At two in the morning, in a rolling sea, a warship’s machinery has a defect. On a ridge in Ladakh, a radar goes dark. On a flight line, an aircraft is grounded by a fault that few technicians can trace. The repair depot and manufacturer’s support are far away. Someone on the spot must find the fault and put things right.

In the Indian Navy, that person was often a member of a specialised cadre, the artificers. He began with four years of apprenticeship and spent much of the next two decades acquiring the judgement of a Chief Artificer: Knowing how machinery behaved at sea, in rough weather, and not merely how the manual said it should. Agnipath has brought technical entry under the same four-year tenure as everyone else. The old apprenticeship alone lasted as long as an Agniveer’s entire engagement.

On November 4, the Union Cabinet approved a second, two-year engagement for the 75 per cent of Agniveers otherwise due to leave after four years.…