Pragmatic Euphony  

The SCPC imbroglio has led to a multitude of views and opinions, often conflicting, yet self-serving. Many have opined that the actions by veterans amount to undermining the authority of the serving top brass. So, what is the official response of the Integrated Headquarters of Defence(Army) to the pleas and offers of help by veterans?

A veteran (retired Brigadier) wrote to the army chief on the issue of seeking justice for the defence services from the government. The reply by the Adjutant General on behalf of the army chief is typical bureaucratic legalese, which says a lot but conveys nothing .

19 May 2008.

Dear Sir,

1. Please refer to your …… dated 07 May 2008 to the COAS.
2. The COAS has perused your letter and has asked me to reply you and thank you for the interest that you have been taking for welfare of slodiers.
3. We are seized by the anomalies that have surfaced in the Pay Commission recommendations. You are well aware of the various actions taken by the three service Chiefs and the response that it has received. We are quite confident that a better deal will be given to all ranks. Please be assured that all efforts are being made towards this end and the Chief himself is monitoring its progress.

With best wishes

Sincerely,

Sd…(Adjutant General)

Former army chief, General Ved Malik, who had earlier written to the PM on the discontentment over the SCPC, has now released another note about his meeting with the PM.

Dear Friends,

As you are aware, I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister (PM) on April 27, 2008 (copy attached) to apprise him of the low state of morale caused by the 6th Pay Commission Report amongst serving and retired soldiers and their families, particularly in the Army. The PM acknowledged the letter. His Principal Secretary, Mr Nair, rang me up to convey that the PM wished to convey his assurance that the Government will take note of my inputs in resolving the anomalies and the Armed Forces will be looked after. He said that my letter with PM’s remarks is being sent to the Cabinet Secretary. A similar reply came from the Defense Minister.

On May 10, I met the PM in his house. I conveyed the gravity of the situation on two counts:

· Shortage of officers in combat units and inadequate intake; its present and future impact on the efficiency, discipline, morale and value system.

· Public agitations by ex- servicemen, intensification in future with the likelihood of leadership getting into the hands of some radical elements; possibility of public nuisance and flash points. I conveyed to him very clearly that such a display of frustration, despondency and anger by ex-servicemen in public will neither be good for the armed forces nor for the country.

The PM once again tried to assure me that the Government will take care of all legitimate interests of the armed forces. He has already conveyed it to the Review Committee. I said that this matter now needs to be handled at political level and should not be left to the bureaucrats. Armed forces personnel no longer have confidence in the Review Committee of bureaucrats, particularly when this Committee does not have representation from the armed forces despite repeated requests made within the Government and outside. The fact that the PM had passed this problem to such a Committee had not gone well with military personnel. It had strengthened the feeling that the status of the armed forces stands eroded more than ever before, military leadership has no say, and the Government continues to be insensitive to their problems and is unlikely to give them justice. The military should have had a separate pay commission, as in other countries. At this stage, the PM remarked that the Defense Secretary will represent the armed forces. I reiterated that when the armed forces did not have confidence in the bureaucracy, how can he represent them and get them justice. This conversation led to the PM stating that this is the institutionalized manner in which the Government exercises civilian control over the armed forces.

I told the PM that the civilian control over military means political control and not bureaucratic control. If all military inputs were to be filtered through the bureaucracy, we will never be able to fight a war well or defend the country. The political leaders must deal directly with the military on all important issues. I then informed him of two past practices (a) Mrs Gandhi and Mr Vajpayee used to meet the three Chiefs privately once in a month to discuss their views on various diplomatic and military strategic issues (b) The CCS discusses procurement issues with the Secretaries. Service Chiefs, who are directly affected, are not even called. I had gone through a war situation and have first hand experience of the harm that it does. The PM said that these were good suggestions. He will go over them for future.

The meeting ended with the PM trying to assure me once again that he will look after the interest of the armed forces. However, he gave no assurance that he will introduce political handling of the 6th Pay Commission anomalies at this stage.

Please note that:

· The above-mentioned letter and meeting minutes indicate where the serving and ex-servicemen appear to stand in our efforts to get the Sixth PCR anomalies corrected.

· I have deliberately refrained from conveying any personal comments/impression of the meeting.

With regards and best wishes,

Ved Malik

The readers of this blog are free to draw their own conclusions about the current state of affairs from the above correspondences. However, before hitting the comments section with your rants against the government, politicians, bureaucrats and the nation, please check out the following posts [Not so pragmatic and What are the services really asking for] to ascertain the reality behind the services’ action. This blogger’s own views on the contentious subject (SCPC versus internal reform) are in the first three paragraphs of this post titled Mowing the lawn…

While on letters and correspondence, here is what PD James said about letters in his autobiography:

A letter is paradoxically the most revealing and the most deceptive of confessional revelations. We all have our inconsistencies, prejudices, irrationalities which, although strongly felt at the time, may be transitory. A letter captures the mood of the moment, the transitory becomes immutably fixed, part of the evidence for the prosecution or the defence. And we adapt our style to our correspondent.

Are the above letters more revealing and deceptively confessional than what they seem at the first glance? Ponder…