You can take a man out of the army, but cannot take the army out of him. That was what happened to me when I switched over to the corporate world after serving in the Indian Army for ten years, way back in the 1970s. Being a veteran of the 1971 War was what ranked, in my heart, as my proudest achievement in life, even when I went on to make my mark as a corporate man.
The nostalgia of the camaraderie we, soldiers, forge under fire, of shared perils and unspoken bonds, turned me into an author when I penned a book about the war. That put me on an inexorable journey of researching and writing on India’s military history, authoring two more books and innumerable blogs and articles in the genre, finally ending up raising an NGO, Colours of Glory Foundation (CoGF) in 2016. The organisation has since carved a niche for itself in inspiring and motivating the youth of the country to choose a career in arms.
Even as I actively participated in the commemorative events last December that marked the Golden Jubilee of our historic victory in 1971, I could not but think of an unsung segment of the Indian Army Veterans of that war. These are the neglected heroes, most of them in their seventies now, who were Short Service Commissioned Officers (SSCOs) that participated in the war but were not subsequently offered a Permanent Regular Commission (PRC).
Now that the dust has settled on the much-touted celebrations of the “Swarnim Vijay Varsh”, it might be time for the country’s political and military establishment to do some soul searching on the moral uprightness of the manner in which they treated these forgotten veterans. By the admission of the authorities themselves in recent years, most of these ‘Released SSCOs’ held important appointments during the operations, significantly contributing to the victory. Why then, did successive central governments, all basking in the reflected glory of Independent India’s greatest military feat, fail to recognise their contribution, either through long-term retention in service by offering PRCs, or through adopting measures for their resettlement in civilian life, or provision of monetary benefits like a veterans’ pension? Therein lies the ugly story of a rank betrayal perpetrated by the powers-that-be of this country over the years.
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SSCOs of the 1971 war
The officers commissioned into the Army from the first ten courses of the Short Service Stream participated in the 1971 war. Holding the ranks of captains and lieutenants then, they constituted roughly sixty per cent of the junior leadership the Army fielded in the operations. Common sense dictates that the operational performance of these officers should have been the prime factor in assessing their suitability for PRC. However, the Army conveniently ignored this prudent approach and chose to follow the archaic practice of evaluating the officers primarily on the basis of Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs), which is a highly subjective and unscientific method. After all, wars do not happen every day, but when they do, they present an excellent opportunity to separate the grain from the chaff that performance evaluations set out to achieve.
During the run-up to the war, realising the crucial role the SSCOs would be playing in it, the government of the day announced various schemes to boost their morale. All of those, including an Indian Administrative Service exam for SSCOs, which was arbitrarily withdrawn after a span of two years, proved to be absolute eyewash, projected as welfare measures for war veterans. Consequently, the officers concerned, who had had no time to prepare themselves for their resettlement because of their involvement in the war effort, were forced to fend for themselves in an unfamiliar civilian environment. They were, of course, offered an option to continue serving for an extended period of another five years with no promise of PRC — clear exploitation of their predicament to meet the Army’s shortage of officers. The Army would be hard put to explain why it found the services of such officers unsuitable for permanent retention, while it was good enough for five more years.
The unfair treatment meted out to these war veterans never drew public attention because they were men of honour, who chose to fight their own battles and find their feet in a challenging situation, rather than resort to litigation or take their grievances to the media. It goes to their credit that several of them acquitted themselves admirably well in their newfound careers and prospered on their own steam. However, not every one of them was that fortunate. A number of them have ended up as none-too-happy senior citizens, often dependent on their children or siblings for sustenance.
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Case in the Delhi High Court
A case filed by the Indian Short Service Commissioned Officers Association (ISSCOA) in the Delhi High Court for grant of pro-rata pension to the Released SSCOs, on eminently justifiable grounds, has been dragging on for years. The judiciary, which revels in grabbing the limelight by taking up popular causes like those of women officers in services, hardly finds it worthwhile to bother about a bunch of ‘done-and-dusted veterans’ in the last laps of their lives.
To add insult to injury, the present government voluntarily announced a year or so ago that it would honour all the released Emergency/Short Service Commissioned Officers of the Indian Army, who participated in the 1965 and 1971 wars, through a monthly ex-gratia allowance, and subsequently, from what it appears, dropped the plan. It was apparent that there was some movement afoot because the Army headquarters even began compiling the data on affected officers. In all probability, the bureaucrats in the hierarchy put paid to the proposition, as is their wont.
It is inconceivable that a government that can find adequate funding for massive undertakings like the Central Vista project in New Delhi cannot meet the nominal budget needed to pay none too large a number of war veterans. No country, which truly respects its soldiers, metes out such callous treatment to them. What moral right do they have to celebrate a hard-won military victory, when they cannot honour the men who risked their lives to achieve it?
D P Ramachandran is a former officer of the Indian Army and a veteran of the 1971 war. He is also the founder of the Colours of Glory Foundation — which works to promote India’s military heritage.
(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)