Amid the ongoing protest against the Centre’s Agnipath Scheme, some Khap Panchayats in Haryana called for a social boycott of all those who would apply for the scheme. The leaders of the Khap Panchayat also declared a boycott of politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Jananayak Janata Party combine and of corporate houses that have supported the scheme.
According to the reports, a meeting of the leaders of Khap Panchayat and other community leaders took place in the Rohtak district of Haryana. Leaders from Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and some of the student organizations also participated in the meeting.
Om Prakash Dhankar, the Chairperson of this meeting stated on the behalf of the Khap Panchayat that people from society who would try to apply for this scheme would be socially isolated and boycotted. “We are boycotting this scheme which wants young people to be hired as labourers in the name of being an Agniveer”, the chairperson added.
The leaders also appealed to the people to oppose the leaders of the BJP and Jananayak Janata Party and those corporate houses that have extended their support to the scheme. This is a day after corporate businesspersons including Vedanta’s Anil Agarwal, Anand Mahindra, Harsh Goenka, Dr Sangita Reddy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, and Sanjeev Bikhchandani backed the scheme. The businesspersons promised to open job opportunities for young trained and skilled men and women after their 4-year stint in the Agniveer scheme.
Reiterating that the community will keep its distance from youngsters who apply for the Agnipath Scheme, Dhankar added that the Centre must take back the scheme. He also cited the reports of a boycott of Indian products in the Gulf countries after the Nupur Sharma controversy and urged the people to similarly not buy any products of over Rs 10,000 from the corporate companies who supported the Agnipath Scheme.
It is important to note that the decision of some of the Khap Panchayat to oppose the Agnipath Scheme comes as a contrast to the response from the Muslim community and several Muslim outfits have decided to popularise the Central Scheme. Reports mention that the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) in Kanpur has appealed to Muslim youths to apply to join the military services under the scheme. The outfit has also urged the imams of the city mosques to popularize the Central scheme during the Friday khutbas (sermons).
Agnipath scheme was rolled out by the Centre on June 14 for recruitment into the Army, Navy and Air Force earlier this month. Selected applicants will be called Agniveers and enrolled under respective Services Acts for four years. The monthly salary of an Agniveer in the first year of employment will be Rs 30,000, of which Rs 21,000 will be in-hand and Rs 9,000 will go to a corpus with an equal contribution from the government. Monthly salary in the second, third and fourth year will be Rs 33,000, Rs 36,500 and Rs 40,000 respectively.
