A Matter of Confidence
Perhaps Ms Sushama
Nath, the Expenditure Secretary (IAS MP cadre) could not tell the most powerful
Committee of Secretaries (CoS) that as the erstwhile Secretary to the 6th
Central Pay Commission, they were exceeding their brief. Perhaps our Armed
Forces Chiefs must be wondering what they have let loose on themselves to
invite a few biting editorials perhaps believing in what Groucho Marx (or was
it some one else) wrote – that "military intelligence is a contradiction
in terms"?
In the heat of what the
IAS sister and brethren believed to be extra-constitutional powers and the
Chief Editor of a national daily propounded on the indiscipline of the three Chiefs, most of us
have lost sight of the basic truth. That undeniable truth was that the CoS was
tasked to review the recommendations of the 6th CPC, not to usurp and overturn
those recommendations of the 6th CPC that were unpalatable to the IAS.
It does not help any
bystander, biased or otherwise, to understand why the Expenditure Secretary in
the Ministry of Finance, who was the erstwhile Secretary of the 6th Pay
Commission, did not find the moral courage to tell her fellow-Secretaries that
they were exceeding their brief. The Government had neither authorised, promulgated nor
gazetted the CoS to overturn the recommendations of the 6th CPC, headed by a retired judge of the Apex Court, constituted
by the Govt and its constitution was gazetted by the Government.
Now why did the Chiefs
behave the way they did? Let us go back a decade, to the 5th CPC. There was a
near mutiny in the IAF because the then CAS propounded and got the Govt to
approve higher flying pay for fighter pilots, simultaneously downgrading flying
pay of the transport and helicopter pilots and navigators. Transport and
helicopter pilots refused their flying pay, they off-loaded fighter pilots from
their aircraft/helicopters.
The problem was further
compounded because the technical officers got only a marginal increase and
decided to sue the IAF. They contributed to hire a lawyer to fight for their rights.
It took some inhuman
treatment of many technical officers in a place called Hasimara to subdue the
unrest. Many technical officers were removed from the IAF. Yet more were
mentally and physically tortured; their families suffered worse fates, not
knowing where their husbands were.
This Chief (Major, then an Air Cmde) was in the
team that went around the IAF in 1998 that was trying to put out the fires that
were burning, simmering and embers flying from places as far apart as Chabua,
Agra and Jamnagar.
The present Chairman of
the Chiefs of Staffs Committee and the COAS were spectators of that 1998 fire
and must have realised the implications of the recommendations of the 6th CPC.
Their apprehensions must have turned to reality when the CoS decided, in
whatever wisdom any dispassionate bystander would not understand, to bestow
their meanness on the Armed Forces. The IAS dominated CoS, in their unhindered
vision for establishing supremacy beyond pale, having subdued the IPS and
placed the IFS in foreign climes, no pun intended, perhaps forgot, what Hegel
said, "We learn from History that we never learn from History."
The Chiefs must have
discussed as to what would happen if every soldier, sailor and airman sat down
and calculated, using their intelligence, much to the horror of Groucho Marx who might have turned in grave,
that the Armed Forces were being given not only a short shrift in status but
also a debilitated pay slip, and that the lateral transfer assurance of the Govt remained on paper,
not even considered by the CoS, let alone the Govt.
So they approached the
Raksha Mantri, to convince him that the Armed Forces were being denigrated in
pay and allowances and parity, enough damage having already been done
elsewhere, like the Warrant of Precedence, that had no place for a Field
Marshal, 35 years after he was appointed, with much fanfare and publicity.
They must have informed
the RM that the IAS dominated CoS introduced differentials in pay and status of
the armed forces vis-à-vis- the para-military and Coast Guard. Perhaps the did
not expect any substantial protests which had the signs of deteriorating to a
crisis, perhaps because the most intelligent public servants forgot the not so
distant past 1998.
