In a recent General Body meeting of the Army Officers Institute,
Kolkata it has been ruled that waiters will not serve retired officers and
civilian members on Wed, Sat and Sun. because these categories tip the waiters
and hence the serving officers do not get looked after. Heard of anything
weirder? Do we have to make our very own officers SCs in our
own organisation? Is their subscription any less? Will it solve
the problem? Within the same club all members are equal. Are not these
officers who make the rules going to retire too? Or are they going to retire in
another location and this rule will not affect them. Is it not a source of
income to the poor waiters?
The solution
is simple, like in most restaurants. The tip is shared amongst all, including
the doorman and sweepers. Simply we invariable Shoot ourselves in the foot!
Robin Chatterjee
A really deplorable and shameful instance which describes the slip shod treatment, the serving class of officers has tried to mete out, to the old and infirm veterans class in Kolkata. It deserves to be condemned at every hierarchy of the forces in India. Such decisions, which are certainly unbecoming of the officer class need to be recalled forthwith. There was also a strange decision on the usage of the CSD Canteen Smart card issued to the veterans, imposing curbs on its universal usage. This also seemed to be a ploy, for curbing the convenience of the veterans built in, in the issue of the Smart Card.
Another excellent article follows which enumerates the attitudes of the seniors or should we call the superior class. The big question is, are we introducing and implementing caste system in the services as well?
Col LK Anand Retd
Col LK Anand Retd
ARMY SHOOTS ITSELF IN THE FOOT
Humans are alike. Wearing a uniform may
suppress, but not fully insulate them from corruption, greed, power-play et al,
vices inherent to human race. But besides grit and courage, what sets military
personnel apart from the others is the sharp ability to self-destruct and to
invent self-defeatist masterstrokes as far as welfare, manpower and personnel
policies are concerned.
Whichever side one may be, what the Army
Chief’s age row has brought fore is that there is a belief doing the rounds,
factual or fictional, that meticulous surgically incisive processes are
constantly at play where careers of those who may pose a future threat are
played with crudely and ruthlessly and all this happens behind closed doors
under a cloak of secrecy marked ‘national security’ which is not actually in
consonance with the age of transparency we live in. The lucky few in key
appointments have their way and others can only pull their hair in despair. The
number of cases pending before Benches of the Armed Forces Tribunal and other
Courts, and the kind of strictures passed on such matters bear testimony to the
chaos at work. It is yet another matter that even in well-rounded verdicts, the
system, out of egotism, tries its best to wear out its own personnel by
litigating till the highest court.
While military officers are quick to point
fingers at the bureaucrat, it is their own arbitrary and parochial attitude and
policies, without any basic understanding or training for administration, that
are to be blamed. In the bargain, the military becomes the military’s own greatest enemy.
The examples are many. Recently the Supreme
Court reportedly reprimanded the Army for creating artificial hurdles for its
own officers when an appeal was filed against a lady officer of the JAG whose
case had been allowed by the AFT granting her promotions and permanent
commission. Till date, the Army, based on an internal artificial interpretation
by the MS Branch, is promoting Short Service Officers commissioned prior to 2006 as Captains
in 9 years of service while those commissioned after 2006 are being promoted to
the same rank in 2 years. The impediment was not created by with the Ministry of Defence, but by
the Army. When the Military’s medical establishment was directed by Courts to
grant medical facilities to its elderly retired Emergency Commissioned Officers
based on an already existing Government Order, the Army itself was quick to
challenge it before the Supreme Court. Imagine, the Army approaching the
Supreme Court with a Prayer that the same Army may be directed to withdraw
medical facilities from its own officers, some of them in their 80s.
