OROP Blues

As I write this I am in an environment filled with patriotic fervour. Songs lauding our country and reminiscing the “heroes” of freedom struggle ring out loud, blaring from loudspeakers, and the colours of the day are Saffron, white and green. Some people carry it in their hands, some have in pinned to their chest. It’s on car windscreens, motorcycles and the really trendy ones even choose to wear it. By evening this biannual event would be over, to be repeated twice next year, the year after and so on. By evening the paper tricolours would have found their way to dustbins, the clothes to the closet, to be worn next year or handed over to younger cousins. But there are certain things which won’t.

The soldier who ensures you the freedom whose Independence Day celebration was a couple of laddoos handed over to him in an old newspaper while he ensures his weapon doesn’t move an inch. It is the assurance that, no matter what happens, that man will never let his guard down because of which we can continue our celebrations without any worries.

It is precisely this assurance from the men in olive green, white and blue, khaki, which is taken for granted in this country, which brings me to the other thing that will remain unchanged on 16 Aug 2015, the woes of the veteran soldiers, who for the best part of their youth provided this nation the same assurance. A majority of them also put their lives on the line, some more than once only to be forced to sit on agitation in the dusk of their lives asking for their pension to be made meaningful. How can a soldier who retired in 1985 with 50% of his last drawn salary as pension (a couple of thousand rupees) make two ends meet in an age when a site like zomato lists a meal with drinks for two people for one evening at Rs 2500, that too in an average suburban Mumbai pub, not a five star hotel. Before the critics of this article pounce on me saying why an eighty year old would want to go to a pub in Mumbai, I’d like to point out that, the money is for the old man and his wife to live for a month. That surely is difficult. What’s more, the administrators of the land have no qualms about letting loose the police to “control” 70 and 80 year olds, some of them being physically and all of them being verbally assaulted. It is the same nation where the death of three men in their 20s because they physically broke three security barriers in a troubled area, being fully aware of the conditions prevailing caused an upheaval and shouts of Human Rights violation. I would like to ask this nation which is an upholder of secularism and human rights, HOW IS BASHING UP UNARMED 70 AND 80 YEAR OLDS NOT A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION?

DEAR COAS, HOW ABOUT A DAY’S SALARY FROM EVERY SERVING PERSON OF THE INDIAN ARMY  FOR OUR VETERANS INSTEAD OF THE PRIME MINISTER’S FUND.

There are two prime reasons for this degradation in the lives and standard of the armed forces. The first is the highly unconstitutional terms of service.

 How is it Unconstitutional?

Let me explain. Every constituency in this country has an elected representative in the Lok Sabha. He puts forth the concerns of his area and his people and he addresses their problems. He knows the problems intricately, interacts with the local leadership of the smaller administrative units in his constituency and has the knowledge to stand up and argue his case forcefully in the house, for the benefit of his people. That is the REPRESENTATION in parliament, which every citizen of India is guaranteed constitutionally.

The soldier, on the other hand remains away from his house and hometown for atleast 275 days in a year i.e. three-quarters of a year. When he retires he gets a pension, which is directly given by the central government over which his local representative neither has any control, nor any interest, justifiably so, because it only affects a small percentage of people in his constituency. But when we see all these small percentages in the country it adds up to a lot. The issues concerning a serving and veteran soldier, alike, are very different from the local population that he may be a part of, just as his work during his hey-day was. As a result these large number of retired soldiers are without any parliamentary representation, yet liable to pay taxes at the same rate to the government, which is TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION (The American Revolution was to abolish this very thing), a highly unconstitutional act.

The solution to this is to have an ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE VETERAN COMMUNITY, to address their issues, with a term coinciding with the government of the land (To prevent passing the buck, between govts when they change and between elected representatives when they change).

The second reason that has led to this degradation of the armed forces, not only of veterans but also of serving soldiers (that includes everyone from the chiefs to the junior most cadre, for they are all soldiers first) is the obsolete and currently unsuitable moral fibre which the soldiers are made to imbibe during their training. “No”, apparently, is not a valid answer, amounting to insubordinate (unbecoming of a subordinate) behaviour. Refusing to carry out a task, even verbally conveyed is disobedience of orders and en masse revolt is termed mutiny and an offence for which any number of people, even if all of them are revolting against one person can be tried and released from service.

The services have a habit of following traditions blindly, often without taking into considerations the circumstances and reasons why these were put in place. Add to that an “I know everything” attitude, “an officer can never be wrong” myth and top it up with the “never question your senior”  teaching and what you have is a perfect recipe for disaster. It is these that have led to the degradation of our forces to what it is today, for while we refuse to budge from century and a half old teachings, in the garb of tradition, the environment surrounding us has no such anchor. They learn from everyday follies and adapt themselves better to the present situation, which is why our bureaucrats and politicians are able to “legally” control a one million strong force by ensuring that just one man is willing to do whatever they want him to. A million voices, or realistically, even three-quarters of a million, a definite majority falling weak in front of a small minority. The greatest irony, is that the small minority, which is supposed to be the “voices in the capital” of the majority which they should stand for, not only turns a deaf ear to the subordinates, but regularly RIDICULES them, tells them they are wrong in asking for their rights, misguides them and INDOCTRINATES THEM INTO SUBMISSION making them incapable of standing for themselves even when they are right and have no rules holding them back after retirement, sometimes denies them their rights taking for themselves, what belongs to their subordinates and occasionally even EXPLOITS them for personal benefits.

