Who cares for armed forces grievances?

For sometime now the armed forces, particularly the army, had been in the lime light for the wrong reasons. And TV channels went into a tizzy when the former Chief of Army Staff General VK Singh filed a case in the Supreme Court after his efforts to correct his date of birth in the official records failed. Recently a much more serious issue has been brought to the attention of the Government when the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and Naval Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma wrote to the Defence Minister about the absence of any representative from the Services in the committee examining armed forces’ pay and pension anomalies.

The normally taciturn defence minister has also pitched in to convey his concern in writing to the Prime Minister suggesting that “things may take a bad turn” if timely corrective action with regard to the anomalies in fixation of salaries and pensions of the armed forces is not initiated.

But the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh appears to have chosen to ignore these concerns, at least for the time being. Is the Prime Minister ignoring the storm signals? As he is not well known for his public communication, one would think so. But then who cares for armed forces grievances? This is what I hear veterans saying.

A number of articles on the subject have appeared. I am reproducing the articles of two seasoned analysts - Admiral Arun Prakash, former Chief of Naval Staff, and Commodore Uday Bhaskar - here for understanding the issue in simple terms. 

Government, military, babu

Arun Prakash

The media flutter caused by a recent missive from Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) Admiral Nirmal Verma to the defence minister, expressing dismay about the omission of a military representative on the committee to examine the armed forces’ pay and pension anomalies, is uncalled for. While a Service chief conveying concerns to his political superiors (including the prime minister) is perfectly in order, it is the continuous haemorrhaging of such privileged communications to the public domain that should really be cause for serious concern to the Union government.

And now, a matter of even greater disquiet for the public is that the defence minister should need to convey his concern in writing to the PM, reportedly, suggesting that “things may take a bad turn” if timely corrective action with regard to the anomalies in fixation of salaries and pensions of the armed forces is not initiated.

Since 1947, vexed issues, with a vital bearing on India’s national security, have remained crammed into a Pandora’s Box that was daringly opened, post-Kargil, by the NDA government. A group of ministers convened to examine these issues, rendered a timely report, but the loss of political nerve led to a partial and cosmetic implementation of its well-considered recommendations.

The recent Naresh Chandra Committee ventured, once again, into the crucial arena of national security; but it remains to be seen whether the labours of this body will find fulfilment, or are cast, once again, into limbo by the current coalition. The recent contretemps have an important, even if indirect, relationship with national security reform, and two aspects merit special attention.

First, the defence minister’s warning comes not a day too soon; because grievances about pay and pension issues have been simmering for many years, with bureaucrats and politicians alike ignoring them.

As far back as April 2006, before the Sixth Central Pay Commission (CPC) was announced, this writer, as Chairman COSC, wrote to the defence minister, [ COMMENT: Now, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces ]   seeking his personal intervention for the “appointment of a Service Officer as a constituted member of the Sixth CPC. since the lack of a Service representative was one of the main reasons for the dissatisfaction amongst the armed forces post the Fifth CPC award.”

Having responded very positively to the initial suggestion, the defence minister at the time subsequently conveyed to the COSC that, in spite of opposition from his cabinet colleagues, he would still try to “embed” a Service element to provide advice to the commission. A few weeks later, the minister moved on to take charge of external affairs and the fate of the armed forces was left to the mercies of the bureaucracy-dominated Pay Commission.

As expected, the Sixth CPC report contained a number of glaring anomalies with respect to the armed forces, and at the persistent urging of the COSC, a review committee was constituted to examine them. Perversely, this body again excluded any armed forces representation, and ominous signs of active discontent began to emerge, in 2007, from the ex-Servicemen in public demonstrations. Alarmed at this, a few retired Service chiefs wrote to the PM expressing deep concern at these developments and urging him that it would be just and fair to have a Services representative on the review committee. However, contrary advice seems to have prevailed, and the results are before us to see.

A second crucial issue worth examination relates to why India’s political establishment is so reluctant to accord recognition to the country’s military leadership, and insists on interposing a layer of bureaucracy between itself and the armed forces. Why is it that the defence minister and the PM consider the defence secretary better placed to represent the armed forces, in most forums, than the Service chiefs — each with over 40-plus years of experience in national security? With the greatest respect for our civil servants, the fact remains that many of them are best described as “rolling stones”, whose careers demand that after serving in states and assorted ministries they transit through the ministry of defence for a year or two before moving on to greener pastures.

The fundamental reason for this situation, and the crux of the problem, lies in the fact that the Service chiefs have not been accorded a “locus standi” and, therefore, remain “non-persons” in the edifice of the government. The background to this anomaly is to be found in two volumes of business rules, issued under the constitutional powers of the president in 1961, which are the “bibles” for conduct of business by the government. According to these rules, the responsibility for the “defence of India, and every part thereof, including preparation for defence”, and for the “armed forces of the Union, namely, Army, Navy and Air Force” has been vested in the defence secretary. The three Service chiefs neither find mention nor are allocated any responsibilities by these rules.

