THE NATION AND ITS ARMED FORCES

P M Ravindran, raviforjustice@gmail.com

To write? Or, not to write? A perennial dilemma for those who are used to criticizing
whatever is not correct or good in their perception. Pessimism? Cynicism? Call it whatever
you might, the fact remains that those who criticize still believe that whatever is not correct
or good can be corrected or made good. They still believe in the ultimate power of the good
over evil. Not so those who refrain from voicing their views even when things are obviously
unacceptable.

I have been trying seriously to write about something that is good, for a change. I looked
around and yes, in spite of a poor monsoon, the nature around me is green and beautiful.
But…OMG, the roads are slushy and filled with garbage on both sides in most places. The
water authority has been in the process of replacing its more than half a century old
pipelines over a 5km stretch and the work which should have been over in a week, well
before the monsoon set in, is still dragging along after 3 months. Even with JCBs at hand the
progress has been just a pipe or two per day. Can I take pleasure in the casual approach of
the authorities who have neither planned nor executed this small work in a professional
manner? Not my cup of tea at all.

And here comes a report, " Govt : Mooted Tax on Disability Pension After Forces' Nudge"
(ToI, Jul 3, 2019). Though I am not affected it raised my hackles nevertheless. While the
veteran soldiers were quick to protest, rightly calling it unfair, the Finance Minister had
responded with a tweet that said that the idea had been mooted by the services
headquarters. Army Headquarters tried to salvage the situation by tweeting a half truth:
service HQ does not send such recommendation to other ministries without approval of
Ministry of Defence. A report in the Hindustan Times of Jul 4, 2019 quotes Maj Navdeep
Singh, a lawyer who was on the expert committee set up by the defence ministry in 2015 to
reduce military litigation, as saying “More than the exemption part of it, I am worried how
disabilities in the military are being demonised to justify the action. Disabilities such as
heart disease etc are covered under rules as affected by stress and strain of service and we
should rather take steps to care for such personnel and improve the health profile of the
army. Instances of manipulation are also grossly exaggerated,”

The report also quotes Lieutenant General BK Chopra (retd), who headed the armed forces
medical services during 2014-16, as saying that a scrutiny of records during his tenure
showed that before 2006 hardly any of the top officers claimed disability pension but by
2015, almost 21% of them were claiming benefits. Maj Navdeep justifies this as being due to
the older ages in which senior officers retire (the majority of the soldiers retire well below
40 years.) Even the majority of officers used to retire by 50 years of age till the cadre review
introduced time scale promotions upto Colonels and the age of retirement shot up to 54 in
2004.

To cut the story short, it is enough that the controversy has been unwarranted as the apex
court had clarified in Civil Appeal 418/2012 (Union of India Vs Ram Avtar) that if a person
was fit at the time of joining the armed forces, any disability he suffers during his service is
attributable to military service.

The latest reports indicate that the government will have a relook at the new proposal.
But this kind of controversies have been making the rounds in the media too frequently to
be of comfort or dismissed lightly. Whether it is the canteen facilities, ECHS, Rank Pay,
OROP, NFFU, ration for officers in peace locations or orderlies everything that appears to be
a welfare measure for soldiers have been inviting criticism from unsolicited quarters. The
gullible soldiers, and most of them are, have been fed on the diet of the babus trying to put
down the men in uniform who definitely command better respect than them among the
public. But one thing appears certain and that is the babus couldn’t have got their way if
only the top brasses of the armed forces had been doing their job right.

To begin our analysis let us go back to the days of our freedom struggle. The First War of
Independence had been suppressed by the Britons with an iron hand and to reduce its
impact on the urge for freedom it had been dubbed as the Sepoy Mutiny. This is taught in
our schools as part of history lessons. But the last war of independence does not find such
mention. It was the mutiny by the Naval Ratings in Mumbai, in the after math of the INA
trials. It was Clement Atlee, the British Prime Minister, who had admitted this during his
visit to India post 1947. According to him the Britons could not take the loyalty of Indian
troops for granted and hence the haste with which they preponed the grant of
independence from mid 1948 to 1947. The role of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and
Jawaharlal Nehru in the INA trials had been dubious.

Another incidence took place involving Nehru and the army, post 1947. We all know that
after being anointed as the first Prime Minister Nehru had opted for Mountbatten, the last
Viceroy of colonial India, to continue as the first Governor General Nathu Singh Rathore. It
happened like this.

Wanting to have the then General officers of the army itself to admit that they needed a
British General to head them Nehru called a meeting of the senior most Indian Generals and
put it to them that India did not have experienced Generals who could command a large
army and it would be prudent to have a Briton to continue as the Commander in Chief.
While most of the General officers were taken aback with the view of the Prime Minister
General Rathore made a direct hit with his ‘Mr Prime Minister, what experience did you
have as Prime Minister when you took over as the first PM of this free nation?’ This time it
was Nehru’s turn to be aghast. Quickly recomposing himself Nehru offered the post of the
first Commander in Chief to Rathore. But Rathore was made of sterner stuff and he replied
‘Mr Prime Minister, General Cariappa, here, is senior and more experienced than me and
quite capable of doing that job’. And the mantle of India’s first C in C thus fell on General
Cariappa.

