THE SHAME OF IGNOMINY : THE MILITARY TURNED SCAVENGERS
A Mail From Brig Sivasankar Vidyasagar :
A reading of the comments made by Min of Def in response to queries raised by 7th CPC, (obtained by Air Mshl Savur and published at his blog : Aerial View), reveal how subservient Armed Forces have become. I get the impression that the lowly CAPF Officers are better than our senior Armed Forces Officers.
At the time of independence, Armed Forces Officers were considered a notch above the members of 'God's Own' ICS cadre. Today, our worthy senior Armed Forces Officers are happy to be equated with the second rate IPS Officers, because they wear uniform and have badges of rank similar to ours. We seem to have accepted our inferiority to IAS and IFS as a fate-accompli.
Look at the cadre strength of IAS and the number of Secretary level officers. Out of 6,000 IAS Cadre strength, there are 300 Secretaries to the Govt of India, as against 20 Army Cdrs and equivalent out of 48,500 Armed Forces Officers.
One Secretary in Min of Def (ESW) once told me, (when I was Director Sainik Welfare A.P.) :
"Brigadier Sahib, Your Senior Armed Forces officers are
like passengers in the General compartment of train. One
or two desperately try and get into the General
compartment and once they are in they would not allow
anyone else to enter. We, IAS Officers have no shame to
serve under one of our own batch mates or even juniors.
Look at me. I am Secretary in Min of Def (ESW) and Def Secy is junior to me though he is my batch mate. How does
it matter to me? Both of us get the same salary and we
enjoy the same perks. Def Secy respects me because I am his senior.
Look at Finance Secretary. He has a half dozen to dozen
secretaries who work under him. One is Revenue
Secretary, another is Expenditure Secy, third one is
Secretary Banking services, fourth one is Secretary Non
Banking services. No body feels jealous of Finance Secy.
Look at Foreign Secy. He has dozen Secretaries under
him. One is Secy East, another is Secy Middle East,
another is Secy North America etc.
Will you ever permit 10 Army Cdrs under one Army Cdr?
(Samjuel : Lt Gens do serve under Lt Gens). You waste
your time in your rank badges, how many orderlies you
must have, how many men you must command. You keep
throwing the phrase I have never understood - It is rank
down-gradation?
You guys want everything for yourself but you would not
allow the same privileges to be given to your juniors. You
suffer and blame for all your ills on us IAS Officers. If you
cannot set up your house in order what can we do? Sorry
most of you have not grown up after you left your training
academies. You keep throwing your seniority when that
means in your own language focol. Not even God Almighty
can help you unless you people reform yourselves. Sorry
for this but that is my view and my perspective. I am sure
you will not agree.
Will you work under another Brig if he is junior to you in NDA by three or four courses? No you will never. But we
in IAS have no such hard feelings. As long our pay and
privileges are not reduced, we can serve under any one
who may be junior to us by three or four years"
Was this IAS Officer wrong in what he thought of us?
Service Chiefs, as per the admission of MoD, agree to only a few Lt Gens to HAG + scale of pay and not 100%. Why then blame Min of Def?
These guys in Min of Def manage to obtain such stupid recommendations from our worthy subservient service chiefs, (Sorry Gen YN Sharma Sir this is the calibre of modern service chiefs and you may say my comments are in bad taste), and quote adnausium to deny any benefit to the personnel of the Armed Forces.
Are 0.02% Lt Gens in the Armed Forces equal to 80% of IAS Officers who reach the level of HAG+ and we call this parity? Can there be any more nonsense than this?
When 6th CPC offered NFFU to Armed Forces it is reported that the then CNS remarked that he would have
more Admirals drawing NFFU than the ships I command?
Whom do you blame for this utter down-gradation of izzaat of Armed Forces? Service Chiefs or Min of Def?
If Army is going to rent out four battalions to clean River
Ganga @ Rs 70 crore per annum per bn, why blame MoD. Is it the job of inf bn to clean shit thrown by all and sundry in River Ganga? Do our Service Chiefs know that there used to be Eco Bns of TA who do these kind of things?
Present CM of Telangana was tempted by the servility of
Armed Forces to tell striking GHMC (Greater Hyderabad
Municipal Corporation) sanitary staff “If you go on strike and do not life garbage then I will call Army".
