THE ACR OF GOVERNENCE

   The organisational structure of a typical governmental (bureaucratic) organisation has been famously visualised as a tree with officials perched at every level on it. Those at the top of the tree look down and see monkeys. Those at the bottom look up and see arseholes. It is this difference in perception, depending on your position on the tree, which dictates the essence of  Organisational Behaviour (OB) though this is not something you would be taught in a management institute. And it is this peculiar dimension of OB which has spawned that most ubiquitous and interesting of HRD tools- the Annual Confidential Report or ACR as it is known.

   The ACR, as we are all aware, is an annual assessment of the performance of the monkeys by the aforesaid arseholes, and is the former's weapon of last resort (or so they would like to believe). In actual practice, however, the ACR is more like a bikini in a beach-side beauty contest- it is a mere formality and not to be taken seriously, for the real action, as it were, lies outside its confines.

  No one in the government (except perhaps our gullible courts) takes the ACR seriously. For the Reporting Officer it's a chore because he has to write up a few hundred of them every 31st March (but it's also an opportunity to settle scores with the underling who didn't proffer that box of sweets last Diwali). For the Reviewing Officer it's a more agreeable task because he simply has to scrawl " I agree". The Accepting Officer (or Minister), the alpha male at the summit of the tree, doesn't even have to do that- he simply signs and goes off to play golf (or inaugurate a bridge that hasn't yet been built) while his PA puts a sovereign stamp on it.

  The ACR is supposed to determine the officers' postings and promotions. But since 95% of all officers are rated as Excellent and Outstanding (another monkey trait- you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours) the actual promotions etc, are based on seniority, which political camp one belongs to, and other variables; for example: lower Himachal or Upper Himachal, green cap or red cap, outsider or insider, acolyte of present Chief Minister or ex-Chief Minister, apple belt or kinnow belt and so on. The curvature of the spine also plays a part as also one's yogic skills, particularly a mastery of the SIR NAMASKAR, a bureaucratic variation of the SURYA NAMASKAR, performed every morning when the Chief Minister is entering his office. The SHOVE-IT ASAN, a variation of the SHAV ASAN also helps, on the premise that if your habit is to say "Shove it" every time a problem arises and do nothing, you can't be accused of taking a wrong decision can you ?

  One would expect from the above, therefore, that a typical ACR would be a dreary desert of drab prose signifying nothing. One would be right- most of the time, but not always. For occasionally these ACRs contain rare gems of wit and expression that can compare with the best in literature. It's like wading through a desert of arid persiflage and suddenly coming upon a cool and refreshing oasis. Over the years I and a friend have been compiling some of these "mot juste " and "suggestio falsi" comments: my friend will have to remain anonymous for he's still perched on that tree and vulnerable to the apes above him. However, since my arsehole watching days are, well, behind me, I can safely share them with the readers of this blog post. Here then are some of the comments we have compiled over the years :

*  He has a fine mind- in fact so fine that no mere idea could ever penetrate it. (I detect shades of TS Eliot over here- author).

* His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.

*  He is a very quiet officer. He opens his mouth only to change whichever foot was previously there.

*  Since my last report he has reached rock bottom- and has now started to dig.

*  He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.

* He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction.

*  [ About a PWD engineer]: The roads built by him are like the road to hell- paved with good intentions only.

* He has the wisdom of youth and the energy of old age.

*  This officer should go far- in fact the farther the better.

*  This man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

*  He tours a lot, visiting his office occasionally.

*  He has a highly developed sense of right and wrong; this helps him to invariably choose the latter every time.

But my own personal favourite is this comment by a District judge in the ACR of his Reader :

"A very competent Reader- he writes beautiful judgements."

Now, surely, this is one bikini that reveals more than it conceals!   

OROP--THE MESS GETS BIGGER

   In my thirty-five years in government I have rarely seen an explosive issue being mismanaged as amateurishly as the OROP conundrum has been- and I've seen quite a few goof-ups, believe  me! Considering that successive governments have had forty years to consider the issue, one would have expected that they would have prepared a blue-print for their response-the give and take of all negotiations- and defused it long before the almost mutinous situation we have now reached. As someone said-sitting on the fence for too long makes the iron enter your soul ( and if the fence breaks other, more substantial things can enter places other than the soul !). This is what has happened to Mr. Modi's government, and to the Ex-servicemen Movement( ESM) too, for the latter's over vaunting ambition has messed up matters for it also.

  To begin with, both the Congress and Mr. Vajpayee's govt. were right in not touching the OROP demand with a barge pole- its a financial monstrosity which can, and will, bankrupt the country, has no parallel anywhere in the world, and defies logic. They were dead wrong, however, in not addressing the underlying issues and grievances which confer a semblance of justification in the demand for OROP. These include: anomalies in salaries/scales/promotions as compared to the civil services( of which the IAS is the generally accepted hated face!), not all of which can be justified, though some can; the deep distrust between the military and the political/ executive establishment; and most important of all, the plight of the ordinary jawan who retires at 35 with no other future prospect than to become a security guard in some agency, his years of training and fighting skills consigned to the dustbin.

  Mr. Modi had a chance to address this Herculean challenge, with his majority and unquestioned hold over both the party and the government. But he proved that at the end of the day he is just a politician, after all- better packaged and clothed, certainly, but with the fatal weakness of all politicians viz.-open your mouth first and think later. His thrice reiterated promise of sanctioning OROP immediately- on a battlefield, on an aircraft carrier and at the Red Fort- put the fat in the fire which has become a conflagration now. He forgot the cardinal truth which all politicians would do well to remember, one enunciated by Mario Cumo many years ago- " You can campaign in poetry but you have to govern in prose." The tragedy with Mr. Modi is that he didn't have to open his mouth at all because the campaigning was long over when he did so!

  As I had suggested in an earlier blog Mr. Modi should have ignored the OROP demand and done an outflanking manoeuvre by tackling the underlying issues. He should have asked himself the following questions:

*  Why is it that OROP has been allowed to only the elite few in the Apex scale? Since this is the main heartburn its abolition should have been considered seriously across the board, including Judges,CVC, CAG, UPSC Chairman, Cabinet Secretary, three and four star Generals and other entitled bureaucrats.