Nehru’s duplicity can also be seen in his assertion that India did not need a professional
army since we believed in peace and did not have enmity with any other nations. The army
and the Nation paid a heavy price for this folly when the Chinese walked in and out of the
country with impunity in 1962.

Meanwhile Gen Cariappa himself committed one big blunder by declaring that soldiers were
required to fight wars and not do clerical work in Delhi. One of the important tasks of
administration at the highest level was thus handed over on a plate to civilians who were
out of ambit of the Army/Navy or Air Force Acts. This was what is well described by the
phrase apne pairon pe kulhada marna. Almost every grouse of soldiers being sidelined and
given step motherly treatment can be traced to this one act of indiscretion by free India’s
first Commander in Chief. Today there could be more soldiers attached to Army
Headquarters to help with pushing files than the civilian staff authorized to do the same.

The armed forces retrieved their honour only with the Bangladesh operations in 1971. It
was largely due to the leadership of Gen Sam Manekshaw. In his own words there was a
thin line between his resignation and being elevated to a Field Marshal. The then PM, Indira
Gandhey, wanted Manekshaw to launch operations in the summer of 1971 but he refused
on the grounds of harvest season taking away all railspace required for moving troops and
floods in the then East Bengal making operations impossible. He had to conclude the
arguments with the question: Prime Minister, do you want me to conduct the operations on
my terms or should I send in my resignation? The rest we know is history.

While Indira Gandhey was eulogized as Durga, the architect of the victory got elevated to
Field Marshal but he had to wait for his remuneration in that rank till President Abdul Kalam
took personal interest and got his cheque delivered in his death bed, more than three
decades later. Equally alarming was the insensitive manner in which the nation failed to
honour the greatest soldier of free India when he died in a distant corner of the country at
Coonoor, near Ooty.

If the Field Marshal had been belittled and neglected by those in power, the ordinary
soldiers were to receive their greatest shock too, soon after the war. Quoting the poor state
of the economy due to the war efforts, the political leadership prevailed on the then top
brass of the army to accept a reduction in pension of soldiers from 70 percent to 50
percent. (The soldiers were being given such pension to compensate for their early
retirement, between 35 and 40 years of age after serving for 15 to 20 years.) Shockingly the
same government hiked the pension of civilians from 30 percent to 50 percent! (Could they
have done it without the complicity of the then top brass is a question that merits an
answer at least now.) And that was not the end of the sordid saga. A new rider was also
added that one would be eligible for full pension (50 percent of the last pay drawn) only if
one has completed 33 years of service. With this the majority of soldiers were entitled to
only less than 25 percent of their last pay drawn as pension. The civilians would all be
eligible for full pension due to their retirement in their mid fifties or later.

And herein lays the genesis of One Rank One Pension demand. It is simply a fair and logical
demand in that it seeks uniform pension for soldiers who have retired in a particular rank
with a particular period of service, irrespective of the date of retirement.

The current budget has set aside Rs 1,12,079.57 Cr for defence pension. Wow, quite a hefty
amount isn’t it? But does anybody outside the agitating veteran soldiers know that soldiers
who constitute 75 percent of these pensioners get only 45 percent of this pie and the rest
55 percent is taken away by the 25 percent civilians in receipt of defence pension?

Incidentally, the IAS, IPS guys, MPs, MLAs and judges have manipulated to get this OROP
long time back. The bureaucrats have done it by ensuring that the top echelons (and most
bureaucrats who join these cadres directly get to these highest positions by the end of their
service) a single figure pay instead of having a scale. This ensures that every pensioner of
that grade automatically gets 50 percent of it as pension, irrespective of their date of
retirement. A similar situation prevails for high court and Supreme Court judges too. The
politicians have a different system. For any service below 5 years they get a fixed pension
and for every additional year they get another fixed amount. (Please note that here there is
no minimum service required to be eligible to draw pension. It could be as less as one day!)

In the armed forces the chiefs and those Lt Generals commanding army, navy or Air Force
Commands, the Principal Staff Officers in the service head quarters have also been getting
OROP in a manner similar to the bureaucrats.

The 6th Central Pay Commission aggravated this by creating pay bands (clubbing together of
different pay scales).Then anybody in any of the pay scales in a band were made eligible to
receive pension at 50 percent of the pay at the beginning of the lowest scale only, subject of
course to the 33 years service rider. Thus a Maj Gen would have received the same pension
as that of a Lt Col because both were in the same pay band. It took a lot of litigation to set
this right.

In fact those who had schemed this even tried to differentiate between Lt Generals holding
different appointments. Lt Generals who were not army commanders were excluded from
the 2nd highest single digit basic pay grade. This naturally was resented and was resolved by
creating a third single digit basic pay grade for them. The bureaucrats immediately made it
applicable for their additional secretaries too.