When the Navy and Air Force vouched for implementation of
Non-Functional Upgradation for the defence services, as already applicable to
civil services, which guarantees the pay of a Lt Gen in a time-bound manner to
superseded officers, the Army was the first to oppose putting across the banal
argument that if implemented there would be ‘no charm for higher ranks’. When all Doctors of the Central Government
were granted a ‘Dynamic Assured Progression Scheme’, the Army itself tooth and nail opposed its
implementation for its own doctors on the pretext that doctors would then start
getting higher salaries than other officers. While the civilian establishment is
constantly blamed for degradation of status of military officers, the Army, in
the Military Engineering Services (MES) itself places senior promotee military
officers of the rank of Major and lady officers of similar rank as Assistant
Garrison Engineers, an appointment tenable by Subedar-equivalent civilian
officers, while directly commissioned officers of the rank of Major with much
lesser length of service are posted on higher appointments such as Garrison
Engineers, all again based on an artificial, faulty and forced interpretation
of existing rules.
Recently, based on a decision taken by the PM, young army officers, both
Permanent and Short Service Commissioned, upto 35 years of age with 5 years of
service and in fit medical category, were sought for lateral induction into the
Indian Police Service through a statutory gazette notification. But rather than
moving with the times, the Army HQ, based on an outdated policy promulgated in 1987,
issued a circular pointing out that only those Permanent Commissioned Officers
would be permitted to apply for the IPS who had only two years of service left
(that is, who were 50 years old), or who were in low medical category, or who
had completed 18 years of service but had not passed their promotion exams.
Needless to say, it’s a no-brainer that all such categories ‘allowed’ by the
Army HQ were actually ineligible to be inducted into the IPS as per the gazette
notification.
Whenever there is a welfare oriented proposal
or proactive personnel policy under consideration of the Government which
elements in the bureaucracy would not like to see implemented, they simply
throw it in the court of the defence services for a consultative process for
they know that first the Army, Navy and the Air Force would start struggling
between themselves, and then the fight would shift inter-se between the
fighting Arms, then it would be fighting arms vs support arms and finally arms
vs services. The end product would be zilch resulting in sniggers from the
ringside. So where does the fault lie? Is it because of the stiff competition and
ACR oriented ‘smile up – kick down’ culture or is it because of plain lack of
understanding of finer aspects of personnel management and lack of
administrative acumen or downright foolhardiness? The answer is hard to find.
It seems that in a nation with the psyche of public servants deriving power by
imposing obstacles, red-tape and impediments in the ordinary life of a common
citizen, officers holding key appointments in the military feel powerless when
they compare themselves with their civilian counterparts. Hence the only way to
feel powerful is by posing hindrances in areas of policy where the pen can be
used as an authoritative instrument of damage, and that damage unfortunately is
restricted to within the uniformed services. As a sequel, creation of
restrictive clauses and provisos becomes a tool of ego empowerment through
which the policy writer feels potent. Liberal construal is abandoned for sadism
and a sub-culture emerges where cribbing is rampant and peer happiness is not
tolerated.
The Army has to wake up and smell the coffee. The obstructive,
inward-looking conservative approach has to go, times are such. Camaraderie has
been the hallmark of defence services but the same is not just meant for the
battle field but for normal day to day life too which actually and practically
affects personnel and their families. A recent positive example would be the
strong efforts of the Army’s Personnel Services Directorate in reducing
litigation and convincing the Defence Ministry to withdraw appeals filed
against its disabled soldiers bringing succour and kudos to the organisation.
The positivity must spread and must spread fast to other spheres, otherwise the
self-inflicted injury to the heretofore seemingly strong foundation would make
the organisation a laughing stock leading to a spectacular derailment of the
only institution every Indian has been unconditionally proud of.
The views expressed and Information provided
by the author are his own and left to public to judge and rationalise for
themselves.
down to earth. absolutely true.all those top brass (retd& serving ) resposible for the present paralysis are guilty and need to be dealt .
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely true. Fake ego and refusal to sacrifice illegitimate comfort at the cost of its own men by some of the superiors may be some of the causes why we are frequently finding armed forces at the top headlines for some unexpected wrong reasons
ReplyDelete