*  How do we compensate army officers for their restricted promotions due to the pyramidial structure of the armed forces? Why not allow some form of NFU to them also, that does not interfere with the chain of command- say, allow the next higher scale after a specified number of years even if it is not a promotion to that post ? This would have ensured that a Colonel. for example, retired in a Brigadier's scale even if he could not be promoted to that post, with all the ensuing pensionary benefits of the higher scale.

* Is it not a gross injustice, and a waste of a valuable national resource, to retire highly trained and disciplined soldiers at the age of 35 ? Why can we not absorb them against the 50000 odd vacancies in the para military forces every year, with their pay and seniority protected? There would be self serving opposition from vested interests within the PMFs, naturally, but this can be handled with a mixture of tact and firmness: of what use is an absolute majority in Parliament, after all ? Is it to be used only for the purpose of hiking the allowances of MPs ?

  If Mr. Modi ( and a suddenly silent Mr. Jaitley) had addressed just these three issues immediately on assuming office the current agitation under the able but inflexible leadership of Major-General Satbir Singh would have been a non-starter. There would have been no raison d'etre for any agitation, because correction of the anomalies listed above would have resolved 90% of the GENUINE grievances of the armed forces, and the assumed grievances should have been dismissed firmly. And all this would have been achieved at a far more bearable cost to the nation, and without creating the anomalous mess we are now saddled with.

  The government's short-sighted and hasty announcement of a truncated OROP  last week has satisfied no one. The ESM's agitation continues, General Satbir Singh draws more TRPs and eyeballs than Sunny Leone ( a bright political future undoubtedly awaits him), the ESM has splintered into different factions, making the task of negotiation that much more difficult, civilian employees through their apex body the NCJCM have submitted a memorandum to the 7th Pay Commission demanding OROP for all civil employees, the exchequer is poorer by 20000 crores this financial year and God only knows by how much in the coming years, the distrust between the government and the military has become wider, the armed forces appear to have mounted a disturbing challenge to the government. In an article in the Business Standard today Col ( Retd.) Ajai Shukla has stated that the ESM has " tasted blood" and will not back down. He has predicted that their next demand is already on the anvil- NFU for the military. The bureaucracy is no doubt preparing its own charter, including canteen facilities( termed OROB- One Rate One Bottle !), rank pay, Difficult Posting Allowance, free rations, and what not. Its going to be a hard winter of discontent for Mr. Modi's government and he has only himself to blame.

  Administering the right medicine at the right time is what wise governance is about. What Mr. Modi has done instead by his inept handling of the situation is to convert the HEAP BIG CHIEF into the HEAP BIG SHIT, and its about to hit the fan.

A ROAD BY ANY OTHER NAME.............( With apologies to the Bard)

  History, it is said, is written by the victors, and therefore Mr. Modi probably feels justified in rewriting the history of India, or ( to be fair to him) overwriting the rewriting the Congress has been doing for the last forty years. But all this literary calisthenics has left the ordinary citizen quite confused, to the point where we don't quite know whether we are a nation on the ascendent or on the decline, whether we are descended from the apes or the Gods, whether we are Aryans, Dravidians or just contrarians.

  The Congress has done its bit about rewriting history, but it has not so much rewritten it as ascribed it to a certain family- at least the more glorious parts of it. What the BJP- RSS combine is doing is much more dangerous: it is distorting it to align it with a particular cultural/ religious dispensation and censoring large parts of it in the hope that it will gradually disappear over a period of time. It began with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the eighties and today is manifesting itself in the packing of national institutions with RSS ideologues, selective editing of school text books, and reworking the charter of 34 museums and memorials to incorporate current governance initiatives and Mr. Modi's achievements. This is specious at best and malicious at worst because museums are repositories of the past, not think tanks of the present. To serve the latter purpose Mr. Modi has enough institutions at his disposal- starting with the NITI Ayog- where he can legitimately gold plate his ideas. Why can't he leave the museums to professional historians and academics to document the past as it was, not reinvent it in the image of the BJP govt.?

  It is in this context that the recent renaming of Aurangzeb Road in Delhi as Abdul Kalam Road acquires significance. This is not an innocent faux pas, of the type we have come to expect of all Indian governments. It is a trial balloon. (There are, I learn, 177 other roads, towns etc. named after Aurangzeb in the country, and they would be next on the chopping block if the current experiment succeeds).

  Roads, buildings, institutions over time become part of a country's collective consciousness, and by naming them after historical personalities we embed the latter more firmly in that consciousness and sense of history. Unlike the artifacts in museums and the text in books these buildings/ roads become part of our daily lives and living culture- just think of our associations with Khan Market, Lodhi Gardens, Victoria Memorial, Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, Gobindsagar, to understand what I mean. The sheer eclecticism and diversity implicit in these connotations from the past is what makes a country's history rich and fecund. Unfortunately, it appears that the present govt. is hell bent on replacing this diversity with a mono-cultural vision of the past and Abdul Kalam Road is the thin edge of the wedge.

   Apologists for the govt's action argue that Aurangzeb was was a mass murderer, a violent proselytsing Muslim, destroyer of Hindu temples: not a role model to commemorate. Aurangzeb is admittedly nobody's idea of a boy scout but any dispassionate historian will readily acknowledge the exculpatory factors in his bloody record. Any ruler has to be judged by the social, ethical and behavioural standards of his times, not by the values of 500 years later. In Aurangzeb's times it was sound real politic to put to the sword all rival claimants to the throne, just as today it is acceptable for Mr. Modi to exile Mr. Advani to the Margdarshak Mandal or for Mrs. Sonia Gandhi to have literally thrown the hapless Sitaram Kesri out of his office, all in similar circumstances: they just did things a bit differently those days. And haven't we also been doing our proselytsing bit with the Ghar Wapsi programme, also demolishing a few masjids and vandalising a few churches along the way? And this in spite of the Courts, Human Rights Commissions, Minorities Commissions and Arnab Goswami to rap us on the knuckles- conscience keepers whose benefits Aurangzeb certainly did not have. Who really are we to judge this grand Mughal who ruled over a realm larger than any of his predecessors?