That is when the Chiefs
must have decided to inform the Raksha Mantri that there was something
seriously wrong in the CoS mandated offerings. They must have decided that they
must take some drastic measures to prevent a bigger fire that would spread to the
three services.
The Chiefs had Hobson's
choice – implement the CoS recommendations (mark that it is not the 6th CPC
recommendations) and face revolts in their respective forces or decline to
implement the CoS recommendations accepted by the Govt but neither notified nor
Gazetted by the Min of Def.
That is where the
situation took a different dimension – the inability of a Chief Editor to
correctly interpret two aspects.
The first
misinterpretation was that the Chiefs were disobeying the Govt. How could they
if MoD had not notified the CoS dictat? What Govt orders were the Chiefs
disobeying? A look at the National Portal will prove that there are
notifications for the IAS, followed by those for the IPS etc and there are
those for civil pensioners. But none for the Armed Forces, for the Resolution
also stated that orders for Defence Forces would be issued by the Min of Def.
The second misinterpretation
was that the Chairman COSC and CNS was stoking/encouraging
"disobedience" by asking the rank and file of the Navy to accept with
patience, that it would take some time for the CoS bestowed 'largesse' to be
corrected. He asked them not to pay heed to speculations and rumours. Was such
a pre-emptive action (to prevent a 1998 like situation) disobedience?
Now the IAS and the
Armed Forces are firing salvos at each other. Leaks to the TV, of a vituperative
note traveling the corridors of the Armed Forces HQ, were aired. The person who
leaked that forgot something called "Minor Staff Duties" which makes
it mandatory that Armed Forces write their notes in a certain manner.
Flawed logic followed.
Some courageously anonymous 'Civilian Officer' wrote on another blog that because a person enters the
IAS cadre at a later age (say 24 years) and having 11 years of service must be
equated with an Armed Forces person who enters the Service at 20 years of age
and has 15 years service because both are now 35 years of age is laughable if not downright
foolish. He forgot that IAS officers become Secretaries at age of 54, whereas Colonels retire at 54 years of age.
The 'courageous' author further
argued that candidates for IAS have graduated, have degrees in engineering and
medicine and therefore should get seniority invite a riposte – why did they
waste the opportunity to serve humanity in remote villages building water
harvesting ponds or treating the rural folk? Because, to face the truth, an
engineer or a doctor is at the mercy of a bureaucrat in any guise, with the IAS
at the top of that heap. So why not have the cake and eat it too?
So where does all this
take us? Perhaps it is not too late for the Group/Committee of Ministers to
consider the anomalies with an open mind. Have the courage to tell the Armed
Forces they are right and punish the CoS or tell the Armed Forces they are
wrong and why and punish the Chiefs.
The need today is for
the Govt to answer a few fundamental questions –
Will it let the 6th CPC
that it appointed be superseded by the CoS, and thereby hold the 6th CPC to
ridicule? Why does the Finance Ministry say that it cannot give 450 crores for
the Armed Forces when it gave Rs 71,000 crores to (the banks and creditors of) farmers, Rs 450 crores to
rescue the UCO Bank, Rs 30,000 crores to rescue Mutual Funds? Now the King of
Good Times and Jet Airways want 47,000 crores of the tax payers money to bail
them out of their self-created mess.
Can the Govt provide as much confidence to
soldiers, sailors and airmen that they are shedding blood, sweat and tears by
not letting them be ridiculed by a bureaucracy that has usurped the powers that
the Govt should and must exercise?
That the Govt has as
much if not more confidence in the Armed Forces as the Armed Forces have in the
Govt when they carry out orders that should have been carried out by the
bureaucracy (providing succour in natural calamities), the police (restoring
law and order) and the CPMF (attempting to quell insurgencies and terrorism)?
It is not a matter of
status or monetary benefits. It is a matter of whether the Govt has confidence
in the Armed Forces or whether the Govt has lost confidence in the Armed Forces
and therefore agreed with the CoS to lower the status of the Armed Forces and
consequently their rightful status and monetary benefits.
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