The uniformed forces are not a vote-bank but a value-bank for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The suave and canny Union Minister, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, wrote the above lines in his recently published article. Surely, the 100,000 ex-servicemen who attended Premier Narendra Modi’s inaugural pre-general-election political rally in Haryana must be a confused lot today. After all, anybody who goes through the full text of Modi’s delivered address would admit that from top to bottom, it was all about politics.
As the opposition prime ministerial candidate, Modi was openly exploiting a charged-up vote-bank (consisting of ex-soldiers and their members) livid with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime. In fact forums of ex-military professionals effectively turned into Modi’s election-publicity medium by sending out email messages explicitly urging people to vote against Congress. This author saw one such mail that read, “Do not vote for the UPA in the next elections because they failed to look after the interests of ex-servicemen.” Needless to say, the sender referred to the long ignored “One Rank One Pension” (OROP) demand of retired armed forces personnel apart from various logistical issues involving the military establishment in general. For long, the military veterans have been arguing that every pension-eligible soldier of the same rank and length of service should receive uniform pension, irrespective of his year of retirement. Presently, there is an anomaly in the superannuation-benefit-structure of India’s armed forces due to government’s erroneous pension calculation formula. And now, as this author learnt reliably, Modi is using Rathore —a former soldier — to neutralize discontent among military veterans as he realizes the folly of mindlessly playing with the sentiments of servicemen in election time. That precisely is the reason why Rathore insinuates in the write-up that for a soldier, more than pecuniary benefits, honor of his country and regiment is dearer.
“Who stops our former soldiers to live with honor and self respect and their genuine demands getting fulfilled?” — thundered Modi during his Haryana rally in September 2013. And in the seven months of his governance, the military veterans only got conflicting statements from senior government functionaries. Rathore, expectedly accuses the UPA for allotting a peanut toward OROP. True, the Congress having woken up from deep slumber late in the day managed to dish out Rs5 billion after approving the demand in-principle. But why did Modi’s government allocated the same amount in 2014 budget despite the lofty pre-election talk? The defense minister has been particularly ambiguous, making all sorts of confusing noises. Starting with the statement “OROP cannot be dynamic in nature, when pay goes up because of increments it cannot be passed on to pensioners,” he ended up declaring “only 80 percent of veterans will get OROP at a cost of 6,000 rupees per annum.”
No doubt, the ex-servicemen community, having batted for Modi proactively before the elections, must have been devastated when the nation’s finance minister categorically asked them to “lower their expectations.” Is it not a breach of trust for those 1.2 million strong armed-forces veterans who virtually revered Modi? Why is it taking so long for a supposedly pro-military Modi government to officially notify the implementation of OROP? Is this how the BJP treat its value-bank — as Rathore referred to the serving and retired military community? While Modi’s use-and-throw habit (for achieving political height) is nothing new, his government’s disastrous decision to actually bring 8 out of 10 pensioners under OROP sphere has grave consequences for the Indian military. Modi’s administration may end up vertically splitting the defense community — both serving and retired.
Since nobody knows who constitute this 80 percent, one would assume that commissioned officers would be left out of OROP ambit since only 0.8 percent reaches the top hierarchy. Such a step will further vitiate the atmosphere within the forces as the level of trust and camaraderie between officers and men will take a nosedive. This anticipated division of pensioners will consequently create a majority-minority divide in the military too and will adversely affect operational efficiency.
Perhaps, Modi — who has mastered the art of dividing Indians along majority-minority line for reaping dividend in vote-bank politics — does not realizes the gravity of the situation at all. India’s military epitomizes the nation’s composite culture and has set ethos, morals and values that need to be preserved at all costs. If this sacred fabric is violated by providing pensionary benefits to some and denying the same to others, Modi will be doing the greatest disservice to India.
As India’s Supreme Court said in a judgment, either Modi’s government must maintain parity in granting retirement benefits or abort the idea of splitting the defense fraternity for allocation of OROP completely. It is indeed unethical to give something to a few and deny the same to others even when they are eligible for it. In fact, Minister Rathore’s loss of solicitude is more worrying as he should have recognized that this issue, concerning the nation’s as well as the elected leadership’s obligation to its soldiers, transcends both politics and partisan squabbling. It is a pity that two ex-soldiers-cum-ministers have taken up the burden of defending the same Modi who used and discourteously abandoned not only military veterans but also the scientist, responsible for perfecting India’s indigenously developed ballistic-missile-systems. As the defense fraternity feel shortchanged, hopefully, this Republic Day, Modi recognizes that a nation must remain honor-bound to uphold the commitments made to its soldiers and democratically empower them too.
