Violent protests against the badly thought through Agnipath recruitment scheme continued to wrack India for the third day running with arson, looting, stone pelting and even hand to hand combat being witnessed between unruly elements and the police. Protests that destroy public property can in no way be condoned but these also show the scale of challenge in initiating reforms in India even when fronted by a Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the strongest political mandate in @ five decades. Defence chiefs had strongly advised the Centre that the scheme should first be unrolled as a pilot project, teething troubles debugged , the final product refined and then implemented on a mass scale but a bullheaded PM would have none of it and went ahead with the foolhardy launch. The Chinese army had also undertaken a similar exercise but specific government officials were explicitly tasked to help in the job search and matching placement of the de-inducted army personnel failing which they themselves would be put in the dock by way of not being considered for promotions or wage increments ; no wonder their short term recruitment plan was a resounding success. Almost every ill conceived public policy announcement by the head priest from the saffron pulpit leads to a firestorm which is then left to the police and law enforcement agencies to douse; remember the farm laws, demonetisation, CAA, NRC etc. The political executive has to take ownership before and during the process of implementing far reaching reforms, not just shoot and scoot leaving the whole nation in shambles.
