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“For you Mother, to the peril of my life”
We live in opinionated times. Everyone has a point of view that they would like to express, and be it on social media or in civil society at large. They may be the left or the right of the political divide, be it in support of the government of the day, or against it, everyone in this country has a voice, an opinion, and a vote. The right to express that opinion is a beautiful gift given to us by our founding fathers. It is a gift that has, barring some exceptions, been preserved with utmost commitment by our Constitution, by our Judiciary, and by our Armed Forces.
I mean, let’s be honest. There are only a handful of nations in Asia, Africa, and South America that have cherished democratic ideals as long as we have. And a big shout-out and a thank you is owed to generations of soldiers, airmen and sailors for keeping us safe while in nations around us, there were bloody and bloodless coups and civil wars. Also, and this is way more important than people like to admit, our armed forces have always been apolitical.
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A member of the armed forces is not like you and me. In these highly narcissistic times, these men and women undergo a training that leaves no room for the individual. Whatever be their job profiles and their responsibilities inside the armed forces, they all are aware that they are just cogs in a larger machine. A machine geared towards raining death and destruction on the enemies of the sovereign. And boy are we good at that! Almost every sarkari institution in India has seen rot, but we take pride in the fact that our military is relatively corruption free. We witness the selfless dedication that these people have towards their nation and their countrymen, asking nothing else in return but respect for the sacrifices they and their families have made.
It has been the failing of successive governments then, and of us as a nation, that we have not been able to provide our retired braves with a pension system which is equitable and just. And to be fair to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his government has taken way more interest on the issue than past governments. But then he promised the moon, didn’t he? While campaigning and even after taking office, he reiterated his commitment to swift implementation of One Rank One Pension, without perhaps realizing what a complex issue it is.
OROP will take time to be implemented. A lot of things need to be sorted out. The armed forces’ salary and pension accounting system isn’t the most efficient in the world (ask any retired servicemen or widow who does not receive the much-needed money on time, for months or years on end), there are millions of ex-servicemen and the database on them is not always up-to-date, and calculating the fiscal cost of OROP is not an easy task if finance ministry officials are to be believed.
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Fair enough, but it definitely does not seem like the government felt that it was important to communicate these issues to the protesting ex-servicemen. They are not naive and they can grasp complexities better than us civilians. Nothing can be more complex than a raging battlefield. They were given false promises and then told by the Prime Minister that an agreement has been reached ‘in-principle’. Of course they have reasons to be angry. No soldier likes these bureaucratic terms. It goes against the grain of everything they stand for: discipline, order, commitment, and an ability to keep promises.
That is it. Proper, transparent, effective communication would have been so much better than bombast. Let them know what is happening. Make them a part of the process. Take their inputs. Explain the delays to them and give them a realistic dateline.
Because the poor alternative is this: ex-servicemen, after having fought for their country, having to fight for their rights. Having to protest and having to face the ignominity of being called a ‘security threat’ (like, seriously?). Having to go on a hunger strike and having to wait so long for an audience with the Prime Minister or his staff. Because when something like that happens, we know that we have failed miserably as a nation.
