For decades, Colonel Kanwar Bharadwaj’s proudest possession was the Sena Medal which the President pinned on his chest for gallantry in the face of advancing Pakistani forces in Jammu and Kashmir during the 1971 war. Almost 30 years later, his son Captain Umang Bharadwaj was posthumously decorated with the Shaurya Chakra for fighting insurgents in the same state. Recently, Kanwar packed his and his son’s medals into a clear bag, taking them back to Rashtrapati Bhavan where he had so memorably been decorated. “We earned these medals in the face of fire, but the unequal treatment by the government has forced us to return them,” says Colonel Bharadwaj, 65, who retired a decade ago. He joined thousands of other ex-servicemen who returned their medals in an attempt to sensitise the Government to their demand of One Rank One Pension (OROP) or the same pension for the same ranks irrespective of the date of retirement.
Each year around 55,000 personnel retire from the armed forces but less than 10 per cent find re-employment in the government. In the absence of jobs, pension becomes a powerful rallying point for former servicemen.
For close to two decades OROP—currently given only to MPs, service chiefs, army commanders and secretaries to the government—has been dangled as a carrot. Former servicemen are a respectable votebank with the ability to influence outcomes in several north Indian states, which is why they are courted.
UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi endorsed OROP at a rally in Punjab in 2002 and the Congress even included it in its 2004 poll manifesto. With less than three months for the general elections, there are signs of this becoming a political issue again.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh has firmly endorsed it and BJP President Rajnath Singh said that the party would consider the demand very seriously and include it in its election manifesto. “This is not a committal answer and we are prepared to support only those political parties who will grant us OROP,” says Lt-General Raj Kadyan (retd), President of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM).
Facts that count
Indian armed forces: 11 lakh
Number of military pensioners: 19 lakh
Number of personnel retiring each year: 55,000
Annual amount spent on defence pensions: Rs 12,000 crores.
DEFENCE: India Today Latest Issue March 2, 2009 DEFENCE Story
Read the rest: DEFENCE: Pensioners on the warpath
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