, increased oppression, and the growth of every form of discrimination. These are the conditions in which we find ourselves today.
In the midst of such a severe crisis, our rulers signed bilateral agreements with the United States in February. In those agreements, America openly states that its goal is“ Make America Great Again.”
What exactly this slogan means is well known. Yet the fact that the Indian government bowed its head,
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