Munshi Premchand and his Journalist.

Letter to the Editor.

Sir,

A few points about the statement of  Mr Pallam Raju , Minister Of State for Defence .He had said,"It is un-healthy and does not auger well for the Ministry or the forces."

Firstly. When a person has exhausted every available statutory and official channels  available to him for the redressal of his grievance , if not satisfied , as a last resort approaches the SC. There is nothing "un-healthy" about it.Even if that person happens to be the Chief Of Army Staff , it still does not make it unhealthy , but is a natural progression in our system , to seek justice and to get the grievance redressed.

Secondly . The Minister should have included the Country but omitted the Ministry when he said it does not auger well for the "Ministry or the forces".Yes, when a Chief of Defence Services has to approach the SC to seek justice it surely does not auger well for the forces as it is likely to adversely affect the morale of the forces and that is  not well for the Country. So far as the Ministry is concerned, it means the "babus" . Nothing bad ever happens to the babus. One can be certain that even if the Chief wins the case in SC , nothing will happen to the babu on whose noteings  decision of such vital and far reaching consequences was arrived at.  So the Ministry would be unaffected. 

Thirdly . Why is every one so surprised at this development.The writing has been on the wall for some time . Such a thing had to happen.Only surprise is that it did not happen sooner.The "older generation" of officers was  taught and brought up in the services "to obey and to follow". Even "in service" applications for redressal of grievance were rather rare.The wars of 1962 , 1965 , 1971 and Kargil operation did help to maintain, to certain extent , the respect for and the authority of the defence forces.Unfortunately tnings have changed for the worst.Those who have National interest at heart and are following the relations vis-a-vis the babus and the defence forces would not have failed to notice how , over the last 65 years the babus have succeed in undermining and diminishing the authority , the prestige,the rights and the "precedence"of the Denence Forces . Up to 5 th pay commission . the older generation officers , though not happy, never went public.Things have changed since then , The babus and the Govt got a jolt when , after every thing failed,the Defence forces went public with their dissatisfaction with the recommendations of the 6 th pay commossion.It is high time the Govt and the Politicians woke up to the mechanisation of the babus and start giving  credit and the respect to the to the defence forces which they richly deserve .

PM Velankar 

After a long tome some thing got published the very next day , 20-01-12.No cuts at all :-).
Editor added three odd lines at the end .