  The BJP has further exposed its real intentions and thought processes by its choice of the replacement for Aurangzeb. It probably calculated that replacing one Muslim with another was a master stroke, leaving no scope for any criticism. In the process it has revealed its concept of what an ideal Muslim should be. Mr. Kalam was, to coin a phrase, a " secular" Muslim: he did not wear his religion on his sleeve, studiously kept away from any controversies on the subject, was not ostentatious about either his religious beliefs or practices, was not seen publicly to be pushing for any " affirmative action" on behalf of his community: his true religion was science. To that extent he was, according to the BJP's line of thinking, a model Muslim, the polar opposite of an Aurangzeb- and it is this model the BJP wants to promote. Not for it the raucous, constitution spouting, politically aggressive, justice seeking Muslims of Kashmir, UP and Hyderabad. ( Incidentally, not for it also the gentle, erudite Hamid Ansari, our Vice President, who had the temerity to suggest that the govt. needed to do more for the upliftment of this community) Which better way to promote  this model than by renaming the road ? The capital qualities of Dr. Kalam deserve to be emulated by adherents of all religions, but to obliquely hold them up as a yardstick for just one community is to diminish them, and the man himself.

  By this misplaced action the govt. has done great dis-service to Mr. Kalam: it has brought this gentle, humble man of science and letters to the centre of a controversy and a strategem he would have had no time for. How much better it would have been if the govt. had instead named a space mission, or an institution of higher learning, or a series of scholarships after the late President. The govt. would do well to stop tampering with either history or the memory of a man like Abdul Kalam, perhaps the last of a vanished breed. 

BLACKMAIL SIMPLICITER -- MORE BITTER TRUTHS ABOUT OROP.

   I may be out of step with the times, but I am convinced that what has been happening at Jantar Mantar in Delhi over the last two months exemplifies neither discipline nor loyalty nor patriotism, notwithstanding the vaunted claims by the Ex-servicemen League( ESM). There is a regular torrent of abuse( of the government, the civil services and politicians) and vilification flowing from senior ( retired) defense officers, and they have not spared even their Supreme Commander, the President of India- just yesterday he was sent a letter by the ESM holding him responsible for " any damage or mishap" that may occur to the hunger strikers, and accusing him that "under your rule a soldier's life is at stake....". So much for devotion to the country.

   There is more. The tone and tenor of their statements ( and that of some retired Chiefs who, having compromised themselves earlier by quietly accepting OROP for themselves and dumping their " boys", really have no moral right to protest now) are becoming noticeably menacing and threatening. One day we are warned that the ESM is in touch with serving soldiers and heaven help the country if disaffection spreads to the armed forces. The next day we are told that helping the civil administration in case of natural disasters is not the army's job, and what will the govt. do if this assistance is denied? A retired Chief cautions the govt. on television that these guys are not trade unionists but soldiers, that they know how to fight and will not back down. To me this is coming uncomfortably close to incitement and downright blackmail.

  And then there is the final irony- a group of ex-soldiers who claim to be totally apolitical now indicating that they could jump into the Bihar election to muster support for their cause ! Make up your minds, gentlemen- are you ex-soldiers or an aspiring political outfit, which is what you are increasingly looking like with your rebellious statements and open defiance of the govt.?

  As I've categorically stated earlier ( THE BITTER TRUTH ABOUT OROP) there is a strong case made out for compensating soldiers for their early retirement but this is limited to the jawans and ORs, not the officers. The former retire between the ages of 35 and 38 and constitute 85% of the total strength of the armed forces. The officers have it much better- every commissioned offer retires in the time scale of a Colonel at 54, and then has the option of 4 years of reemployment within the force itself. He effectively retires, therefore, at 58 ( as against 60 for the civil services, not such a significant " discrimination" as the ESM is making it out to be), with the full notional benefit of 33 years service for computing his pension. Even these two years are the result of the doctrine of having a " young army" and not because of any conspiracy by the govt. to keep the army subjugated, as is being constantly made out by ESM. The sheer nature of their job demands a degree of physical fitness that declines with age. Take the converse- Doctors and Professors in higher medical and educational institutions retire at 65 because in their case the primary consideration is not physical fitness but intellectual ability and acquired expertise. Nobody- not even the IAS!- grudges them this because the rationale is reasonable. It is the same with the armed forces.

  The ESM has been very economical with the truth when it talks about discrimination with the armed forces in the matter of pensions. It fails to mention, acknowledge or accept that the govt. has already provided them with a massive advantage over the civil services. Civil service officers who have joined service on 1.4.2004 and thereafter are no longer entitled to assured pensions from the govt. They are now enrolled in the NPS ( National Pension Scheme), a fund to which both the employee and the govt. contribute a fixed percentage of salary every month. The pension payable depends on the profits generated by the NPS fund. In other words, there is no longer an assured percentage of pension for civil employees. BUT THE GOVT. HAS KEPT THE ARMED FORCES OUT OF THE NPS-THEY CONTINUE TO ENJOY THE BENEFIT AND SECURITY OF ASSURED PENSIONS. Be honest to yourself at least, Generals, if not to the country.  

  Another myth that needs to be busted is that armed forces officers are denied the promotions that their civil counterparts are entitled to. I personally agree that the promotion bandwagon in the higher civil services has gone berserk and this self serving policy needs to be drastically pruned. But this does not render the ESM's claims for a similar absurdity in their case legitimate. For the same reasons of operational effectiveness the army perforce has to have an acute pyramidal structure, which naturally puts limits on promotional avenues. This is an imperative of the service which all the members of the ESM were doubtless aware of when they joined NDA or IMA. Why try to smuggle this demand through the backdoor when you entered from the front?

  The same logic applies to the constant outcry about hardship postings, non-family stations, casualties etc. It goes with the territory and the uniform, which is why the armed forces are respected. These conditions are not peculiar to the Indian army either but are part and parcel of all armies across the world. In fact, service conditions are much worse in the police and the CPMFs. The govt. has been making attempts to compensate for some of the harsher conditions by providing generous allowances, which the ESM is not factoring in in the discourse. It does not behove a fine and proud armed force like ours to constantly wail about these things. After all ours is not a conscripted armed force but a voluntary one, and if you can't take the heat don't enter the kitchen.

