The Next Pay Commission – What does the Military have in store?

By Air Cmde TK Chatterjee(retd)

The announcement of the next Pay Commission is expected to come some time in 2023 with probable implementation in 2026, as seen by the trends of 5th, 6th and 7th Pay Commissions. Expectations naturally run high amongst all who are going to be affected by the recommendations of the Commission. However, each of these commissions has earned their own shares of bouquets and brickbats, the latter mostly from the armed forces. An interesting article by Mr Shashi Tharoor in Quint, written in June 2016 after the 7th Pay Commission, explains why the armed forces are repeatedly displeased with the dispensations of the previous successive Pay Commissions. The opinion piece elaborates how the status of the Indian armed forces has been steadily brought down in protocol and pay scales since the 1950s till the 7th Pay Commission.

He writes, “For better or worse, force is the guarantor of a nation’s security. It protects the nation from threats extending beyond or within its borders. The Indian armed forces act as the guardian of the legitimacy enjoyed by the government through the spirit of the democratic process. The officers of our armed forces swear “true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution of India upon enrolment in the military. But do we, the political establishment, show the same faith and allegiance towards our uniformed citizens?” A very bold assessment of the community to which the author himself belongs.

As the piece brings out, after every war and conflict that the country faced, and the forces fought, there has been deliberate and steady lowering of status of the forces. It is rather strange but unfortunately true.

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Protecting one’s turf is a natural instinct of all beings. It is not a crime. So, if the civilian bureaucracy attempts at every opportunity to strengthen its own hold on the country by elevating themselves and lowering the armed forces in the order of precedence, it may be ethically wrong but it is not surprising. This also proves one thing though, that the civilian bureaucracy considers the armed forces a threat to their own position and hence this insatiable urge to denigrate the forces.

It is also understandable why successive governments have stood by as mute spectators to this game of thrones. The political cadre have nothing to gain from the armed forces politically, except using them for their own propaganda at election rallies, as we saw after the Balakot episode. But they have a lot to gain from a compliant IAS/IPS cadre, who help them have their way in the running of the country in the name of administration and law and order. So they have no problems in seeing the steady lowering of pay grades of the military vis a vis the police force. The armed forces, disciplined and naive as they are, have never used its 15 lakh votes as a bargaining chip with the government.

Where then does the blame for this state of affairs lie? As said before, domain protection being a natural instinct, the forces may cry till the cows come home on the unfairness of the treatment that they have been meted out repeatedly, but who is going to listen? The military leadership also has to accept its share of responsibility for this state of affairs. There have been numerous polite notes on files, writings by the veteran community etc, pointing out the discrepancies of pay commission recommendations, but they have not produced any results. Subdued reactions of the military leadership have never been loud enough for the whole country to hear, and it is not supposed to be so either, given our military ethos. But what then must they do?

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After the 6th Pay Commission in 2006, the armed forces refused to implement the recommendations of the commission and the government was forced to have a relook at it.

That may have solved some issues, but did not undo the precedence of lowering status vis a vis the civilian cadres. The 7th Pay Commission proved that.

Compliance with the will of the government of the day brings in benefits. This was so apparent during the implementation of the Agniveer policy recently. None of the senior officers who were seen mouthing the advantages of this policy during a televised press conference, would be in service when ill effects of the policy they were peddling would surface. Neither would be the chiefs of the three services who approved these policies. They undid a time tested system to bring in an unverified and unsolicited policy with a promise to the incumbents of post retirement corporate benefits, in implementation of which they will have no say whatsoever.

Philosophers say that if one’s needs are less than one’s resources, one is always rich. The other way round makes one perennially poor. After nearly 40 years of glorious career, which brings an officer to the pinnacle of a steep ruthless pyramidical organisation structure, surely he must be satiated. Unquestioned compliance or acceptance of policies to which conscience does not agree may not be the right way to go at that stage of life.

The next Pay Commission will be no different from the earlier ones. Hope we see a more coordinated and dignified response from our leadership, so that following generations can say with pride ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’.

Author is a Veteran of the Indian Air Force.

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