IESM: Different pension for same service is patently unjust

The Tribune
Saturday, October 2, 2010, Chandigarh, India

Ex-servicemen have been campaigning for implementation of One Rank--One Pension for years, with some even returning their medals in protest.
Equal pension for the same length of service, irrespective of the date of retirement, is the core of their move to get a better deal.
Lt Gen Raj Kadyan (Retd)

One rank — one pension (OROP) has been the demand behind which Ex-servicemen (ESM) have been rallying ever since the Sixth Pay Commission was made public in March 2008. It needs to be restated that OROP is a demand for equity and justice and not for money per se. The concept is based on demanding equal pension for equal work, independent of the date of one’s retirement. This is not the case at present and older pensioners are getting lower pension than their younger counterparts of the same rank and for equal length of service. Prima facie, this is unjust.

The Congress spokesperson understandably eulogized UPA 1 and UPA 2 for what they have done for the ESM since 2004, but made some statements that do not fit facts. His assertion that all personnel other than officers have been granted OROP was incorrect. When cornered, he corrected his version to say that the difference between pre and post January 2006 pensioners is only one to eight percent. This is again blatantly wrong as the difference is more than 50 percent for jawans. He also claimed that all personnel other than officers were very happy with what they have got. If this were so, they would not have been protesting and depositing their medals still. Thirdly, he attempted to create an impression that jawans are happy and the problem exists only in officers’ pension. One wonders whether this statement and not-so-subtle attempt to create a divide was his personal opinion or whether he was towing the official line.

In either case, it was unfortunate and unbecoming and needs to be clarified. When he announced that the government has agreed to constitute a separate Pay Commission for the defence forces from the Seventh Pay Commission, he was rightly booed. Going by precedent, the Seventh Pay Commission report might come out around 2018. There is no denying that the government announcement is merely to shelve the problem and not solve it.

Some have suggested a compensation package instead of higher pension, but In this they overlooked the fact that OROP is all about justice and not about money. While accepting the hazards of military life, an economist recently equated a soldier to a fireman who might get killed while entering a building that is on fire. Apart from the fact that the fireman has a choice whether or not to enter a burning building where a soldier does not, it is also relevant to remember that there is a fundamental difference between dying and getting killed. In the former, that the soldier faces, there is a readiness, even a willingness, to sacrifice one’s life for the nation. Getting killed on the other hand is a passive action and more accidental than voluntary. While one has all the respect for the firemen, it is difficult not to point out that while soldiers die in almost every operation, firemen do not die in every building that goes aflame.

Another misconception that needs correcting is about the injustice. A father and son, both having served in the same regiment, retiring in the same rank and after equal number of years, and staying under the same roof get a different pension to the disadvantage of the father. This is patently unjust. The economist propounded a theory that a son earning more than the father is a law of nature, but it overlooks two ground realities. First, one is not talking of earning; the son might have earned relatively more while in uniform. The subject instead is remuneration for the work already done in the past. If that work was equal both in quality (rank) and quantity (length of service), then remuneration must also be equal.

Secondly, if the laws of nature were to be applied to soldiering, then the economist needs to ponder how natural it is for a soldier to be ordered to advance in the face of bullets and die an unnatural death?

The suggestion that OROP is not legally tenable is equally out of sync. If the past and present presidents, vice presidents, judges, legislators and host of others can have same pension for old and new pensioners, then why cannot the soldiers get it? Any government that hides behind the law to deny its soldiers their dues is only touting an excuse, not a reason.

Unfortunately, the bureaucracy is playing the villain, as brought out by Commodore Uday Bhaskar. When late PM Indira Gandhi gave a decision to sanction OROP and Uday, as the secretary, was required to prepare minutes, the senior bureaucrats told him to omit this point as they would take it up separately. And there is a more recent example. When enhancements in pension were announced on March 8, 2010, the service widows were left out. Aghast, I wrote to the Secretary, Ex-servicemen Welfare Department, but received no reply. I next wrote to the Defence Minister and again, no reply. Then I sent a letter to the Prime Minister. The reply that came through Army Headquarters bore a PMO file number. It said that the widows were not covered because the Committee of Secretaries (headed by the Cabinet Secretary) had not recommended it. The reply leaves no doubt about who in the government calls the shots. It is also an admittance of the harsh reality of the tail wagging the tiger. Leaving the widows out of the ambit of the enhancements has been a very insensitive action by the government and has caused widespread resentment among the veterans.

Successive Parliamentary Committees have been recommending OROP. Besides, seeing the support of the public, of the courts as evidenced by their recent pronouncements, and of the Members of Parliament, so ably shown the lead by Rajiv Chandrasekhar who has renounced the increase in his MP salary till OROP is sanctioned, the writing is clearly on the wall. Isolated, the government can only delay grant of OROP but cannot deny it. Though none of us would like that to happen, it cannot be said that a serving soldier, seeing the plight of his father or uncle whose profession he had followed, will remain unaffected. The unhappy prospect can be grave.
The writer is former Deputy Chief of the Army Staff
Different pension for same service is patently unjust