  In fact, it is now clear that the officer cadre is riding piggy back on the jawan to extract the maximun benefits for themselves. It now appears that the jawans and ORs( including the NCOs and JCOs) have seen through this game: it was reported yesterday in the Hindustan Times that the ORs have now decided to float a separate body called the All-India Ex-servicemen ( AIE), and this is what their co-ordinator Bir Bahadur Singh had to say: " The OROP movement has been hijacked by the officers who normally have been given lots of advantages. It is our legitimate rights that have never been taken into consideration."

  This is a significant development, and the central govt. should take note of this, because it brings the spotlight exactly where it should have been focussed all these days- on the jawan. It is precisely at this level that the healing touch and correction/ rectification measures need to be applied ( and not through OROP, which is a diversionary smoke screen). Not that the govt. has not made attempts to do so in the past. A little known fact is that till the Third Pay Commission a jawan served only for 5 years and was not entitled to any pension. ( INDIA TODAY, August 17, 2015). It was only in 1973, on the recommendations of the TPC, that he was not only given a tenure of 15 years but also made entitled to pension. But much more needs to be done, because he still retires at 35.

  The solution, as I've been maintaining, does not lie in the easy and financially disastrous OROP formula. A country which gives 50% pension to an individual for 50 years for having served for 15 years cannot but be both intellectually and financially bankrupt. The best solution to this vexed problem is already on the table before the govt.- lateral induction into the police and CPMFs. In fact this was suggested by the Sixth Pay Commission but the central govt., no doubt under pressure from the police and CPMFs, chose to ignore it. Opposition from the latter is to be expected for a number of sordid reasons for which one does have the time here, but Mr. Modi has to override his bureaucracy and political colleagues and implement this recommendation of the SPC. It will at one stroke remove the just grievances of the ORs and jawans, improve exponentially the image and effectiveness of the police and CPMFs, eliminate the need for any OROP, prevent a similar agitation by the civilian employees, save the country thousands of crores and ensure we do not go the way of Greece.

  It is time for the ESM to back down and enter into meaningful dialogue with the central govt., show some flexibility, and cease putting themselves on a pedestal. They say they are not trade unionists but are behaving exactly like them. Stop this blackmail, for it is engendering indiscipline and tarnishing the image of the Indian soldier which we hold in high esteem. Discuss with the govt. the real issues that bedevil the jawan and do not try to feather your own nest by using him as a proxy. Don't try to bankrupt a country you have sworn to protect.

  As for Mr. Modi, we have been waiting for 16 months for him to show some real leadership. His time starts NOW.

THE BITTER TRUTH ABOUT OROP

   The current debate about OROP ( One Rank One Pension) has become infused with too much passion, emotion, recriminations, frustration and downright prevarication. This, though perhaps understandable, is not healthy because it tends to blur and take the focus away from the hard issues involved, and prevents a rational analysis of the problem. The plain fact is that OROP is just not implementable, and the sooner the Govt. comes out with an open admission on this, and stops leading the defence forces down the garden path, the better.
   The govt. consists of scores of departments( of which the armed forces are also a part), thousands of categories of posts and hundreds of pay scales/ ranks. Their remuneration, promotion avenues, pensions have been arrived at after decades of deliberation and many Pay Commissions. There are intricate linkages between them ( called " equation" in govt. parlance): the whole structure is like a huge spider web in which all the strands are inter-connected, and disturbing just one cobweb destabilises the entire structure. The demand for OROP threatens to do exactly this, and this is why the govt. is unable to take a decision on this controversial issue.
   The basic premise of OROP is inherently flawed. One's pension is inextricably linked to one's salary at the time of retirement and not to the salary of the same post twenty years later. That is why Pay Commissions, every ten years, do not link past pensions with current salaries but provide a percentage growth to those pensions. This is true of not just the armed forces ( as some may think) but of the entire govt. structure, including ALL civilian posts- with one exception.
   This exception is the " causus belli" or the root of the problem. Many years ago the IAS contrived a sleight of hand( at which we are past masters) to ensure that the highest echelons of the elite civil services, at least, get the benefit of OROP ! This is how it was managed: the highest pay scale in govt. ( currently) is Rs. 80000/ fixed. ( only the Chiefs of the three defence forces and the Cabinet Secretary are in the fixed scale of Rs. 90000/.) It was decreed that all who retire in this scale( known loftily as the Apex Scale) would get OROP- that is, their pensions would always be linked to whatever revised Apex Scale the subsequent Pay Commissions decided. Since every single IAS( or IFS) officer retires in the Apex Scale this forever ensured OROP for themselves. To reduce any opposition to the strategem, some Apex Scale posts were also made available to other All India services.
  The top brass in the armed forces were also party to this decision, for they also got a share of the pie. Take the Army. The Apex Scale has also been provided to the VCOAS, Army Commanders, Lt. General( NFSG) and one third of the total strength of Lt. Generals in the force. The same applies to their counterparts in the other two forces. This may perhaps explain why we have not heard the top echelons of the forces coming out in public support of the demand for universal OROP.
   Giving OROP to just the Apex Scale was a bad and inequitable decision, and all the elite civil services and the armed forces were party to it. So, don't just blame the " babus" please.
  The chickens have now come home to roost and they're making quite a racket over it, as chickens will do. Extending OROP to just the defence forces is neither fair, nor possible. It is not fair because, emotive claims apart, they are not the only ones serving the nation- the primary school teacher in a Naxal village in Dantewada is also doing so, the coal miner spending twelve hours every day in the pitch darkness of a flooded mine in Jharia is also doing so, the fireman rushing into a burning building in a Mumbai slum is also doing so. Nor does it help the cause to quote statistics about the number of caualties- the para military forces and some state police forces have consistently had higher casualties than the army over the years. Demanding a special dispensation on the basis of an exclusive claim to patriotism is never a good idea- it has tinges of a hubris that does not go well with the concept of selfless service.
  The acceptance of the OROP demand is also not practically or legally possible, because it cannot be limited to the armed forces only, and any extension to other services and departments will bankrupt the govt. for all times. The stirrings have already started- the Central Para Military Forces, the Railway unions, some Associations of central govt. Ministries- have already given ominous hints that if OROP is allowed to the armed forces it cannot be denied to them. So we're no longer talking of just 22 lakh ex-servicemen and 6 lakh widows- we're talking of tens of millions of central and state govt. employees. We're no longer looking at a financial implication of Rs. 8000 crores but ten or twenty times that. Its a no brainer.
  And yet there are some aspects of the demand of the armed forces that are legitimate, that are peculiar to them, and which any sensitive govt. has to consider sympathetically. The primary one for me is their early retirement ( especially for the jawans and ORs) and subsequent unemployment with relatively low pension rates. The solution to this vexed imbroglio has to come out of the box and not from any manual of the finance department. Although it is certainly presumptuous of me I would make so bold as to suggest the following steps as an alternative to OROP:

