The move by Nirmala Sitharaman-led Ministry of Finance to withdraw the tax exemption on disability pension has hit a raw nerve, more so because it has been supported by the top brass in the Army. The crux of the issue is not so much the withdrawal of the exemption, but the fact that soldiers with disabilities have been denigrated to justify this move. This negatively impacts public perception of the brave people who have lost limbs, abilities or have ended up with ‘lifestyle diseases’ as a result of intensely physically and mentally stressful service conditions.
In 1995, Parliament passed one of the most progressive acts for persons with disabilities. One of its provisions mandated protection of service whereby employees could not be discharged from service on account of disability and neither could their rank be reduced. The government later revoked these provisions specifically for the Armed Forces, which meant that unlike their civilian counterparts, the service of defence personnel was not protected under disability provisions.
If they served for less than 10 years and their disability was not related to service conditions, they would also not get any pension or medical support. The same revocation was made applicable to Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) too. However, earlier this year, the Narendra Modi government did away with the 10-year qualifying service requirement for pension for CAPFs. Whereas it is indeed a welcome move and very much appreciated, the flip side of this is that as things stand today, disabled defence personnel neither have the protection of service like their civilian counterparts, nor the protection of pension like their CAPF colleagues. It would have been beneficial to the defence services had official social media handles spoken for the forces and raised such issues to bring parity. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
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As if the move to tax disability pension is not enough, what has followed in the tax controversy is a travesty of process and demonisation of disability. It was fair to expect that the Army would stand behind its soldiers with disabilities.
The circular in question from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) under the Ministry of Finance, mentions that tax exemption to disability pensioners would not be applicable to disabled personnel who retired on superannuation, but only to those who prematurely boarded out.
While the circular is counter-intuitive and may go against the spirit of established conditions of service for armed forces personnel, we are in no way questioning the sovereign right of the government to levy taxes. The moot point here is not the exemption but an unsigned note circulated from official handles, demonising military disability and branding pensioners as ‘unscrupulous’ and exploiters.
There is a substantial amount of research that has documented that serving in inclement and hostile terrain, extended postings in such conditions and the resultant lack of commune living with family, inability to cater to domestic commitments, non-responsive civil administration, curtailment of freedom and an excessively strict disciplinary code, either create or impact existing medical conditions of soldiers, which are further aggravated by the stress and strains of service. The fact that military employees die earlier than their civilian counterparts is well documented. Recognising this, the rules and guidelines for the military and the CAPFs provide for disability benefits in case of medical conditions incurred while in service. If a regularly exercising soldier, who is recruited medically fit in the first instance, develops a heart disease due to stress and strain of service, how is he or she responsible for this? In any event, these disability benefits are either released by the government or on judicial directions, and to call them “unscrupulous” is both disrespectful and imminently imprudent.
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Stressors in the military are universally on the rise and this is a reality the military has to deal with. The US military (which follows a six-monthly tour of operational areas for individual soldiers as compared to 24 to 36 months in our case) reported an increase of disability pensioners by 117 per cent from 1990 to date, and currently pays disability benefits to 4.75 million retirees. On the other hand, the number of such beneficiaries in India, with almost an equal strength of standing Army, is less than 0.2 million.
The anxiety of the military leadership in being concerned with a large number of Low Medical Category (LMC) personnel in a fighting force is understandable, but the numbers are not alarming as compared to global standards. However, rather than demonise disabilities, it behoves a practical approach to ensure the smooth movement of permanent LMC personnel to other departments in conjunction with the government as provided under Section 20 of the new Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and also correspondingly ensure that there is no shamming or malingering and a person is medically upgraded after a stringent examination if it is felt he or she is no longer suffering from a medical condition.
If there is a concern that soldiers and officers disclose their disabilities at a later stage in their career and hide them, this is a reflection of the lack of tolerance in policy. Disclosure leads to being categorised as unfit, and ironically, this leads to less than fit soldiers in the military, which benefits nobody. It is a classic Catch-22 situation – if they disclose disabilities during the earlier part of their career, they are labelled as weak or boarded out; if they do so later when the disability gets accentuated, they are told that they are doing it to claim benefits. The problem is not with the disabilities, the problem is with the policies and the overall attitude.
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Although the United Nations in its Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006, of which India is a signatory, called for dignity, respect and acceptance towards persons with disabilities, our attitude and systems are not attuned to sensitivity. When the inimitable Major D.P. Singh, India’s first blade runner, lost his leg during the Kargil conflict, there was nobody to counsel him and comfort him for the loss of limb. There was nobody to address the psychological scars, which accompany physical ones. The positions of counsellors in the military medical establishment have been lying vacant for a long time, but no official handle has flagged this on social media. Our systems still do not understand the difference between psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and care-givers, and nobody puts up an unsigned note on this.
In today’s milieu, the Army seems far behind in this matter, while forces such as the Indo-Tibetan Border Police have already recruited trained stress-counsellors and embedded them with battalions. The CRPF issued an instructive handbook on “Human Behaviour & Mental Health” in which the Director-General of the CRPF clearly states that personnel work in adverse and trying circumstances resulting in increase in health-related problems. The book provides practical solutions while also courageously underlining that 29 per cent to 69 per cent troopers tested positive for stress, depending on the place of deployment. It also emphasises that stigma must not be attached to medical conditions associated with stress. The handbook, like all other mature forces globally, encourages personnel to come out and seek support.
By vilifying disabled military personnel, we are neither doing them nor ourselves as a country, any favour. It is well known that perception equals reality and if all of us, civil society as well as the establishment, turn around and trounce those who need to be cared for, it is indeed a sad state of affairs. Our disabled personnel need to be supported and treated with dignity and respect.
Navdeep Singh is an Advocate at the Punjab & Haryana High Court, and writes on public policy, military and legal issues. Ratna Viswanathan is a former civil servant who has served in the defence ministry. Views are personal.