Rahul Bedi 
New Delhi: India’s predicament over saving the eight retired Indian Navy personnel sentenced recently to death in Qatar – allegedly on espionage charges – remains an issue shrouded in mystery, as neither side has, so far, publicly disclosed any details regarding the case.
But it is also a grave dilemma, with potential future ramifications for possible situations involving ‘Agniveers’ who could, after their inevitable (and involuntary) exit, opt for gainful employment with overseas mercenary groups and private military contractors (PMCs), and in some instances, eventually end up in sticky situations in foreign countries, much like the naval retirees on death row in Qatar.
Of course, the eight former Indian Navy personnel in Qatar were not mercenaries as they had not been recruited by the Gulf sheikhdom to participate in a conflict or acts of violence aimed at either overthrowing the government or undermining the state which employed them. But it was evidently their military skill which their employer found attractive. And which has put them in harm’s way, creating a challenge for Indian diplomacy.
All eight – seven officers and one sailor – had been recruited by Dahra Global Technologies owned by Khamis Al Ajami, a retired squadron leader of the Royal Oman Air Force and Qatari national, which provided support solutions to Qatar’s aerospace, security, defence, information technology and communication sectors.
Ajami had hired these officers over several years to reportedly instruct Qatari Navy officers in operating, amongst other tasks, two classified and advanced ‘midget’ submarines under acquisition by Doha from Italy. Weighing between 70-150 tons midget submarines are lethal underwater assets, as they were virtually undetectable in their missions, which expressly involved penetrating harbours to undertake sabotage operations.
Also read: A Coursemate Appeals: Bring Back Indian Navy Veterans on Death Row in Qatar Now
According to varied media and industry reports quoting official sources, the sentenced IN personnel were accused by Qatar State Security of spying for the Israelis – who are concerned about Qatar being the first Arab state in the Middle East to begin operating submarines. Since India has close strategic and defence ties with Israel, it is possible the Qatar authorities believe that the task of ‘snooping’ on the Qatari Emiri Naval Forces’ Italian-origin midget boats – which were in the process of being commissioned – had been outsourced to Dahra’s IN personnel by Tel Aviv. This theory was first propounded by a Qatari media platform, al Watani last October and then reported by IRNA of Iran.
The fact that India’s defence attache at the embassy in Qatar, Captain Mohan Atla, left the country some four months after the eight former IN men were arrested has fuelled speculation that his departure was linked in some way.
No official confirmation to authenticate either of these versions is forthcoming, as officials remain tight-lipped over the highly sensitive l’affaire Qatar. But security sources claimed that Qatar had handed over the court judgement to the Indian government over the weekend and senior foreign office and security officials were evaluating possible remedial options to try and mitigate the death sentence and effect the repatriation of the convicted IN personnel.
Gainful employment options with overseas mercenary groups
Meanwhile, a cross-section of service veterans anticipates the proliferation of such instances in the event of disbanded Agniveers being lured by burgeoning PMCs in a business estimated to be worth over $200 billion annually. With the advent of soldiers of fortune and steadily proliferating PMCs – like presently in Ukraine and their recruiters continuously scouting around for trained soldiery – discharged Agniveers would more than adequately fit their mercenary bill.
“There is a more than real possibility of discharged Agniveer’s tapping into the mushrooming Western mercenary and PMC bazaar,” says a retired two-star Indian Army officer. Indians, he says, declining to be named, are nothing if not enterprising and forever partial to jugaad, or creative innovation, especially in earning a fast buck. Moreover, in this ‘highly specialised’ sector daily earnings, centered on experience, expertise and danger potential could average between $500 and $1,500, which is more than incentive enough for an Agniveer to offer his fighting services to the highest bidder in years to come.
Also read: Why the Government’s ‘Plans’ for Demobilised Agniveers Don’t Inspire Trust
According to Sean McFate, one of the world’s leading experts in the US on soldiers of fortune and PMCs, mercenaries are here to stay. New consumers, he stated in an exhaustive paper in late 2019 for the US’s National Defense University, will seek security in an increasingly insecure world, as a consequence of which new mercenaries would emerge to meet this demand. Furthermore, contracting, he states, had become America’s new way of war and trendlines indicated that the US could outsource 80% to 90% of its future wars to PMCs. This, McFate adds, is one of the few issues in Washington that enjoys ‘true bipartisan’ political support with both the Democrats and the Republicans.
Besides, there are no mercenary training camps anywhere, so all such personnel, lionised in Hollywood movies, emanate largely from national military forces. In such an egregious situation, several Indian military officers say Agniveers are ‘ideally suited’ for such employment, as their training and deployment – especially in the Indian Army would be across terrain, which offer diversity like nowhere else. This includes the upper Himalayan reaches, the Rajasthan desert, the flat Punjab plains and the swampy jungles in the northeast. Besides, the Agniveer’s youthfulness and accompanying josh or vigour too would be employable assets.
“Thus, the government needs to consider a protocol or ways to deal with complicated and awkward situations involving ex-armed forces personnel of the kind prevailing in Qatar,” says a former Ministry of Defence (MoD) official.
The moot question that will ultimately need determining is whether the government had extra-terrestrial moral, legal and diplomatic responsibility in coming to the aid of Indian nationals involved in ticklish security situations overseas,” he says, requesting anonymity. This, he adds, is a major predicament even Western nations are still grappling with, but are yet to come up with any prescription.