*  Eradicate the root and genesis of the problem--- abolish the OROP benefit provided only to the holders of the Apex Scale and cover them under the same formula of pension as applicable to others. This may occasion some resistance from about twenty thousand or so of our plastic frame and a few defence brass but it would remove the heart burning of many millions of others and restore equity.
*  Provide higher pay scales to members of the armed forces to compensate them for their shorter service tenures and lack of promotion avenues. In order to do this the bureaucracy should once and for all give up the specious notion of maintaining "equations"- there are no equations between apples and oranges.
* Increase the gratuity available to ORs and jawans.
* Provide 50% reservation for jawans and other ORs in all central para-military and state police forces at appropriate levels. Not only would this single measure provide gainful employment to them for another 25 years, it would also considerably enhance the image and effectiveness of these forces because of the sterling qualities of discipline and integrity which these ORs would bring with them. I calculate that there would be about 30000 retirees from the army every year- the annual vacancies in the para-military and police forces would be many times this number, so adjusting the former should pose no problem. Ex-servicemen Directorates already exist at the Centre and in the states and they can maintain the data of retirees and forward the names against requisitions.

  OROP is a mirage which will never materialise. If the lot of our ex-servicemen is to be improved and their obvious career disadvantages compensated, suggestions like the above have to be considered. Mr. Modi should learn a thing or two from the armed forces- instead of a head-on confrontation with them he should execute a flanking manoeuvre. 

INDIA'S DYSFUNCTIONAL LEGAL ECOLOGY CANNOT SUPPORT CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

     This is not an article about the religious, moral, retributive or utilitarian basis for opposing the death penalty. This is also not about Yakub Memon or the arguments for and against his hanging. This is not about terrorism, or Pakistani/ Isis  inspired terrorists. It is not about the Mumbai riots or the Mumbai bomb blasts, either. It is not about Islamic terror or Saffron terror or about other convenient labels that make for animated discussions in TV studios or Parliament. It is about our legal eco-system and its fitness and professional integrity to qualify it for putting people to death. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.

     Such a health check is necessary, because at this very moment 1617 condemned human beings are awaiting death in our prisons. I'm guessing that the majority of Indians would say that they are dangerous to society, like a cancer, and like any cancerous growth must be excised from our body. An apt simile, no doubt, but it must be remembered that carcinomas are removed on the basis of irrefutable, scientific, proven evidence- not on assumptions, subjective surmises and arbitrary guidelines. If I could have the same faith in our legal system that I would have in a diagnosis of cancer by a competent medical institution, I would not be having the doubts about capital punishment in our country that I have today.

     Added to this is a mounting pile of evidence across countries that makes the sheer finality of this sentence blood-curdling, forcing us to think again whether we are omniscient enough to play God. The latest findings of the National Law University, Delhi clearly prove that the death penalty is disproportionately applied to the marginalised, the poor and the minorities. This is also the evidence in the United States where a black is three times more likely to be executed than a white. And the real chilling finding, by the National Academy of Sciences in the USA: that at least 4% of capital convictions were found to be totally wrong! This figure is bound to be many times higher in a country like ours ( for reasons given later in this article), and therefore is bound to raise the question: is our legal system so perfect as to permit us to kill other human beings in cold blood ?

     A legal eco-system consists of three layers: the LEA( Law Enforcing Agency), the Judicial System and the Government. The first carries out the investigation, the second conducts the trial, and the third legislates the laws, including mercy petitions and pardons. It is my submission that all three are so badly flawed in India that we might as well toss the ( loaded) dice to decide who gets to hang.

     The LEA first, which means the police. Today in India NO ONE trusts  police investigation- not the govt., not the opposition, not the public, not the judges. The trend is to demand a CBI investigation into every major crime, and not without reason, for state police investigations are perceived to be guided by money, political expediency, career progression and increasingly now by TV debates. The whole effort is to quickly nail the most convenient candidate, and not to get at the truth: this is not a hypothesis but a fact, as the abysmal conviction rates demonstrate. They can ( and do) steer investigations into letting the guilty off the hook ( as the unfolding Vyapam case and the burning to death of a journalist in UP, allegedly at the instance of a Minister, shows); or in framing innocent persons, as evidenced in the Pandher and the Arushi murder cases. The most blatant example of this, of course, has to be the Hashimpura mass murder of 40 Muslims by the PAC- after 33 years all 21 accused policemen were let off for want of evidence! Evidence is created or destroyed, witnesses are intimidated or bought off or even killed, as the Vyapam and Asa Ram cases have shown, post mortems are manipulated, records are conveniently lost. What ultimately lands up in courts is either a deliberately weakened case or a concocted one. To condemn someone to death on the basis of these types of investigations is, to me, a crime no less than the one the person is accused of.                                                                                                                                                                The LEAs are ever willing to pander to political influence and go slow in the investigation of cases the govt. of the day finds inconvenient, even cases involving terrorist activities and large number of deaths. The Samjhauta blasts, the Malegaon bombing, the Mumbai riots of 1993, the massacre of Sikhs in 1984- these are prime examples of how the police can be used to protect mass murderers from the death penalty. Inevitably, in a few more years all evidence will have disappeared ( this has already happened in the Sikh killing cases) and everyone can live happily ever after.

