The state of the Army today ....May be the Beginning of the End of the Indian Army as I knew it.

Thank you Gen Dalbir Singh Chief Of the Indian Army Staff , You will be forever remembered  for the Top Ten Excellent Strategic Level and Higher Thinking  Decisions, taken by you sir, to keep the Indian Army current with times, and redefine traditions Izzat (honor) and the sense of what is our sacred duty..

1. Give Rs.1 billion to the Prime Minister,  then spend  the next one year trying to sort out the issue.

2. Use Combatant Soldiers to put Yoga mats on Rajpath, reducing them to a level of Metropolitan Corporation of Delhi) workers and laborers.

3. Ban Clapping in Uniform.

4. Make Lady officers march in Rank and File on Republic Day Parade  (half the contingent comprising Lady Cadets from Officers Training Academy,  wrongly wearing Lieutenants Pips to fool the world.

5. Give Sena Medal to own brother in 2015.

6. Give VSM to brother in 2016.

7. Reduce Beating the Retreat Ceremony to a level of a Cheap musical troupe from Janakpuri / Najafgarh with soldiers playing Bollywood tunes and dancing around in full ceremonial dress on Rajpath like a Saraswati Band going in a Baaraat.

8. Give COAS unit citation to brothers unit the most operationally cutting edge unit of the Army....AHQ Camp WoW.

9. Use Army Soldiers to Clean the Ganges .

10. Don't say a word on the OROP issue or on manhandling of veterans by Delhi Police or the raw deal meted out by 7th CPC, be silent as maybe a Governors Appointment may come your own way, after retirement.

Great going for a tremendously positive change. I must say. You sir, I am sure would have put the most experienced Change Managers to Shame by your brilliant strategies.

Plus there are many more shameful things, (perceptively shameful for us veterans) which have been done by you to please your political Masters. This is not the exact forum to discuss those. These are things which make us veterans blood boil. However as I said earlier it is the Younger generation officers day. What they want to treat as old traditions and what they want to change its their prerogative. Soon the new generation of officers will start treating these activities like (for eg performing Bhangra at the beating of retreat etc) as glorious traditions !!! However it must be borne in mind that good Armies all over the world exist and also rank as best who zealously guard values and traditions of their ancestors,  like Izzat (honor) of their paltan(Regiment), their war cry and the moral and physical courage which is nurtured to the point of laying down their lives for these. There are babus and politicians in government who have earlier tried these stunts like equivalent to cleaning the Ganga and lifting yoga mats etc before.

Yet strong Chiefs like F M Sam Manekshaw and others have sent them back with busted and bleeding noses. If I were to give  one reason why the government and politicians are trying to castrate the Armed Forces? I would say it is because of breeding selection. It goes back to consumer demand. We set parameters, for selected characteristics in our herd (for example: Accepting all bull shit orders from MOD, accepting insults without a murmur, accepting second citizen status vis a vis babus and so on…). We select bulls that fit this criteria to produce a uniform and desirable Armed Forces Leadership at the top. If we left all bull calves intact (not castrated) we would have heifers bred to their brothers, at an early age, and would move away from the desired breeding program.

Uncastrated Armed Forces will tend to be more aggressive, in these peoples perspective and there is less control of breeding programs, as well as a strong fear that some day, these very Armed Forces might say enough is enough and shove  a stick up the babus and the corrupt politicians backside . Well that's how I see it.

It was post 1971 and the nation was euphoric. Our countrymen were lauding the Indian Armed Forces for a spectacular victory that had changed the geography of the sub-continent. The nation was savoring the victory and more than 97,368 prisoners were in our Prisoners of War Camps. It was the second largest surrender in the Military History; second only to the surrender of Gen Von Paulus,  of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad in the Second World War. The Armed Forces were feted everywhere for its courage and the people were convinced that it was one instrument that would never let the country down.'

Unknown to the Armed Forces a band of bureaucrats were conspiring as to how to cut the Armed Forces to size. Defense Secretary was Mr K B Lal, who was literally there for the entire duration of the Third Pay Commission. He was the one, who provided the inputs to the Third Pay Commission. The Commission was constituted a year before the war and concluded two years after the war. It’s final recommendation marginalizing the Armed Forces was made public two months after Fd Marshal Manekshaw relinquished the post of Chief. Indeed it was a clever move as the most popular person in the country was not able to take cudgels against the government.