The rules of business have been amended by the cabinet secretariat on over 300 occasions (the last in May 2012), but no politician or civil servant has considered it necessary to bring the chiefs, the vice-chiefs and the principal staff officers in the three Service HQs within the ambit of these rules. All these functionaries have a vital role to play in national security, but since they lack a status in the government, and have no equation with secretaries of defence, the Defence Research and Development Organisation or the Department of Defence Production, their views and recommendations are often ignored.

The best and oldest democracies in the world have retained firm civilian control over their armed forces not by isolating them — but by subsuming them within the central edifice of government and involving them in the national security decision-making process.

It is time to discard our antediluvian system and stop inflicting wounds on ourselves by alienating soldiers and veterans.

Courtesy: www.indianexpress.com, August 13, 2012

Armed forces’ grievances need urgent attention

By Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar August 13, 2012

The suicide of a soldier, V. Arun, from Kerala in Jammu and Kashmir was raised in parliament. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged MPs not to have a discussion. “This is a very small incident, which is being blown out of proportion. It is not good for the morale of our armed forces.”

While his statement was clinical and accurate, the choice of words may not have been politically the most appropriate — no death of a citizen can be dismissed as “small” by the leader of a democratic country.

One presumes the prime minister was not keen on an open discussion on the subject since it pertains to an in-house matter – discipline within a military unit – that falls within the organizational purview of the Indian Army.

For a one million strong army, this suicide, while tragic in a relatively minor empirical occurrence, an in-house inquiry into the internal cohesion and professionalism is imperative.

From the ignominy of the ketchup colonel, the booze briagdier and the ‘dal’ general and more recently the Sukhna and Adarsh real estate scandals, the Indian Army has been convulsed with varied transgressions and a lowering of its ethical and professional standards.

In 2012, there were two cases of serious breakdown in officer-soldier relations in units tasked with low-intensity-conflict duties. The recent suicide is indicative of the internal stress and tension the Indian Army has to address.

These are matters the army needs to review in an objective and candid way. There may be a case for an independent commission to empathetically review as to what ails the Indian Army.

The status accorded to the military varies from country to country and is a complex derivative of the history of the nation, its political character and the manner in which valour is perceived.

In authoritarian regimes, the military has a special status. In Pakistan, it has subsumed the state for decades.

Democracies have a more complex relationship with their military. The soldier and the patriotism and gallantry inherent in the profession is recognized by the state and society. In India, the military has a curious and ambivalent status apropos the state structure and society at large.

Since 1947, the Indian military as an institution has been kept outside of the formal structure of the state due to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s distaste for the profession of arms. Successive prime ministers kept the military aloof. Consequently the ‘fauj’ occupies a twilight zone, where it is neither fish nor fowl.

While the elected political representatives are the new ruler in India, the civilian bureaucracy have become astute mediators of the pursuit and consolidation of power and status in the world’s largest democracy.

The progressive denigration of the armed forces by the state and society has led to a steady erosion of military morale – a danger the prime minister alluded to in parliament. The apathy of the Indian state is best illustrated by the manner in which the Manmohan Singh government has dealt with pay and allowances for the soldiers.

An objective review of the manner in which the pay, allowances and status of the military have been lowered over the last two decades reveals some startling facts. The military is the outcaste in the Indian state matrix, but lacks a Gandhi or an Ambedkar to take up their cause.

The average ‘fauji’ retires at a much younger age than the civilian counterpart who serves up to age 60. An empathetic state would have ensured that the inter se fixing of pay, allowances and pension would be equitable. Alas, this is not the case. Many anomalies abound.

Pay commissions do not have a military representative. Review committees have the same pattern. The military remains invisible and their grievances ignored.

Things have come to such a pass that the three serving chiefs have expressed their dismay over how pay and pensions for serving and retired military personnel are being addressed.

Minister A.K. Antony in turn has cautioned the prime minister that if not redressed, this issue could take “a bad turn”.

The UPA had a rare opportunity to address and redress the long festering inequities regarding the military and the larger issue of rewiring the security establishment. But Manmohan Singh and his cabinet chose not to pick up the gauntlet – till the last lap of UPA II when the Naresh Chandra Task Force was set up to review the post Kargil security sector reforms.

Manmohan Singh’s Aug 15 address will be closely monitored for the policy initiatives he will hopefully unveil to assuage the bruised morale of the military – and avoid the ‘bad turn’ which otherwise seems inevitable.

Courtesy: www.nvonews.com