 This is not to say that that all police investigations are tainted or flawed; many convictions must be correct- but that is not the point. The point is that, once the credibility and fairness of a process is irretrievably damaged, all its outcomes become suspect.

Our judicial system is only marginally better. The growing perception among the citizens ( one voiced by many eminent jurists also of late) is that the kind of justice you get is dependent on your political clout and wealth, which only can ensure the marquee lawyers who can sway the courts. How else does one explain a Salman Khan getting bail in a matter of hours, a Jayalalitha's conviction being stayed with the same alacrity, a Nanda walking free after only a couple of years inspite of deliberately killing a number of people and destroying evidence, an eminent lawyer continuing to practice inspite of being caught on tape suborning and influencing witnesses in an important murder case ? The list is endless.

The fairness of our trial system is tested in other ways also, and found wanting. One expects judges to be proactive in sifting through the quality of evidence in at least important cases relating to murder and rape, especially given the stratagems adopted by the police. One rarely sees this happening, or any application of mind. The most telling illustration of this were the Jessica Lal and Nitish Katara cases, in which the accused would have just walked away had it not been for the sustained pressure by the media and civil society. Thousands of other similar cases probably just drop through the cracks in the judicial system, unnoticed.

Equity is lacking also in the manner in which cases are taken up for hearing, leading to justified suspicion of pick and choose. Why is there still no closure in the Uphaar fire case in which dozens died due to established negligence, even 18 years later ?- the Ansals got a paltry one year sentence ( yes, for proven negligence leading to the death of 67 persons!), and even that is being appealed in courts and there has been no date given for two years! Why is the Supreme Court unable to find time to dispose off the appeals of the Nirbhaya convicts, a case which the govt.had promised to fast track, even though it has time for the Chautalas and Sahara Shris ?  I suppose justice is being done but it certainly does not appear so, and perception is all that matters in the dispensation of justice.

These murky waters have been further muddied by the Supreme Court in a few judgements relating to capital punishment. I refer to the " rarest of rare cases" doctrine and automatic commutation of death to life imprisonment in cases of delay in deciding mercy petitions. Though well intentioned, these orders display a tint of hubris and confound an already confused subject. They introduce a discretion, subjectivity and arbitrariness into a process already lacking in transparency and equity. And they're not working. The Supreme Court has itself admitted that seven of its death penalty orders were erroneous, contrary to the rule of the rarest of rare and were incuriam. If death penalty is to be given only in the rarest of rare cases then how come 1617 people have been condemned to hang in just the last fifteen years ? Why should my life depend on the discretion of a judge who may be having a bad day, or just doesn't like my face ? A Supreme Court or a High Court judge may use his discretion wisely , but can we expect the same from every Sessions judge holding court in a hinterland steeped in casteism, family rivalries, criminalised politicians and obscurantism ? It is precisely this kind of subjectivity which enabled Dara Singh to escape the gallows even though he had locked up a missionary and his two minor sons in a car and then set it on fire, roasting them alive. This cold blooded murder cum infanticide was not deemed to be a rarest of rare case. Some degree of discretion in law is inevitable but the constant effort should be to minimise it, not increase it as the Supreme Court has done.

Even more subversive of justice is the doctrine that delay in deciding mercy petitions shall lead to commutation to life. This short-sighted fiat has thrown open the doors of discretion to the govt., one agency which can NEVER be trusted to use it wisely or fairly.

The govt. is the third layer in the justice system and one more concerned with the politics of justice than its equity or fairness, It has used the doctrine of delay to the hilt for its own political ends, whether at the centre or in the states . Its shameless misuse for political ends has ensured that the killers of an ex- Prime Minister have been granted commutation( and may even be released prematurely if the Tamil Nadu govt. has its way), and that the killers of Beant Singh may well receive the same relief. Furthermore, the govt. has the discretion to decide one mercy petition and keep the others pending, depending on who it wishes to hang and who it wants to save. Petitions should be disposed off according to their place in the queue, but that's not how the system works: the petitions of Kasab, Afzal Guru and Memon were all made to jump the queue and quickly decided( rejected) with the last being taken PERSONALLY by the Home Minster to the President at night, while other, older ones are still pending. This is unscrupulous manipulation of a dubious doctrine to begin with.

    This then is the reality of the larger criminal justice eco-system in India. It is plagued with inconsistencies, corruption, opaqueness, subjectivity, discretion, cronyism, hubris and plain gutter politics. It shows no mercy or compassion to the poor and disadvantaged, indeed, it singles them out for its own brand of justice. Even in the best of societies, as Faiza Mustafa noted in a recent article, " human judgements are never so certain as to permit society to kill a human being judged by other human beings." To permit it in a fractious and dysfunctional society like ours is an abomination. All reasonable Indians should strive to ensure that we join that group of one hundred nations which have abolished Capital punishment. We should not play God, especially when there will never be a consensus on whose God is the right God.   

SOCIAL CHANGE: SUPREME COURT AS THE DEFAULT OPTION

      It is typical of our sensation-hungry and morally bankrupt times that a recent judgement of the Supreme Court, delivered earlier this month by Justice Vikramjit Sen, has attracted little or no notice at all. This path breaking order, emanating from SLP ( Civil) no. 28367 of 2011 against an order of the Delhi High Court dated 8.8.2011, decrees that an unwed mother cannot be forced to disclose the name and particulars of the father of her child. What makes this judgement so momentous is that it recognises the rights of a woman( and her child) in a society that is still essentially patriarchal. It is a huge leap forward in reaffirming the right of privacy of  women and in accepting, without being sanctimonious, the emerging phenomenon of the single mother. Justice Sen's further achievement in his judgement has been the bringing together of the threads and tenets of different religions to confer further legitimacy on his order. He has eloquently demonstrated how his conclusion conforms to Hindu thinking ( The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956), Mohammedan precepts and Christian law ( Indian Succession Act 1925), and therefore removes any jingoistic challenge to his findings. For me, however, the real significance of this matter goes beyond individual judges and judgements: it lies in an analysis of the forces that shape the evolution of a society- upwards to enlightenment or downwards to the darkness of ignorance.

