Dehradun Ex-Services League(DESL) celebrated reunion on 05Mar 2017 at 60 F Subash Marg with more than two dozen Zonal Presidents from far flung areas of Doon Valley under the chairmanship of Lt Gen GS Negi, Retd. Col US Thakur President DESL welcomed all guests and Zonal presidents for joining the function which was being organized first time after four decades. President DESL requested Brig RS Rawat Retd President Uttarakhand Ex-Services League for informing the veterans about the latest development issues pertaining to welfare of Ex-Servicemen.
Brig Rawat informed that a meeting was held with Raksha Mantri on 01 Mar 2017 which was attended by Lt Gen Balbir Singh, Retd President IESL, Lt Gen VK Chaturvedi, AG and many others. The issues were raised and discussed counting full service of rank as qualifying service(without any reduction for short fall in actual service) for war injury pension. OROP was also discussed and RM assured based on justice Reddy Commission, orders will be issued only after 15 Mar 2017. Matter about issue of speedy corrigendum PPOs was discussed to know entitlement in particular Veer Narees and widows. RM assured for implementation of same on priority. RM was agreed on proposal to include weight age towards pension of officers, Jcos and OR. RM categorily stated that in future all honorary rank of JCOs and NCOs should be conferred prior retirement to avoid present anomaly. RM agreed for enhancement of Reservist pension which is meager presently. He also assured for improvement of disability pension, resettlement for ESM and review for granting of medical aid to EC officers.
Col RC Joshi, Retd highlighted numerous facilities provided by different Army Training Centre for Veer Narees and their dependents, so that their children can get best education facilities free of cost and resettle well in near future. He gave example of many but one of the example of Veer Naree Smt Bimla Devi W/O Late Inder Rana of 6 Kumoan. The brave heart was martyred during Kargil operation when Veer Naree was only 21 Years old. Veer Naree educated her children so well under the guardian ship of Kumoan Regimental Centre(KRC) that her one daughter just got commission in the Army and son is an Engineer today. So Veer Narees should not loose heart rather get inspiration and seek help from their centre for their resettlement and education of their children.
Col B M Thapa, Retd Senior Vice President DESL organized the recreational events for all ESM in which Brig KG Behl, Retd Patron DESL, Col RC Joshi, Retd, Col BM Thapa, Retd, and Hav Sunil Sharma, Retd Advocate took active part and entertained all ESM. Others who attended the function were Col LB Khatri Retd Secretary DESL, Zonal Presidents Col SC Sharma, Maj JKS Rawat, Capts Ashok Limbu, KS Mall, YS Bisht, AS Bhandari, NK Thapa, Sub Majs PS Gurung, Jeet Bahadur, Subs SS Negi, Shamsher Singh Thapa, Hav BP Sharma and many others
Input
Col B M Thapa, Retd
Senior Vice President
DESL
M-9412941194
There is still one month left for the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh’s border town of Tawang but Sino-Indian verbal skirmishing is already getting into high gear. China had won the last round of jostling between the two countries over the Dalai Lama. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as part of his “tough guy” diplomacy had nudged the Dalai Lama to visit Mongolia as a counterbalance to Beijing’s spreading tentacles in the neighbourhood. In the end it didn’t come off. Mongolia had to promise China it would never again pull off such a caper. Declassified Chinese documents show the driving forces for the 1962 conflict were anchored in Tibet, especially the Dalai Lama’s exile to India. Despite extreme Chinese sensitivity to the Dalai Lama’s public engagements (it has forced many world leaders to call off their engagements with the Tibetan leader), India has enjoyed the better of the exchanges.The junior minister for bytes in all seasons, Kiren Rijiju, is on home ground when he speaks about Arunachal Pradesh. But he is either unaware of recent history or is simply playing to the gallery when he said the Dalai Lama’s forthcoming visit to Tawang is part of a “behavioural change you are seeing. India is more assertive.” For the record, this is the sixth time the Dalai Lama is visiting Arunachal. Previous governments had ignored Beijing’s fulminations and held international meets where the Dalai Lama was the chief guest.This consistent Indian policy of permitting the Dalai Lama to move freely within the country has left China resigned to registering token protests. If the current Indian government is “more assertive” as suggested by Rijiju, it should try to turn the corner on the border dispute. The Chinese have thrice hinted at a swap — this entails China and India giving up their claims to Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin, respectively. As both countries are yet to achieve a level of trust to start discussing territorial swaps, they must strive to keep a lid on emotions. Beijing too ought to realise that after its hold on Masood Azhar, it is hardly well placed to raise objections on the Dalai Lama’s social engagements.