These rules that we hold so dear and so scared were formulated by out colonial masters, The British, (who by the way have evolved into a far more contemporary force). They taught us that to say “No” is a punishable offence so that we could be used to fight against our own countrymen struggling for freedom.

The insubordinate behaviour is the best way to quell even a reasonable argument against an unreasonable order. It surely doesn’t benefit any organisation, military or otherwise, to not have checks and balances against unreasonable or sub-optimal decisions. We on the other hand take pride in it.

The mutiny clause came in after the 1857 war of independence, which the British chose to put down as a minor mutiny. If a majority of people raise their voices against a minority decision, whether it is right or wrong, deserves to be given a fair and impartial hearing. In this country, even a bunch of bhel-puri vendors can unionise and ensure that the administration hears them. They can put a spoke in the administrative wheel and bring it to a halt just by  blocking the road at whose corner they sell their snack, but a one million strong standing army which guards the borders, fights against anti-national elements (which is a police task), carries out flood and earthquake relief (National Disaster Management Authority task in conjunction with local administration and paramilitary forces task), pulls out children from bore wells (Parents job to see that the child doesn’t end up there and local police / fire brigade task to pull the child out), Builds bridges to save the nation’s face (CPWD task), all at no extra cost to the government can neither voice it’s opinions to its own higher ups nor represent it’s case through any unions, courtesy the army act, which was enacted in 1950, about 65 years ago and large parts of which were borrowed directly from the British version . All the funds allocated to these respective organisations who do not do their mandated tasks, all the expenses for the running of parliamentary affairs, whose entire session is washed out without a single legislation being discussed or passed (most recently Monsoon session 2015) are not a burden to the exchequer, but the revision of pay for veterans, who are frail and can barely fend for themselves appears to be a huge burden to the government.

These rules which the armed forces had been following worked all these years because they were based on solid foundations of moral standing and camaraderie. All these rules are based on the initial condition that no senior officer will ask his subordinate to do anything which is below the man’s dignity, which is illegal or immoral or which furthers the senior’s own interest at the cost of his subordinate. There is only a clause for actions unbecoming of a subordinate, nothing to counter the actions unbecoming of a senior because it was assumed that the senior would, in the interest of his own dignity or for other reasons, not behave unjustly, unfairly, partially, or inappropriately with a subordinate. The moment these basic grounds are violated by anyone, the rules which follow become null and void and very difficult to live upto.

There may be many ways out of this situation, but a few suggested ways could be as follows :-

(a)    “No” is a valid answer, to be used more with people senior to one, and sparingly with the subordinates.

(b)   All non-mandated work performed by the forces from flood relief to flying ballot boxes into naxalite areas to be charged extra, with cost being worked out for extra man-hours and additional charges for the hazard involved.

(c)    An elected representative of the armed forces in the parliament. Online access to be provided to his staff to all serving and retired personnel of the armed forces, without any channel. Admissiblity of grievance limited to those not reasonably addressable by respective organisations (unit/sub unit).

(d)   Pay commissions to permanently include pensions of ex-servicemen. To reduce the burden on exchequer, fewer people to be recruited on long service engagements and majority of personnel to have a service liability of only 5-6 years with golden handshake (courses on retirement/ lateral placement).

(e)   Defence proposals to be dealt with directly by the representatives of the government, not the bureaucracy. Alternately bureaucrats to be posted to same locations as the defence, to assess their requirement on ground. (eg. If lightweight BPJ has to be bought, a team of bureaucrats to accompany a company of petrol wearing the BPJs worn by troops, for better judgement and an accurate assessment).   

(f)     Mandated peace-time working hours and for all extra hours overtime to be paid at the same rate as applicable to other central government employees.

(g)    All retired chiefs to be barred from holding government appointments.

None of these things really would be necessary if only “Selected” people stop behaving like “Elected” people.

As a last word to people reading this article, as I have said earlier 70 and 80 year old veteran soldiers have been beaten up by policemen during a rightful protest citing that they are a security threat to Independence Day celebrations (shame on you, police and administration). Most news channel and newspapers have just chosen to ignore it, maybe under pressure from the government or maybe it’s just not sensational enough for them. I request every Indian, whether you have someone in the forces or not to spread this news through social media, upload photographs/ videos of the protest and raise public awareness and public support for the veterans fighting for OROP (One Rank One Pension). Lest we may not have the assurance from our forces, which we take so much for granted today.