By C Uday Bhaskar
The long festering OROP (one rank-one pension) issue that goes
back to 1973 has acquired disturbing visibility in recent months due to the
protest mounted by the retired veterans at Jantar Mantar and the ignominy of
the Delhi Police manhandling the country';s retired soldiers a day before
Independence Day.
The matter found mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi';s
address at the Red Fort on August 15 and to his credit he made a solemn
commitment to resolve the matter at the earliest.
This decision has now been taken and after some ambivalence.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar confirmed that the budgetary support to the
OROP is now in place and the uncertainty about whether those veterans who had
opted for premature retirement would qualify for OROP has been clarified by
Modi at a public rally.
The OROP provision will be available to all military veterans -
whether they retire after superannuation or have opted for the premature route.
Some other aspects including the annual review are awaiting clarification and
it is expected that by the time the government issues the notification, these
points of dissonance with the expectations of the veterans will be accommodated
in a consensual manner.
However, since the assurance by Modi at his rally in Faridabad -
which has gone a long way in assuaging the bruised sensitivities of the
military - there is a growing perception that the Modi government';s OROP
decision is fiscally imprudent. Selective leaks to the media by one part of the
government cannot be ruled out.
A major business daily opined editorially under the title:
';Fiscal time bomb'; that "In effect the government';s hand has been
forced" and furthermore that the government must "limit the spread of
this demand....".
The choice of word and phrase, the embedded interpretation and
the perception it engenders in the national collective merits a factual review.
The military veterans are not making a ';demand'; - whose sub-text is that it
is inherently unreasonable - and the charge that the hand of a civilian
government has been ';forced'; by an obdurate military goes against the facts
of the OROP narrative.
The reality is that in 1973 a unilateral executive decision was
taken by the Indira Gandhi government through the Third Pay Commission to
rationalize pensions and hence the military which was pegged at 70 percent of
last pay drawn was brought down to 50 percent - and the civilian pension then
pegged at 35 percent was brought up to this benchmark.
Thus a practice that was in vogue for 26 years - from August
1947 to 1973 (wherein the military pension was reviewed annually so that the
OROP principle was respected) which was an equitable provision for those
citizens who voluntarily took up the profession of arms in the defence of
country and flag was radically altered to the detriment of the soldier.
If the 1973 decision brought the military pension down in a
substantive manner, subsequent Pay Commissions through bureaucratic sleight of
hand increased the benefits that would accrue to the civilian employee of the
government while shrinking these benefits to the ';fauji'; (soldier).
The Sixth Pay Commission under UPA II introduced yet another
provision wherein the military officer was placed in a lower category than the
officers in the civil services and the police. As part of this tweak, civilian
officers of the government were accorded the NFU (non functional upgrade) and
an assured career progression that allowed for a fiscal benefit both while in
service and in the fixing of their pension.
As a consequence of all these post 1973 machinations, a trained
soldier was placed below a semi-skilled worker in the fiscal ladder and as many
servicemen have bemoaned even those deemed to be in the Class IV category of
the government served till age 60 and then retired with a higher pensioner
package than the soldier who served on Siachen!
The Government of India and successive defence ministers,
including AK Antony who has the distinction of having the longest unbroken
tenure as cabinet minister holding this onerous portfolio, abdicated their
responsibilities and did not acknowledge or attempt to review and redress this
gross injustice done to the Indian soldier.
Thus more than an unreasonable ';demand';, the veterans have
sought to have a historically erroneous distortion corrected and justice done
to them. And as regards forcing the hand of the government - it may be recalled
that UPA II dealt with the OROP in a cavalier manner and even the Supreme
Commander feigned indifference. Hence the final recourse to a fast at Jantar
Mantar.
Modi is to be commended for picking up the gauntlet and
resolving an issue that has festered for 42 years and it would be most
appropriate if the war widows of 1962, 1965, 1971 and Kargil are prioritized for
the OROP package that is their long awaited and denied due. Can this be their
Diwali gift from a grateful nation?
The military in any democracy is enabled by law be the sole
instrument that has a monopoly over the use of force. Legitimacy is burnished by
the ‘izzat’ (respect) that state and society accord to their military
personnel. Denied these two attributes, the military loses both credibility and
morale.
India paid a heavy price in 1962 due to the dismissive and
disparaging attitude that then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru exuded towards
the Indian ';fauj'; (armed forces) and consequently the civil-military
relationship in India is permeated by both sullenness and suspicion. Post OROP,
the Modi government must seek to restore the mutual respect and empathy that
must underpin this sensitive relationship.
(C Uday Bhaskar is Director, Society for Policy Studies (SPS).
He can be contacted at cudyabhaskar@spsindia.i
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