Suhail A Shah
Anantnag, March 4
Shopkeepers in Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s home town Bijbehara in Anantnag district today downed their shutters and blocked the national highway to protest the alleged high-handedness of Army men.Traders in the Goriwan market of Bijbehara alleged that Army men had been harassing people in the name of frisking and checking for some time now. Protesting shopkeepers said Army men allegedly thrashed a truck driver today for no fault of his.“They (Army men) have been letting loose sniffer dogs into our shops regularly in the name of so-called security. We cooperated, but now they have started beating innocent people,” shopkeepers said.The business community, joined by locals, today confronted Army men for beating the truck driver and blocked the traffic on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway. The protesters raised pro-freedom and anti-India slogans. They were later pacified by the police.“Yes, there was some altercation between shopkeepers and Army men. We pacified both parties. The locals were told to come and lodge a complaint but nobody has come forward as of now,” said SDPO, Bijbehara, Tanveer Ahmad.A spokesperson for the Army was not available for comment despite repeated attempts.
Arun Joshi
More than 100 Kashmiri Muslims have registered themselves as migrants in Jammu in the past one month. They claim that they were under the threat of militants in the Valley. A sequel to the October 5, 2016 order, kept under wraps until last month, it has re-opened the registration of migrants halted in 2008. Implications for Kashmir’s internal situation are unfolding, leading to a trust deficit.
IF the Muslims in Kashmir are under militants’ threat and need to flee from the Valley, then it begets a question: Why? The PDP-BJP government thought it prudent to enable them to register themselves as migrants without making an assessment of the level of threat. It is seen as a safety valve for them. The Executive order said, “Sanction is hereby accorded to the reconstitution of the committee for screening the applications for registration of bona fide Kashmiri migrants.” The migration from the Valley started in 1990, with the eruption of militancy. Kashmiri Pandits fled the Valley. This renewed registration is essentially meant for Muslims as there are hardly any Hindus left in the Valley. Do Kashmiri Muslims need the protective cover of “migrants” to settle in a safe place like Jammu to escape the militants’ guns? No one can deny them the right to life. It is the duty of the government to protect them but this has re-opened the chapter of migration with a single executive order, without taking the cabinet into confidence. The registration was frozen in 2008 by the State Administrative Council, equivalent to the cabinet when the state is under Central rule.It doesn’t matter whether they are Hindus or Muslims. During all these years of militancy in Kashmir, the Muslims in the Valley have felt the heat of militants’ fury. They shifted to Jammu and constructed homes. As state subjects, they are within their right to settle in any part of the state. But there was no official migrant tag. Such a tag makes it mandatory for the government to provide them with accommodation, cash relief, free ration and facilities the Kashmiri Pandit migrants get. This also draws attention to several uncomfortable truths, with implications for the state and the rest of the country. Firstly, it is a big rebuke to the claim by Delhi and Srinagar that the Valley has witnessed vast improvement in the situation since 1990. Then, more than 3.5 lakh Kashmiri Hindus fled the Valley under the fear of persecution by militants. Conversely, it also is an admission that the situation has further deteriorated. This goes on to prove that the campaign to ensure the return and restoration of Kashmiri Pandits to the land of their ancestors is devoid of any substance. This would send a message to the rest of India that after 27 years, Kashmir has been distanced, physically and psychologically, from the country. Again, if the Muslims are encouraged to migrate, what about some 2,000 Kashmiri Pandits who are still living in the Valley? With their Muslim neighbours moving out, their existence becomes untenable in this “government-encouraged” atmosphere of fear. If Muslims are looking for a bright future for themselves and their families out of the disturbed Valley, surely non-migrant Pandits cannot be expected to stay back.An announcement of the opening of fresh migration of the threatened Muslims has created more space for radical elements supporting militancy and guns they believe would deliver them “freedom from the Indian occupation”. The responsibility to check their free run, in which an Islamic State-type enclave falls within the realm of reality, will fall on the Army. More gunfights and killings cannot be ruled out, howsoever dreadful the thought. Already, there have been glimpses of that in the past few months. The two sides have had formidable fights, drawing national and global attention. Politically, it suits separatists and their mainstream supporters. It will evoke international attention and undermine the possibility of resolution through dialogue. Is the government’s defreezing of migration a genuine move to save lives or a design? Either of this could be true. The security situation in the Valley is palpably very bad. Fear is rampant and all-pervasive. Family members suspect each other and neighbours have perfected art of doublespeak. No one knows who would be dubbed as a police “informer” and eliminated by