It appears that the desire to join Indian Army is more in youngsters of some States than their counterparts of other States. The data of demographic statistics of Gentlemen Cadets (GC) of the passing out contingent of IMA reveal that almost 50 per cent of them belong to five States of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Haryana, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Rajasthan.
A total of 469 GCs would pass out from the IMA on Saturday. Uttar Pradesh tops the list of the contributing States with 74 GC belonging to this state. Sixty-seven young officers are from a comparatively small state of Haryana while Uttarakhand, Bihar and Rajasthan with 29 GCs cadets each shared the honours at third place of sending their youngsters to don olive green of Army. Interestingly depicting a trend of youngsters preferring other careers than joining the army, a big state like Gujarat has only one GC who would be the part of the marching contingent on Saturday. Similarly the north eastern states also lag in sending kids to army. The data suggests that five GC belong to Assam while Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland would have only one GC in the passing out contingent with states like Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram failing to send even a single youngster.
When asked to comment on dominance of some selected states when it comes to joining the armed forces as officers, Brigadier R S Rawat (Rtd), said that the states like Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Punjab has a tradition of joining armed forces.
“It is a common observation that large numbers of the GC have army background and many of them are children of jawans or Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs). The youngsters of these families are self motivated to join army as officers for financial security and social respect,” he said.
Brigadier Rawat also linked youngsters preferring army in these states with less employment opportunities.