Soldier’s blues

The former army chief and sitting member of Rajya Sabha, General Shankar Roychowdhury, has raised some critical issues concerning ex-servicemen that need the attention of our political leaders and bureaucrats. It is perhaps the way of all flesh to forget people once they have served us and fade away from memory. But we do grave injustice to a community of people who give the best years of their lives — and sometimes even their lives — to the nation if we don’t take sufficient care of them and their next of kin. The scale of the task is undoubtedly monumental — the number of ex-servicemen and widows now outnumber the 11-lakh strong defence forces by a factor of two.

The problem of ex-servicemen is essentially embedded in the service itself, compounded by the need to retire people early to keep the fighting forces young. What is more important is that we seem to simply let well-trained, highly disciplined, skilled and motivated people loose on society at a relatively young age, without paying much attention to how their unique capabilities and the heavy investment that the nation has made in them can be harnessed. At the same time, the pensions that they get are grossly inadequate, even though the burden to the exchequer — at a figure equalling nearly 17 per cent of the annual defence expenditure — is heavy. It is time that serious attention is accorded to the challenges and issues concerning our defence forces, serving and retired.

But we would disagree with the general where he argues for the reservation of seats in Parliament for ex-servicemen. Such reservation may lead to undesirable trends creeping into the services, which has thus far been completely apolitical in nature. In developed western economies, market forces provide the opportunities to absorb ex-servicemen with dignity. But till we reach that stage, we need to create other methods to attend to an urgent need. The answer clearly lies in establishing a standing Commission for Defence Forces which should look into all major policy issues, including pay and allowances, terms and conditions, and so on, of servicemen and their post-retirement needs.