Appeal to Prime Minister

My Dear Prime Minister,

This is an appeal from an ex soldier, who is over 75 years and has no personal interest. This pertains to the pay scale of the servicemen. You know During your lifetime, you must have come across the serial "YES MINISTER", which shows quite amusingly the ability of the IAS officer to manipulate statistics to suit his point of view. In the last 60 years or so the IAS, who saw that the only rival to their supremacy was the Military, has managed to bring down the status of the military to what it is today.

The Military is a necessary evil. Necessary, because the borders have to be guarded, any invasion repulsed. Today it has become all the more important as it is the only leg of the executive that is reliable, be it containing the insurgents (a police job) to helping the civil during calamities, or for that matter, pulling out waifs from the deep bore wells where, they have regularly started falling. The civil executive having conveniently abdicated its function at all crucial stages.

Yet, we are evil, for we are a potential threat of a military coup ,as has been the practice in Pakistan and other nations. Due to our discipline and training, we have proved to be able to take on any task. This is a threat to the bureaucrats, who have taken pains to subvert all the perks and privileges that the Services enjoyed earlier.

After partition, when the first cadet was inducted into the Armed Forces Academy, the Military was deemed to be a prize vocation, despite the fact that some foreign companies like Burma Shell Balmer Laurie and ITC had far better pay and perks. At that time, it was glorious to be a soldier. Today it is a vocation only for those who can do no better.

The deterioration has been gradual, but definite, as all that was the reason for the sheen of the vocation has been withdrawn by the government on the basis of data purposely fed to distort the image. Of course, if we were to compare the prospects of service with Military and IAS, the glaring anomalies surface. While the IAS has a virtually vertical promotion, resulting in the officer becoming a Joint Secretary in 16 years and retiring as a secretary, only to be absorbed as the head of a public sector organization or as a Governor. While in the Armed forces due to a pyramid system of command, only one out of three get promoted, as a result of which an average officer retires at 54 years of age as a colonel, having to look for a sustenance.

Naturally this has caused a drop in the quality of the material that is coming in and there is a mass exodus. The morale in the services is at its nadir, and if things continue to be in the same vein, we will soon have an Army like the ones in Latin America. Good only on paper. You can be sure that at its present form you can not expect a Bangla Desh operation, but one similar to the 1962 rout, if there is ever an occasion.

It is up to you, Sir, to decide what is good for the future of the country, a very strong bureaucracy with a failing Military or a balanced mix. Drastic measures are required if you want a Army that our country can be proud of, once again.

Yours Sincerely,
H S Bhagat
(Hemi Bhagat, one of the 1st JSW course officer)

Received from Brigadier PT Gangadharan (Retd)