India today appears to be on the downward spiral, especially over the last few years. Intellectually and morally we seem to be regressing to the dark ages when all individualism, non-conformism, intellectual exploration and liberal thinking are frowned upon and even persecuted. Any attempt at changing out-dated customary practices or social reforms is shouted down by religious bigots, self-appointed guardians of public morality, khap panchayats or ante diluvian politicians. And their opposition is not limited to just " shouting down" any proponent of change- they have also devised an administrative and legal structure that enforces their rabid intolerance. This pernicious structure has to be dismantelled-the question is: who will do this?  The essence of the problem is that the country has ceased to produce visionary thinkers or social reformers after Raja Rammohan Roy, Gandhi and Vivekenanda. I am 64 years old and I have not seen in my lifetime the emergence of any such intellect that could act as a beacon for social change. Nehru had a vision of sorts but he was more of a synthesiser of divergent views than a genuine philosopher, Sardar Patel was too caught up in the here and now, Jaiprakash Narain was a well intentioned flash in the political firmament, Ram Manohar Lohia was an existentialist socialist not a social reformer, VP Singh was a divisive not a uniting force, and the God men of today are nothing but spiritual entrepreneurs. There is no hope either from the current crop of politicians who may call themselves " leaders" but are actually being led by the nose by base considerations such as appeasement of the forces of caste and religion, the instinct of self-survival, an insatiable appetite for money and the naked craving for power. How then can our society progress to join the other nations who are leaving us far behind on the scale of " civilisational values"?

    Events in the recent past lead me to believe that it is only active judicial intervention- through the forum of the Supreme Court- that can bring about much needed social changes in a society rapidly regressing into the age of darkness. The decriminalisation of suicide ( by the scrapping of Sec. 309 of the IPC), upholding the right of free speech by striking down Sec.66   of the Information Technology Act, the repeated quashing of cynical , caste and religion centric laws, attempts to clean up an electoral system weighted heavily in favour of criminals and black money, forcefully declaring that the LGBT community and transgenders have all the rights of other citizens in this country- these are some of the achievements of the Court in the recent past. They are important because they are essential stepping stones to a society based on the rule of law and premised on the humane values that define civilisation. And each of these successes have come in the face of stiff opposition from governments, political parties, religious leaders and pressure groups who do not want the status quo to change.

   But even the Supreme Court has not covered itself in glory on all occasions, and at times has shrunk back from acknowledging that in this putrid milieu its responsibility as THE agent for social change is inescapable. It is imperative that the Court acknowledge this role and not see itself merely as the arbiter of disputes and final judge of criminality. Through the decades, by an aggressive and pro-active interpretation of the Constitution, the Court has carved out for itself an increased role in the affairs of the state; but this should not be limited only to issues such as the determination of who will appoint judges, or how judges cannot be arrested without prior approval of the CJI, or who is qualified to sit on Tribunals. The real canvas should be much larger( as the Supreme Court has demonstrated on many occasions, as mentioned earlier). The immediate test for the Court is staring it full in the face even today, in the form of four landmark cases pending before it for adjudication:

Decriminalisation of homosexuality:  

Section 377 of the IPC, which makes homosexuality a crime, is an abomination in the legal system of any progressive society. Inserted by Macaulay in the 19th century in deference to the then existing Victorian mores in Britain it has been repealed long ago in the country of its origin, but continues to torment people in this country even today. It bears mentioning that even the Catholic church, which for centuries has opposed homosexuality, is having a rethink on the matter: questioned about it recently, the Pope was reported to have said:  "Who are we to judge.....?"                                                         Out of 193 nations in the United Nations homosexuality is not a crime in 114 of them- we belong with the remaining 79, but it is not company we should be proud of- Burundi, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Pakistan, Yemen, Quatar, to name just a few. Except large parts of Africa, the Middle-east and South-east Asia the rest of the world has recognised the injustice of treating millions of people as criminals simply because they have a different sexual orientation. On 2.7.2009 the Delhi High Court, in a judgement remarkable for its sensitivity, scientific reasoning and world view, struck down Sec. 377 as unconstitutional. Unfortunately, this was overturned by the Supreme Court on 11.12.2013 in a timid order that for me will always be a blot on the Court's record. The specious argument for doing so was that it was for Parliament to legislate on the matter. Why then is the Supreme Court entertaining challenges to another legislation passed by Parliament, viz the NJAC( the National Judicial Appointments Commission) ? No, sir, this is no defence for having developed cold feet in the face of opposition from Neolithic elements- the same court has on innumerable occasions in the past quashed or read down legislation which was unconstitutional: it could have done the same by upholding the enlightened verdict of the Delhi Court. Fortunately, the matter is before the Supreme Court again in a bunch of revision/ curative petitions and we hope that it makes amends now for its earlier decision.

Marital rape:

If it is at all possible to have a bigger abomination in law than the one mentioned above, it is the government's/ law breakers' refusal to recognise that marital rape is a crime just as much as rape simpliciter is. Although the latter is a crime under Sec.375 of the IPC there exists in it an exception which specifically provides that rape in marriage is not a crime! There can be few things more abhorrent and repulsive to the rule of equality of sexes. Based on the ancient premise( still prevalent in some religions, not all of them Semite) that women are chattel and the property of men, any society that still tolerates this provision of law cannot possibly call itself either humane or cultured. This matter is also being heard by the Supreme Court now. The government has opposed the scrapping of the exception clause on the grounds that marriage is a sacred covenant with which the court should not interfere, that societal customs should be respected and that rape in marriage is difficult to prove. This, to me, is an astounding and incredible position for a government to adopt- marriage is a legal covenant and governments have always made laws to to ensure it is practiced fairly: in matters relating to dowry, divorces, custody of children, maintenance, division of property and so on. Why should it not intervene in one of the most pernicious practices within the closed doors of a bedroom? Surveys have shown that more than 60% of wives are subjected to this form of rape at some time or the other- is this a " societal custom" that the government wants to condone and continue to legalise? And so what if it is difficult to prove?- so is dowry harassment, and sedition, and blind murders, and Lalit Modi's embezzlements and Shivraj Chauhan's complicity in Vyapam. It does not, however, lead to the conclusion that anything which is difficult to prove should be legalised! I hope the Court laughs the Attorney General out of court while scrapping this exception in law. And while doing so, I sincerely hope it also throws out another scandalous, anti-women provision- the law that allows courts to order " restitution of conjugal rights" on a woman. What this amounts to is ordering a wife to have sex with her husband, even if she doesn't want to ! Can this be anything but the legalising of rape within marriage ?