This Pay Commission cut the Armed Forces to size for winning the war for the country. Even Fd Mshl Manekshaw was not spared. ‘Ingratitude un-kinder than the winters wind’ to adopt a Shakespearean phrase to an ungrateful government. 

Firstly they abolished a separate Pay Commission for the Armed Forces and formulated an equivalence between the Armed Forces and Civilians. It was here that the Pay Commission struck its vilest blow when they considered that ‘a trained infantry soldier with three years of service is below a skilled labor. Little do they know that it is the infantry soldier who does the actual fighting and charges the enemy with naked bayonet literally on the very front edge of the battle and makes eye and steel contact with the enemy. He is the one who bears the brunt of more than 90% of casualty in all wars and yet he was considered the lowest strata to base their comparison. It also means that the infantry soldier with less than three years’ service was considered an semi-skilled/unskilled labor? 

The OROP that was effective till 1972, was annulled after the third pay commission. A soldier then served only for 15 years and went on pension at the ages ranging from 33 years to 36 years of age. In view of this, his pension was 70% of his basic pay and an officers pension was 50% of his basic pay as the bulk of them retired at 50 years of age. The civilian counterparts were getting only 30% of their basic pay as pension. Please note they served till they were 58 years of age (now 60 years) and the soldiers retired a quarter century earlier. The wretched Third Pay Commission did not consider the additional 25 years of service his civilian counterpart served and raised their pension to 50% and reduced a soldiers pension from 70% to 50% in order to achieve the so-called parity. Further the government put mandatory 33 years of service for full pension fully knowing that the soldier then retired after 15 years of service.

They further as a largesse made a seemingly generous gesture to the Armed Forces by pegging the mandatory service for full pension (50%) to 25 years. Just look at the clever move; fully knowing that the soldier retired after 15 years of service. Thus the soldier in effect got only 30% of pay after 15 years of service, as extrapolated from full pension of 50% of pay with 25 years of service. Thus the Government ingeniously cut a soldiers pension from 70% to 30% of pay at the same time enhancing the civilian pension from 30% to 50%. Look at the perfidy; how can possibly a Government run down her own Armed Forces?

Mrs Gandhi was feted and was called ‘Durga’ and she basked in the limelight of victory and self-adulation. However, she proved to be the daughter of her illustrious (Sic!) father Jawahar Lal Nehru by sharing the same antipathy and disdain towards the Armed Forces. She was a smart women hence concealed it to a great extent with outer façade of support and derived maximum political mileage of the victory. The running down of the Armed Forces in the Third Pay Commission could not have been done without her active and positive consent.

Their next target was the most popular figure in the country Fd Marshal Manekshaw. He was made a Field Marshall and the appointment is active for life, though ceremonial in nature. A Field Marshall does not retire and continues to wear his five star rank for life. He was entitled to Pay and Allowances for life. The bureaucrats who were literally jealous of his popularity ensured that he did not get his pay and allowances; low and behold! for the next 36 years, and finally a lump sum of ₹ 1.60 crore of arrears was released to him on intervention by then President Abdul Kalam. A non-descript bureaucrat gave him his pension dues on his deathbed in Jun 2007 a few days before he breathed his last.  Now tell me my civilian friends why should not us veterans feel like murdering these rats?

I wished I had died prior to witnessing such a spectacle on TV on the Republic Day Parade and the Beating of Retreat. If I had the means I would stand up and gun down all those SOB's responsible for these happenings. I am happy that Gen Vijay Oberoi has the guts to stand up publicly and castigate the present chiefs. It is a very sad year for the Armed Forces. I thank the Lord that I am out of it and my pledge when I passed out of the hallowed portals of Chetwoode hall still stand undiluted, and that I will go to my grave in absolute "Shanti" that I did my duty and my country proud..

“The safety, honor and welfare of your country come first, always and every time. 

The honor, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next. 

Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.”

 – Field Marshal Philip Walhouse Chetwode