Do we realise how Army has been reduced to cleaning Rivers, placing mats for Yoga on Yoga International day at Delhi and lifting Garbage of GHMC!
Do not get me wrong. All Service Chief were not servile
as the present lot :
Gen OP Malhotra, (Samuel : I have served under Gen Malhotra and personally seen him, as an Army Commander, putting the then Defence Secretary in his place), when ordered to employ the Army to dispose of dead bodies of Tsunami that hit Andhra
Pradesh in 1978, refused to do so and was bold enough to say,
“Lifting dead bodies is the job of scavengers and soldiers are
not scavengers”.
Gen KV Krishna Rao once confronted the mighty Indira Gandhi and told her, “Either you give us free rations or accept my resignation”.
Adm Sureesh Mehta issued instructions in Navy that the Navy
would not accept 6th CPC pay scales unless Lt Cols were brought up from PB- 3 to PB-4.
These Service Chiefs were not dismissed. Because they had moral courage to confront. They had 00s.
Why cannot Service HQs make a simple chart to show to CPCs as to how many reach the rank of Joint Secy at what length of
service and how many in the Armed Forces, with the same length of service, reach that rank. Then take it to the Addl Secy level and then Secy level as a percentage in their respective cadres to make them understand the meaning of stagnation.
Are the Service Chiefs not capable of showing how much an IAS officer, from the day he enters service, collects lawful wages till he retires and how much an Armed Forces officer collects in his entire service career? Surely they could work it out on an average basis.
Why cannot TRIPAS demand pay of Armed Forces due to acute stagnation be made year wise with rank pay separately so that even if super-seeded officers keep getting higher pay?
Why cannot TRIPAS list out all types of allowances to
civilian employees on percentage of basic pay and compare them to Armed Forces personnel who get a fixed
sum to show how we are cheated at every stage for
working in most inhospitable conditions?
If an insignificant issue, having very little financial effect, such as trade rationalisation for Armed Forces Personnel requires elaborate procedures like -
(a) appointing Committee of Secretaries in which there is
no representation of Defence Services;
(b) group of Ministers; and
(c) discussion in the Cabinet are put into motion;
it is to ensure nothing is given easily to the Armed Forces, so that they are forced to beg for the smallest legitimate entitlement and then throw crumbs at them, in order to keep them under modern slavery.
On the other hand, let an operation takes place and lo and
belhold, the whole Country, including the Netas and the babus, will immediately start praising the Armed Forces sky high.
That is the legacy bequethed to our great Country and its Govt.
Thanks to the post independence policy of keeping a strangle hold on the Armed Forces.
What, however, is done, when it comes to upgradation of 24 posts of Addl Secys to Secretaries in IRS and similar
upgradation in other Group A services?
A simple note in a file is moved and approval of the
minister is obtained and then implemented immediately or at the worst, after cabinet nod obtained, over free cups of tea and goodies, by these worthies our democratic system has put in place. No necessity of committee of secretaries and Group of Ministers for these Group A services.
Sir, I know you may not like my mail being a typical infantryman, but just think of this -
The Army has been reduced to :
- laying mats for Yoga because the civil contractor failed to turn up; and
- cleaning the river Ganga; weapon yielding jawans being made to lift garbage on taslas on their heads ! COAS must have got very busy discussing as to who should be made responsible to contract a million taslas :
(b) Should it be the E-in-C?
(c) Should it be procured under DGS & D Rate contract
or,
(d) Will it require IFA sanction?
Who is to be blamed for this mess? Why all veterans are crying hoarse that the 7th CPC has downgraded the Faujis?
Our COAS has converted our soldiers into scavengers. The 7th CPC has given such scavengers the benefit of being paid as soldiers and recommend them higher pay-allowances and pensions.
We must all thank the Chairman 7th CPC for not treating us soldiers as scavengers, to which we have been reduced to by our worthy COAS.
I know, after reading this, you would be in a dilema whether to laugh or cry.
CRY NATION CRY.
Very apt post. Greater fault is with the weak and the meek who climb the ladder in the armed forces and who behave subserviently to the IAS Babus. Babus seem to display greater moral courage than the so called brave military leaders. The Lions are weeded out as Lt Cols/Col (TS). So the consequences are obvious. Jai Bharat. Today we don't have even a Duryodhan to save the armed forces and this nation; forget about Arjuna.
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