IESM: Mission, Vision, Core Values & Goals

Elucidated from Memorandum of Association- INDIAN EX SERVICEMEN MOVEMENT

Mission Statement
To care for those who have battled and preserved the security of the Nation, by serving and honouring the men and women who are Ex- Servicemen.

Vision
To provide them the best benefits and services they have earned– and to do so by adhering to the highest standards of compassion, commitment, excellence, professionalism, integrity, accountability, and stewardship.

Core Values
Compassion– We will treat all ESM and their families with the utmost dignity and compassion. We will provide services in a caring manner, with a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

Commitment– ESM have earned our gratitude and respect. Their health care, pension benefits, and memorial service needs to drive our actions.

Excellence– We strive to exceed the expectations of ESM and their families. We strive to perform at the highest level of competence and take pride in our accomplishments.

Professionalism– Our success depends on maintaining a highly-skilled, diverse, and compassionate volunteers and governing body. We foster a culture that values equal opportunity, innovation, and accountability.

Integrity– We recognize the importance of accurate information. We practice open, truthful, and timely communication with ESM, and GOI agencies chiefly under the MOD. By carefully listening and responding to their concerns, we seek continuous improvement in our programs and services.

Accountability– We will perform in a manner at all times that makes us accountable, responsible, and answerable to ESM and their families, our leaders and other external Government and Non- Government agencies.

Governance– We will ensure responsible management of the human, financial, and natural resources as well as data and information entrusted to us. We will improve performance through the use of innovative technologies, evidence- based practices, and sound welfare principles.

Strategic and Enabling Goals
Goal 1– Restore the capability of ESM with disabilities to the greatest extent possible, and improve the quality of their lives and that of their families.

Goal 2– Ensure a smooth transition for ESM from active military service to civilian life.

Goal 3– Honour and serve ESM in life, and memorialize them in death for their sacrifices on behalf of the Nation.

Goal 4– Contribute to the ESM and Public health, emergency management, socio-economic well-being, and history of the Nation.

Enabling Goal– Deliver best service to ESM and their families through effective communication and management of people, technology, business processes, and financial resources.

Declining Status of Armed Forces

Changes in the WoP in recent times, has seen the chairperson UPSC upgraded to article 9A over Service Chiefs (at article 12). Chairperson UPSC was earlier at article 17 below Service Chiefs and also below officiating Chiefs of the rank of Lt Gen who were on article 16. Chairpersons for SCs and STs were added on article 17. Both these chairpersons are higher than Army commanders / Vice Chiefs who are on article 23. Members of SCs and STs placed at same level of Army Commanders /Vice Chiefs at article 23.

As was well known Army Commanders / Vice Chiefs were equated with secretaries to Govt. of India on article 23. However, Note 10(c) of the WoP makes an interesting distinction: In official functions held at Delhi, New Delhi, Army Commanders / Vice Chiefs of the Army Staff or equivalent in other services will always rank after the secretaries to the Government of India.
To summarise as to what has been achieved currently, (status and parity wise):

DIG is now officially equivalent to a Brigadier.

Ministry of Home Affairs has declared that all IPS officers shall attain the rank of DIG in 14 years’ service.

Senior Administrative Grade (SAG) is now officially equivalent to the rank of Major General.

Department of Personnel and Training has declared that all IAS officers shall attain the SAG in 14 years of service.

What would be achievable by 100% IPS officers in 14 years would now be achievable by 7% defence officers in 28 years.

What would be achievable by 100% IAS officers in 14 years would now be achievable by 2% defence officers in 33 years.

It is this corrosive and remarkably steady erosion of a soldier’s status over the past sixty years that has driven his sense of honour to a point where he has resorted to, within his own definition, the most vilified form of protest that he could ever consider: making “public” his ire. Mutiny is defined as a collective form of disobedience to a lawful and legal command, an anathema to a solider whose whole conscience domain is dominated to obedience to orders and is an intrinsic and an impregnable part of his DNA. His character combines honesty and loyalty as a moral asset and an absolute reverence for ‘izzat and iqbal’. That the veterans have been driven to dissent bears serious ramifications not only for the well being of civil-military relationship but also should be a matter of serious concern to those who are in a leadership positions including the armed forces.

Lt Col K Channan Ashwini (Retd)
Extracted- full article click link:
A Disquiet Within: Astigmatism In Civil-Military Relations by Ashwini Channan

Comment: Continuous degradation of Defences Forces "Sacred Rank and Honour" structure will eventually dent its motivation and leadership. More so if the Military Gallantry awards are confused with Police Medals. The bureaucrats are attempting to belittle the sacrifices of the Defence Forces who are defending the nation whose law and order in all states is crippling due to corruption from top to bottom.