It is pertinent to narrate the fraud perpetrated on armed force officers while implementing
the recommendations of the 4th Central Pay Commission, effective from 1986. This
Commission had introduced a running pay scale for officers from Majors to Brigadiers. It
also introduced a Rank Pay for the different ranks. This Rank Pay was in addition to basic
pay and was to be considered as basic pay for calculating other allowances. However those
who fixed the basic pay played foul and after calculating the basic pay reduced this Rank
Pay from it for fixing the basic pay. Almost 40000 plus officers of the armed forces did not
notice this foul play. But later events revealed that then Captain Dhanapalan, who was
responsible for fixing the pay of civilians in the Military Engineering Services had access to
all the relevant documents and he had brought it to the notice of the then CoAS who had
simply snubbed him.

More than a decade later when Major Dhanapalan got a posting in Kochi he took it up with
the Kerala High Court and got a favorable verdict. Much later, after all the appeals and SLPs,
he finally got his dues.

Soon high courts all over the country had petitions being filed by groups of aggrieved
retired officers. The apex court transferred all these to itself and made the verdict in
Dhanapalan case applicable for all similarly placed officers. More appeals, SLPs and finally
the apex court ordered the arrears to be paid from 1 Apr 2006 with just 6 percent interest
till date of payment. Some justice this.

The Non Functional Financial Upgradation (NFFU) is a weird and unique scheme invented by
the IAS guys for self aggrandizement. By this any member of a particular batch of the cadre
anywhere in India would get automatic financial benefits of anyone getting promoted from
that batch. This was made applicable to the members of the IPS also with a two years delay.
(I remember the instance when an IAS guy who was MD of an industrial unit moved out as a
District Collector, he was replaced by a DG of Police.) The bureaucrats had claimed this was
necessary to compensate for lack of promotional avenues. But if this was the criteria then
the one people who deserved it most were the officers from the armed forces.
Unfortunately even when NFFU was extended to other Group A services of the Central
Government by the 7th CPC in 2016, it has not been extended to the armed forces.

Right from the beginning anybody joining the armed forces had been promised free health
care for life, including for dependents. And it was available to all those who were near
cantonments with military hospitals. But for others it was practically not available. But the
civilians did have the Central Government Heath Scheme (CGHS) available all over the
country.

Finally towards the end of AB Vajpaye’s term as PM the armed forces got their Ex
Servicemen’s Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) with its polyclinics spread out all over the
country, located mostly at the district headquarters, for outpatient treatment and
empanelled hospitals for specialist and inpatient treatment. In keeping with the times the
services were to be delivered using smart cards. The promise was you just swipe the cards
in polyclinics and empanelled hospitals, get the treatment and medicines and walk out. But
the smart cards have never been put to use smartly. At the best it is used for biometric
verification of beneficiary at the polyclinic. Also a polyclinic has been designated as parent
polyclinic. And referrals have to be taken from this polyclinic to empanelled hospitals along
with photostat copies of the smart card duly attested by the officer in charge of the
polyclinic. Even as this limited use continues the card has been changed thrice in the last
decade and a half of ECHS. Worse, the dues to the empanelled hospitals have been growing
beyond the sustainable limits for the hospitals and many have withdrawn from the scheme.
Even the polyclinics are starved of funds and pharmacy racks are mostly empty.

The reasons quoted by the authorities are always the same- misuse of facilities by the
beneficiaries. But then provisions exist for cancelling membership of those who misuse the
system and even prosecuting them. But this is not resorted to and innocents are punished
for no fault of theirs.

The step motherly treatment of soldiers is also apparent in the fact that while CGHS has all
systems of treatment authorized ECHS has only allopathic treatment. (It has been changed
on paper but has not come into effect.)

Even in the matter of grievance redressal there is discrimination evident. While the Central
Administrative Tribunals have contempt powers to enforce their orders the Armed Forces
Tribunals, constituted much later, have not been given such powers and its decisions are
hardly ever seen implemented.

There is an issue of appointing a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) to be a one point reference on
defence matters. It has been on the burner for over three decades. But it has been
subverted by some vested interests. Though the bureaucrats would blame the service chiefs
for not arriving at a unanimous decision, the real reason could be different.

At present the Chiefs of Staffs or the Services Chiefs are considered equal to the Cabinet
Secretary in status. Once a CDS is appointed he would necessarily have to be above the
service chiefs and this would upset the apple cart. It certainly cannot be digested by the
babus.

To cut the story short, there is no wonder that there is a major, about 25 to 30 percent,
deficiency of officers in the armed forces.

It is said that a person who is not an idealist at 20 does not have a heart and who is not a
pragmatist at 40 has no head.

Looks like, the new generation, with information on their finger tips at the click of a mouse,
seems to be becoming pragmatists even by 20 years of age.

And this cannot improve when even the Raksha Mantri employs soldiers to clean garbage
from the Himalayas dumped there by indifferent tourists and left to rot by an incompetent
and corrupt administration.

12/07/2019