At
2.25 pm on Thursday afternoon, an email from the defence ministry’s public
relations office made its way to my inbox. It was to announce the ministry’s
initiative on the occasion of the Prime Minister-driven Good Governance Day.
While I expected the ministry official to go through the usual drill, it was
the headline of the mail that caught my attention: "Parrikar Asks MoD
Officials to Evolve A Policy for Reducing Court Cases on Pensions".
This
was not something any defence minister had ever said, that too in public.
Manohar Parrikar has also promised something concrete in the upcoming Budget.
“It
was about time. In fact, we were expecting this since a long time,” said
Aishwarya Bhati, Supreme Court advocate, who has assisted many veterans. She
added, “The words of the Chief Justice of India in a recent case against the
ministry’s appeal were so strong that it would put anyone to shame.” She was
referring to the December 10 hearing when the apex court disposed the defence
ministry’s 800-odd appeals in cases pertaining to disability pensions of former
soldiers.
While
the ministry tried to display its genteel face on an earmarked day, not many
were willing to take it on face value. It is surprising to see this rapid loss
of credibility for a government which claimed it was sensitive to the men in
uniform.
To put
things into perspective, let us step back to the days before the general
elections earlier this year.
On one
side was the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) which, despite
being in power for two full terms, did nothing for welfare of ex-servicemen. On
the other was Narendra Modi, who kicked off his campaign with a rally at Rewari
on September 15, 2013 with a demand for a "white paper" on One Rank
One Pension (OROP). The armed forces personnel were livid with the
"meek" Congress government. It was a charged vote bank which just
could not be missed. Back then it was hardly surprising to see group emails
from armed forces forums signed off with a line like "DO NOT VOTE FOR UPA
IN THE NEXT ELECTIONS. THEY FAILED TO LOOK AFTER THE INTERESTS OF
EX-SERVICEMEN".
In its
final tryst with the Budget (vote on account) UPA accepted the principle of One
Rank One Pension and set aside Rs 500 crore. Present finance minister Arun
Jaitley added Rs 500 crore to it. However, a government notification
implementing the provision is yet to materialise.
High
hopes lie belied.
In
response, the ex-servicemen community in October this year announced a protest
rally in Nagpur on the eve of the Maharashtra Assembly elections. They
announced yet another protest on December 3, which was subsequently called off
after the intervention of Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrashekar. Now, a
"Maha Rally" has been planned on February 1, 2015 at Jantar Mantar.
Over
the years that one has covered this subject, one has come across different
kinds of stories: widows and relatives of our soldiers being mistreated, men
and officers being forced to fight unending battles in courts, soldiers ending
up disabled because of botched up medical treatment and nothing being done in
the form of redressal. As luck would have it, the Armed Forces Tribunal once
even fined the secretary of Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare for denying
relief to a retired air force officer!
A
common thread through it all remains the sheer refusal of the defence ministry
to ever publicly explain itself. No bureaucrat wants to turn up on TV debates
on the subject. I once asked a defence secretary why he was not responding to
my faxes and calls for an informal appointment to discuss issues concerning the
ministry, including welfare. He simply said it was his policy to not meet
anyone. Why is it that the defence ministry never thinks it is important to
respond when asked on a subject as emotive as the welfare of ex-servicemen? Why
does it not upset the ministry that it has a poor image when it comes to its
treatment of its men in uniform?
Major
(R) Navdeep Singh, an advocate in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, has
rectified many of the wrongs done to the military personnel. According to him,
“This government had a real opportunity to reveal its genuine intent for all
these months but it ceded space to the Supreme Court, which came to our rescue
on December 10.” He added, “This ministry (defence) is the only organisation
which has close to 90 per cent of its appeals in the apex court against its own
soldiers.”
Can we
blame the people who say that it is the bureaucracy which is the stumbling
block? It is not my case that the bureaucracy is without merit. But it is
important to engage. Let the people know.
I will
never forget the day when a serving Brigadier shocked me by saying that he
yelled at his son because he told him he wanted to follow in his footsteps and
join the Army. This is what the system has brought things to.
Will
even one bureaucrat respond, at least now?
The
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