South Asia Defence & Strategic Review is published by Akash Media. It is a leading publication on matters related to Defence and Strategy, Internal Security and Military Technology. A bi-monthly publication, the magazine was started in Mar 2007 and is gaining fast in stature and credibility. It has already secured a large subscription and readership base in the entire region.

Col A K Sharma, a former cavalry officer, edits the magazine. He sought to leave the Indian Army after a successful career panning 28 years, and held many important assignments and acquired a variety of qualifications.

S Abhimanyu, the Assistant Editor also doubles up as the researcher for the magazine. He is a regular contributor to the magazine, with special expertise in defence technology.

Sabine Kulow is the Associate Editor. She is based in Germany and writes on matters related to environment and social issues.

The Editorial Board consists of eminent personalities from all walks of life. HE Sh NN Vohra, Governer of J&K was our advisor Dr K Santhanam, Amb C Shekhar Dasgupta, Lt Gen S K Sharma (retd) and Air Marshal SK Malik are members of our Editorial Board.

Our foreign contributors include Brig. Gen. Alain Lamballe from France and Ms. Mariam Safi from Afghanistan. The magazine is printed at Rave Scans, a premier printing press in India.
South Asia Defence and Strategic Review

Militarism in India: The Army and Civil Society

History written a decade ago

A "very important study that attempts to explain why India, unlike many Third World countries, has never experienced a military coup... This book will be of great interest to students of comparative politics, military affairs, and Third World politics, and to South Asianists."

--See full review by S.A. Kochanek in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Vol. 36, No. 6, February 1999

Militarism in India: The Army and Civil Society in Consensus by Apuba Kundu

ABSTRACT, CONTENTS & INTRODUCTION
In many leading third world states, tensions between the armed forces and a civilian government have led to the extreme sanction of coup d'etat and military rule. India remains one of the exceptions: despite great ethnic, religious, regional and economic challenges to the existing order, her military officers have never displayed anything but the utmost loyalty to the legitimate government of the day. This work examines the remarkable consensus of purpose between Indian officers and their civil counterparts in the construction and maintenance of civil supremacy and rule of law. Throughout, emphasis is placed on the personal experiences and reactions of over 100 senior Indian army, navy and air force officers to a variety of professional challenges, from their admission to Sandhurst in 1918 through to the post-Operation Blue Star mutinies of the 1980s. These challenges included the role of officers in the independence movement, the rise of the Indian national armies in World War II, the effect of partition and the transfer of power, the establishment of military rule in Pakistan, the rise of the Menon-Kaul nexus, the effect of defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian War and Indira Gandhi's period of Emergency Rule. India's 'top brass' have never before spoken in such numbers or on such sensitive civil-military issues.

This work will appeal to all those interested in the history and politics of South Asia in general, and in theories of civil-military relations and military professionalism in particular.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Apurba Kundu is a lecturer in the Department of Cybernetics at the University of Bradford, UK. He has published numerous articles on Indian civil-military relations, British South Asians, and information technology in various journals including Asian Affairs, Defence Today, Electronic Journal of Communication, Immigrants and Minorities, Indian Defence Review, and Pacific Affairs. He currently is the editor of Contemporary South Asia, chair of the South Asian Social Researchers' Forum and serves on the steering committee of the British Association for South Asian Studies.

Born in Jamaica, raised in the USA, and educated at the University of Leeds, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Dr Kundu now lives in Bradford with his partner and their two children.

Sample Review
Apurba Kundu examines the absence of a military coup (“the non-event”) in Indian politics since 1947 by undertaking an in-depth interview and questionnaire survey of existing and former commissioned officers... the journey is enlivened with interesting recollections as well as a careful reassessment of existing controversies. Kundu writes crisply and clearly. The volume will certainly be of great interest to students of civil military relations... this is an impressive effort that brings together interesting insights from those who have held important positions in India’s armed forces. The volume provides an invaluable point of departure for undertaking more systematic research into the contemporary nature of civil-military relations in India. The main thesis that the author develops has profound implications for the study of civil-military relations, especially in an age of democratisation where there has been an apparent retreat to the barracks. The book is a timely reminder – if one was needed – that we cannot be complacent about the role of the military in developing societies.

Militarism in India: The Army and Civil Society

Comments: Politicians and Bureaucrats who adorn the mantle of Governance of the Nation should not take undue advantage of the patriotism and loyalty of our Defence Forces and pay them peanuts for defending the nation with their sweat blood and tears! The SCPC has done it in repetition, replete with anomalies in consonance with the earlier Pay Panels. The Ex- Servicemen have been dumped, slighted and cheated with empty promises!