Assisted suicide:

The constitutional right to life is incomplete without the concommitant right to die. Our own Supreme Court has held that the right to life includes the right to live with dignity. In that case if a person can no longer live with dignity owing to his physical condition- no control of his bodily functions, comatose, dependent on others, tubated from every orifice in his body and a few others surgically created, in unbearable pain, kept alive only by a battery of machines- should he not then have the right to decide whether he wishes to end this vegetable existence? No, said the Supreme Court in another extremely disappointing judgement in December 2014, in the case of the unfortunate Mumbai nurse Aruna Shanbaug, who had been in a vegetative state for more than thirty years. The Court refused to allow the withdrawal of medical interventions that alone kept her alive. ( The lady died this year, a living- dead?- example of how even the best legal brains can falter.) By the same judgement the Court has allowed " passive euthanasia" but not " active euthanasia" which in more sensitive nations is called " physician assisted suicide ( PAS)."

PAS is legal in four countries, Quebec in Canada and at least four states of the USA. Legislation to permit it is pending in the UK and France. Though the details vary, PAS basically allows a physician to prescribe the terminal dose to the recipient, though the latter has to administer it himself. Of course, at least two other Doctors have to certify that the patient is terminally ill and has no hope of recovery. Public opinion in developed countries is now veering around to the view that PAS should be allowed subject to a mechanism to prevent its misuse. Along with this, the concept of the " living will" is also gaining acceptance- a document which a person makes out while still in control of his senses, to the effect that if he is incapacitated at some future date, in agony and unlikely to recover, no life prolonging medical interventions should be made to keep him alive. A " living will" makes it easier for PAS to be applied.

The issue of both, the living will and " mercy killing" ( as we call it in India!), is pending before a constitution bench of the Supreme Court, and it is to be hoped that the Court will examine it rationally, bereft of the religious, " cultural" and ersatz compassionate jingoism that it will inevitably attract from various quarters. We hope also that the Court will take into account the fact that alternative mechanisms which can support life and obviate the need for PAS are completely lacking in India. Quite often the extreme medical conditions that drive families or individuals to opt for suicide are the result of massive deficiencies in a country's health care systems. A recent survey by AIIMS itself revealed that 40% of its trauma/ paralysed patients died within two years of discharge because they had no access to post hospital care. It takes 9 months to get an MRI done at a govt. hospital in Delhi, and a year to obtain a date for a major operation. India spends just 2% of its budget on health care, less even than Srilanka, Bangladesh and Cuba. We do not have a system of " hospices" or home based nursing care which could improve the last days of a terminally ill patient and thus remove the need for PAS. In this connection, every single judge of our Supreme Court should read the remarkable ( for a Doctor) book by Atul Gawande, " BEING MORTAL". This is a book which highlights the lack of compassion in a medical profession dedicated to prolonging life rather than in improving its quality, especially in the last few days before an inevitable death. In the USA the focus is rapidly shifting to the latter and there are now more than 17000 institutions that do so. In India our medical apparatus, especially the state apparatus, is not even good at prolonging life; the private sector only partially succeeds in order to milk the maximum moneys from the soon to be departed. Until this context improves there will be an inevitability about the need for PAS, and it should be allowed, both to preserve the dignity of the suffering and the sanity of the living. One hopes that the judges will realise that this is not merely an arid legal issue but one that reflects a social reality and demands a compassionate response.

Criminal defamation:  

A social order which puts a man in jail for saying something which another man does not like cannot be called civilised and is not likely to progress beyond a banana republic stage. In practically all developed countries defamation is a civil offence, not a criminal one, but in India we persist in demonising it. It happens because the moment something is categorised as criminal the police step in with their fearsome powers. This eminently suits our politicians, the wealthy and the well connected who can use the police apparatus and the even more intimidating legal system to brow beat and persecute those who dare to utter anything unpalatable or accusatory about them. There can be no freedom of speech if we have to look over our shoulder at the nearest police station or magistrate's court everytime we write an article or utter something in public about someone. By criminalising defamation we provide a handy tool to the powerful to muzzle dissent, and for this reason alone it has to go. Increase its civil penalties by all means but take it away from the police.

The matter is before the Supreme Court as the criminality part of it has been challenged by a number of people including Subramaniam Swamy and Arvind Kejriwal. The government is,naturally, opposing it in its usual ham-handed manner. It argues that the monetary compensation for defamation( if it is treated as a civil offence alone) can never be adequate as we do not have a law of torts in India, and that most people in India do not have the capacity to pay any damages imposed! In other words, lock up the 190 million people in India who live below the poverty line if they commit any transgression at all ! We already have more than 450000 undertrials in our jails who do not have the money to post a bond- the govt. should be thinking about how to get them out, instead of devising means of getting more in! Secondly, by all means legislate a law of torts- we need one in any case to compensate consumers for the rampant cheating and misrepresentation that is the standard business model of most companies ( and the government too) in this ancient country of ours.

These then are some of the legal perversities hidden in the Augean stables of our republic, and how the Supreme Court cleans them out will determine our future path to a modern, rational, liberal and compassionate society. Those that prefer the status quo will no doubt throw up a host of legal challenges and try to complicate matters by all manner of legerdemain , but my hope is that the Court will hack its way through this juridical thicket to the simple truth that lies beyond it, the truth that Socrates enunciated so well: There can be no greatness without simplicity.