militants. Perhaps, the government found a convenient way to help its own people. South Kashmir, the bastion of the ruling PDP, was the epicentre of trouble and violence in 2016. The design is to overwhelm Jammu, the Hindu-majority area until now, to get overwhelmed by the Muslim population. That, in the long term could validate claims of Pakistan and separatists that the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir are for “freedom.”At a deeper level, this belies the very idea of the return of the migrant Kashmiri Pandits to their homes in the Valley. Almost all have been saying that the Valley is “incomplete without them,” but the “incomplete” Valley has become a meaningless cliché. In the first place, the executive order runs against the spirit of the resolution passed by the state legislature that circumstances should be created for an early return of migrants to the Valley. This resolution gets reduced to just a paper when more migration is encouraged. The question, “If Muslims in the exclusively Muslim Valley are not safe, how could the Kashmiri Hindus be”? stares at the government. The other side is that the government would breathe easy as it would escape the pressure of facilitating the return of Kashmiri Pandit migrants to the Valley. Once that happens, there would be no need for a transition camp for the migrants in the Valley. The separatists would have their say that there would be no separate colonies for Kashmiri Pandits. For argument’s sake, even if it is believed that Muslim families registering themselves as migrants are under the threat of militants, then who occupies the space left by them? Obviously, the answer is the radicals and the militants.That may throw a challenge to the government at the Centre as well as give an excuse to go in for military action against the armed radicalised elements in Kashmir. This scenario is fraught with danger. The Centre cannot remain indifferent. If today, it is a problem to restore Kashmiri Pandits to the land of their ancestors, tomorrow it may be a similar problem for Kashmiri Muslims. If this is allowed, Kashmir will be a very different and a very dangerous place. The promised land of Jammu is having serious thoughts about its identity. The only way out is to involve Jammu and Kashmir politically and lift it out of fear through sustained dialogue and measures that spell hope and promise. ajoshi57@gmail.com
TWO events over the last few days, on opposite continents of the world, raise questions about the future of democracy in the US, the world’s most powerful, and India, the world’s most populous. On February 22, Srinivas Kuchbhotla was gunned down in Kansas, sharing a drink with a friend after work, by a white US navy veteran, in patently a hate crime. In India, at Ramjas College, New Delhi, a fracas broke out when BJP-aligned students’ union, ABVP, disrupted a function organised by campus students not aligned to them and invitees from JNU. The passively observant police intervened, more to rough-up the organisers than restrain ABVP disruptors. The allegation is that anti-national slogans were in the air. The attention got diverted from the melee when a young student, Gurmehar Kaur posted on social media placards denouncing the ABVP high-handedness, arguing that like her father — martyred fighting militants in Kashmir when she was little — she was unafraid to confront intolerance. The battle lines got promptly drawn, with intemperate remarks or tweets by an actor, a cricketer, a Union minister of state, and so on. In Gurmehar’s defence rose up senior journalists, retired soldiers, television anchors, etc. By nightfall, BJP spokesmen began distancing themselves from Gurmehar’s tormentors as their standard dubbing of any critic as anti-national did not work against a martyr’s daughter. The elections in UP also made it unwise to offend serving and retired servicemen. The distraction aside, the issues in the US and India are not that apart. The rise of Modi and the continued Cabinet slots for those preaching sectarian hatred is not much different from President Trump listening to the whisperings of Rasputin-like Stephen Bannon, erstwhile publisher of Breitbart News — the mouthpiece of ‘alt-right’, who is White House chief strategist. Both leaders prefer political rallies and one-way communication with chosen media outlets than transparent and frank interaction with the media. If Modi has never contradicted ministerial colleagues tarring the media with the abusive phrase ‘presstitutes’, Trump does one better by directly and almost daily referring to ‘The Fake News’. At a Florida rally, he confidently advocated — uncaring that independent media strengthens democracy — that media ‘is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people’. A former President, George Bush, has been constrained to contradict Trump’s condemnation of the media, despite both being Republicans. Both the racist killing of an Indian techie in Kansas and the ABVP use of violence to drown alternative views spring from identical philosophies and narrow visions. In case of India, it brings up the freedom of speech, while in the US it raises the spectre of nativism fed by a mix of xenophobia and fear of Islam. It is thus supremely ironical that while the Indian Government sends Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar to intervene with the US on the rising danger to Indian diaspora from white vigilantism, when under their noses similar intolerance is being happily marketed daily from election platforms in UP. Illustratively, RL Stevenson related the story about George Meredith, author of the 19th century novel, The Egoist, written to purge Victorian England of this evil, that when a young friend of the writer complained that the protagonist ‘Willoughby is me’, the writer replied: ‘No, my dear fellow, he is all of us.’ The issues arising need a closer analysis. At stake in India is the defiition of freedom of speech. Having inherited the common law-based criminal justice system from the British, India clings to antiquated laws on sedition. In the US too, immediately after their independence they enacted a sedition Act, which was allowed to lapse in 1801 as the nation matured and gained self-confidence. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the fear of Communism made the US pass the Federal Espionage Act in 1917. Thus, while the British Common Law treats freedom of speech as ‘residual freedom’, circumscribed by societal needs of morality and public order, the US Supreme Court started treating it as a ‘fundamental right’ flowing from the First Amendment from 1925. In 1969, it upheld the right of students to wear black bands to protest Vietnam War. Justice OW Holmes ruled that while a nation is at war, many things that can be said in time of peace are taboo, but the test has to be whether there is ‘clear and present danger’ of sedition, not merely the expression of an opinion or a thought. What a person, in the exercise of his freedom of expression, is doing must be more than public inconvenience or annoyance, or even unrest. India, with a concept of ‘Fundamental Rights’ borrowed from the US practice has to assess if what happened at JNU earlier, or now at Ramjas College, passes the Holmes test. The definition of nationalism cannot be crafted in Nagpur and implemented by an evangelical lynch mob. Is that not the same question that the US is today required to answer, whether ordinary whites carrying guns can ask any non-white to prove their immigration status, or why they are in the US at all. So, the diaspora that came to Madison Square Garden to chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, in response to Modi’s incantations, are being put to the kind of test of loyalty that misguided flag-carriers of the BJP, or fringe organisations of the Sangh Parivar, have been putting to their own countrymen. How does India ask Trump to be more considerate when President Obama reminded the Modi government before emplaning for the US in 2015, in his speech at Siri Fort, that Article 25 ensured freedom of conscience and it was the government’s responsibility to uphold it. While it is true that the Indian geo-political environment does compel the government to be ever-alert to forces endangering Indian territorial integrity or sovereignty, but surely campus students holding placards, or sloganeering do not compose such a threat. As Voltaire, some say wrongly quoted, said: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ Perhaps like the US Supreme Court, India’s highest court needs to re-balance the fundamental rights and the State’s obligations, and in the process, re-educate the lawyer-ministers of the BJP. The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External
New Delhi, February 27
An FIR was registered on Tuesday against unknown persons in connection with the case of Kargil martyr’s daughter Gurmehar Kaur, who complained of receiving “rape threats” allegedly from ABVP members.Yesterday, police had received a letter from Delhi Commission for Women demanding immediate registration of an FIR against those who had threatened Gurmehar (20).The FIR was registered under relevant Sections of the IT Act and the IPC, said a senior police officer.“Yesterday, DCW forwarded a complaint of a DU student reg. online abuse. Immediately, area DCP spoke to her & provided necessary security. Her complnt was examined by Cyber Cell& an FIR No.32/17, u/s 354-A,506 IPC & 67 IT Act,PS EOW has been registerd & invstigation tkn up,” Delhi Police said in a series of tweets.
Further details are awaited.
Kaur had last week changed her Facebook profile picture to one in which she was holding a placard reading, “I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me. #StudentsAgainstABVP.”Ramjas College had last week witnessed large-scale violence between members of the AISA and the ABVP.The genesis of the clash was an invite to JNU students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid to address a seminar on ‘Culture of Protests’ which was withdrawn by the college authorities following opposition by the ABVP. — PTI
I decided to extend my tribute to all 20,600 soldiers who have been martyred since Independence. I am cycling two minutes for each fallen hero. MAJ GEN SOMNATH JHA (RETD)
CHANDIGARH: A personal homage to the martyrs. That is how Maj Gen Somnath Jha (retd) describes his 162-daylong journey on cycle so far. The sun is scorching and there is not a cloud in sight but Maj Gen Jha, with the handlebar moustache and infectious smile, pedals towards Pathankot.
It was a few days before his retirement on September 30, 2016, that this infantry veteran from Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry decided to take on this mission. “I spent 37 years in the army and I’ve seen a lot of combat. As I was preparing to hang my boots, I was flooded with memories, both of battles won and friends lost. I lost many, many buddies in combat. Looking back I thought how it could have been me,” says Maj Gen Jha.
FOR 20,600 MARTYRS
It was then that the idea of this personal homage took root in his mind. While he was toying with the logistics, it struck him that he couldn’t possibly forget the rest of the bravehearts.
