The Angst of a Soldier: Five lessons I learnt from the One Rank One Pension standoff;
COLONEL R HARIHARAN Sunday, June 21, 2015
CHENNAI:
The long struggle by about 20 lakh military veterans for One Rank One
Pension has again reached a dead end. This article is not about OROP per
se but what I as a retired army officer have learnt in the process of
the struggle:
1. Governments cannot be trusted to deliver on its promises. This is a lesson the “aam janata” (common man) learnt long ago. But soldiers both in and out of uniform have been brought up in the traditional but naive belief that the government is the “mai baap” to look after them. This covenant has been broken perhaps irrevocably. Even if the government now implements the OROP tailored to suit its convenience, I doubt whether it will ever regain the unique position it occupied in the soldier’s mind. Now every government order runs the risk of being suspect, probably for the right reasons. This deficit of trust can be bridged only when the government makes the armed forces part of the decision making process in matters relating to national security. But this, many of us believe, will not happen in a country that has kept the armed forces for over six decades of independence. That is why Prime Minister Modi’s “Man ki baat” on OROP cut no ice with the veterans.
2. Court rulings in favour of the soldier remain meaningless. The government has not complied with a number of Supreme Court judgements on granting of OROP. Who will enforce these rulings if the government stubbornly refuses to do so? Politicians twist the law in their own interest. If there is any doubt look at the Lalit Modi case where politicians of all hues managed to keep him away from the long arm of the law.
3. Civil society exists for a select few. Despite the veterans raising a lot of noise and the media going on high octave on OROP issue, there is deafening silence from civil society. The plight of the disabled soldier or his widow living in abject poverty because they have not been paid their dues does not move them. Their hearts bleed only for select few: an extremist shot dead “to protect the public” or animals tested in laboratories.
4. Agitation is the only way. Actually it has taken 40 years for OROP - an issue that veterans consider as gross injustice - to get noticed by the nation. That shows veterans are placed very low, probably just above the visually handicapped, in the nation’s priority list. The nation started noticing the issue only when veterans used the electoral bandwagon to extract promises from political parties. But it has not worked. So the agitation has to continue.
5. Command is going to be difficult within the armed forces. When the covenant of trust is broken at the top it will have an adverse fall out. It will impact on the armed forces’ command and control setup from the top to the unit level at the bottom. As it is the pernicious social ills of caste, political animosities, inequality, absence of equitable justice have made unit command a delicate task over time. It could become more difficult now.
I know these are cynical lessons. After spending three decades of the best part of my life in the Army perhaps the country has managed to turn me into a cynic.
The worm has turned. That is Bharat Mahan for you! Jai Hind!
(Colonel Hariharan is currently with the Chennai Centre for China Studies)
(Received from JUSTIN CHRISTIAN)
1. Governments cannot be trusted to deliver on its promises. This is a lesson the “aam janata” (common man) learnt long ago. But soldiers both in and out of uniform have been brought up in the traditional but naive belief that the government is the “mai baap” to look after them. This covenant has been broken perhaps irrevocably. Even if the government now implements the OROP tailored to suit its convenience, I doubt whether it will ever regain the unique position it occupied in the soldier’s mind. Now every government order runs the risk of being suspect, probably for the right reasons. This deficit of trust can be bridged only when the government makes the armed forces part of the decision making process in matters relating to national security. But this, many of us believe, will not happen in a country that has kept the armed forces for over six decades of independence. That is why Prime Minister Modi’s “Man ki baat” on OROP cut no ice with the veterans.
2. Court rulings in favour of the soldier remain meaningless. The government has not complied with a number of Supreme Court judgements on granting of OROP. Who will enforce these rulings if the government stubbornly refuses to do so? Politicians twist the law in their own interest. If there is any doubt look at the Lalit Modi case where politicians of all hues managed to keep him away from the long arm of the law.
3. Civil society exists for a select few. Despite the veterans raising a lot of noise and the media going on high octave on OROP issue, there is deafening silence from civil society. The plight of the disabled soldier or his widow living in abject poverty because they have not been paid their dues does not move them. Their hearts bleed only for select few: an extremist shot dead “to protect the public” or animals tested in laboratories.
4. Agitation is the only way. Actually it has taken 40 years for OROP - an issue that veterans consider as gross injustice - to get noticed by the nation. That shows veterans are placed very low, probably just above the visually handicapped, in the nation’s priority list. The nation started noticing the issue only when veterans used the electoral bandwagon to extract promises from political parties. But it has not worked. So the agitation has to continue.
5. Command is going to be difficult within the armed forces. When the covenant of trust is broken at the top it will have an adverse fall out. It will impact on the armed forces’ command and control setup from the top to the unit level at the bottom. As it is the pernicious social ills of caste, political animosities, inequality, absence of equitable justice have made unit command a delicate task over time. It could become more difficult now.
I know these are cynical lessons. After spending three decades of the best part of my life in the Army perhaps the country has managed to turn me into a cynic.
The worm has turned. That is Bharat Mahan for you! Jai Hind!
(Colonel Hariharan is currently with the Chennai Centre for China Studies)
(Received from JUSTIN CHRISTIAN)