Draft for India ?

Talking of "Great Satan", the latest excitement in a rather politically charged season (what with democrats gaining the control of both houses after a long time) is the proposal to reinstate draft by Charles Rangel. The reaction to this proposal are less than overwhelming.

The venerable congressman has stated as a justification that such a move will make government more circumspect against waging wars. Of course his commitment for his own proposal is rather doubtful concerning last time he voted against his own proposal.

However what I find interesting is, the contrast between the justification given by him and the philosophy (of a sort) as expounded in Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, one of his more controversial (where using both Heinlein and controversy in same sentence is sort of redundant) work.

The basic plot line of his book was that in future citizenship is restricted to those who had served in the military. The citizens had more rights than non-citizens including right to vote and contest elections. For that decade the work was sensational, and Heinlein was accused of militarism and even fascism.

However what Heinlein suggested was not a novelty. As far as the history goes, there always has been distinction between those bearing arms and those who did not.

In India as well as Japan, there was a separate class of warriors, in general having more rights than those who had not. However it did not reflected on status of citizenship, rather the distinction was captured as a part of social hierarchy and notion of duty associated with it.
In the same fashion medieval Europe had a code of chivalry for the knights.

City-states belonging to Greek civilization had a different concept altogether, while Greek society also had sort of social hierarchy, the military had altogether more fundamental relation in the Greek culture.

Broadly speaking it was obligation of citizen to defend his city from attacks, he was expected to sacrifice his life if situation demanded so. This notion found resonance in the cultures, with Sparta being an extreme case and even Athens encouraging virtue of militarism, though in moderation. The objective of this was to always at disposal of state sufficient number of well trained and able bodied citizens in case of aggression.
The military was largely voluntary, but sometimes there could be a conscription.

Machiavelli assigned greater value to an army of citizens, than to mercenaries. According to him, the reason Greek states were so resilient were because of the nature of defence forces, he also blamed increasing reliance on mercenaries for decline of city-states of Italy.

Heinlein's idea developed on this theme, however he reversed the Greek concept. In Greece all citizens were obligated to defend the nation, while in Starship Troopers only those who were willing to defend the nation were eligible to be citizen.

This reversal was crucial to Heinlein's belief system. He was against draft, but more than that he strongly believed that rights (of a citizen) can not be divorced from responsibilities, this was extension of his commitment for capitalism (TINSTAAFL). Coupled with his distaste and fury at prevailing pacifism in intellectual circles, in light of threat of communism, prompted him to take such a radical stand.

I have come to believe that the problem with India is that the one's demand for rights is not matched by the sense of duties to the nation and fellow Indians. To instill this sense of duty, to develop character and to forge a identity and solidarity based on common destiny, there is a case for introducing mandatory service in India.
I will prefer this only as last option though, sort of a desperate measure, because of economic cost involved.