“Then I decided to extend my tribute to all 20,600 soldiers who have been martyred since Independence. I am cycling two minutes for each fallen hero, which means pedalling 42,000 minutes through all the 29 states because our heroes come from every corner of the country,” says Jha.
The veteran admits he was himself taken by surprise at his pace. “On Day 1, I clocked 85km and on Day 2, I went up to 125 without any aches or pains,” says the General.
It also helps to have a wife who decided to don the mantle of his tour manager. Chitra Jha, a life coach, insisted on accompanying her husband in a car. “She said she didn’t want to stay at home and fret about me,” chuckles Jha. “Now she arranges the logistics and ensures a home away from home for me,” he adds.
SMOOTH CYCLING
It’s been a long and arduous expedition through roads, good and bad, in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, thick jungles of the Northeast, undulating plains south of the Vindhyas and the dunes of Gujarat and Rajasthan, but the couple has stuck on. The General insists he’s not had any bad day. “People warned me against Maoists, wild elephants and rhinoceros, but I didn’t have a single unpleasant encounter,” says Jha, a third generation soldier. His meet-ups with locals everywhere, he says, have only reaffirmed his faith in the patriotism and generosity of an average Indian. “Every person I spoke to on the way could emotionally connect with my mission,” claims Jha.
Jha starts his day before the sun at 4am and tries to clock anywhere between 60km and 150km a day, depending on the terrain. After five months on the road, Jha says he is fitter than ever, having lost 12 kilos on the way. Easygoing in his diet, he grabs local fare by the roadside. By the way, he managed to dig into “makki di roti” and “saag” along with “kukkad” in Punjab.
The 26th state on his itinerary, Punjab, has been a homecoming of sorts for Jha who graduated from Government College for Men, Chandigarh, in 1978 and was part of the Panjab University cricket and swimming team.
THE HONOUR RIDERS
Though Jha likes cycling alone, he’s invariably joined by people eager to be part of the honour ride. And it’s not just men in olive who’ve been eagerly riding along, many others too get inspired. Fired by Jha’s mission, Balrajesh from Amritsar bought two cycles, one for himself and the other for his son Tanveer, a Class-9 student, so that they could pedal with Jha from Beas to Amritsar, and then from Amritsar to Gurdaspur.
Jha says he started his journey alone, but now he is joined by tens of thousands of Indians. “They may not be with me in person, but they are very much with me in spirit, I carry them in my heart,” says Jha, who is just 20 days away from his final destination, Amar Jawan Jyoti in Delhi, where he will pay his final homage on April 19.
Looking back, Jha says had someone asked him to undertake this journey a year back, he would have had his reservations. “But now I know if something seems daunting or even impossible, take the first step and it will get done.”
Taking a strict stand against the Army for allowing retired officers, including a former chief, to write service records of active personnel, the Armed Forces Tribunal has recently said this was against the command and control of the force and may open a “gallery of corrupt practices”.
The remarks were made by the AFT while hearing the case of one Major General G V S Rana for denial of promotion to the rank of Lieutenant General in which it was found that former Army chief Gen Bikram Singh had written his appraisal after retirement.
In the court, the Army was rebuked by the bench headed by Justice D P Singh and Air Marshal Anil Chopra on the matter even as the force said denial to make Annual Confidential Report entry after retirement is contrary to Army jurisprudence.
“We feel that conferring power to the retired Army officers to make entry in the service record of serving officers shall be anti-thesis to the command and control of the Army, and further, it may open a gallery for corrupt practice,” the bench stated in its verdict.
ARMY’S PLEA
The Army had filed a plea to seek permission from the tribunal against its previous verdict where it had denied such powers to retired chiefs in the same case.
“It is a well-settled law that once the relationship of master and servant breaks then all rights to discharge duties come to an end,” said the tribunal.
The tribunal had already declared the entry made by Gen Singh in the officer’s ACR as “illegal, invalid and void” in its judgment.
“In the present case, Gen Bikram Singh shall cease to discharge duty after retirement, conferred on him under law. He retired on July 31, 2014 but recorded ACR entry as senior reviewing officer on September 1, 2014 without jurisdiction… The CR recorded by Gen Bikram Singh, Chief of the Army Staff as SRO, after retirement is without jurisdiction and the same cannot be taken into account for the purposes of service benefits,” said the court.
The tribunal also asked the Army to consider Maj Gen Rana for promotion to the next rank by holding a special selection board. The tribunal verdict is now likely to be contested by the Army in the Supreme Court.
