Successive pay commissions have served to aggravate the asymmetry

Admiral Arun Prakash retd

IN April 2006, the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, wrote a letter to Raksha Mantri (RM) Pranab Mukherjee, seeking his “…personal intervention for the appointment of a Service officer as a constituted member of the 6th Central Pay Commission (CPC)” and reminding him that “…a lack of Service representation was perhaps one of the main reasons for the dissatisfaction expressed by the Services post 5th CPC award…” While expressing agreement in principle, the RM regretted his inability to comply with this request.

The recommendations of the 6th CPC initially evoked a positive response due to an overall salary hike, but this quickly soured as specific anomalies emerged that were seen as unjust to the military. In an unprecedented move, the three Service Chiefs delayed submission of revised salary bills, effectively deferring implementation to send a message to the government. The reaction to the 7th CPC was even more severe, with the Service Chiefs, in 2016, taking the extraordinary step of writing to the Prime Minister about holding the implementation in abeyance; they executed it only after “assurances at the highest level” that anomalies would be addressed.

Civil-military dissonance has been an issue of long-standing concern in India, and it constitutes a major flaw in our national security matrix. The root of this problem lies in two convictions of the politician; firstly, that “civilian control” of the military can/should be exercised on its behalf by the bureaucracy, and secondly, that civil-military relations are a “zero-sum game” in which civilian control can be maintained/enhanced only by balancing and blunting the military’s influence/prestige. An indicator is the progressive blurring of lines between the military and the Home Ministry-helmed 1.1 million-strong Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs).

Since relative seniority in the government hierarchy is based on a functionary’s “basic pay”, the easiest way of altering established relativities is by changing the pay structures. The best instrument to effect such changes is the decadal CPCs staffed by bureaucrats. This is how successive pay commissions, all of which have excluded military representation, have served to aggravate this civil-military asymmetry.

Typical of the anomalies that have caused serious concern to the military leadership is a policy termed “Non-Functional Upgrade” (NFU), which guarantees civilians automatic higher pay entitlements, even without a merit or vacancy-based promotion. By according this unjustifiable benefit to the civilians and then to the CAPFs, but denying it to the military, the CPC not only depressed the latter’s relative status but also dealt a blow to morale.

This sense of systemic discrimination was further fuelled by other measures, including a drastic cut in pensions for soldiers disabled on duty and a system of “hardship allowances” that favoured civilians in peace areas over the military in combat zones. A dive into history is necessary in order to get to the root of these problems.

At the time of Independence, a hurried reorganisation of the imperial defence structure took place to suit the new republic’s needs. During this turmoil, the military leadership remained blissfully ignorant of a significant development orchestrated by the civil services; the armed forces HQs, instead of being designated independent “departments” of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), were reduced to “attached offices” and made subaltern to the Department of Defence. This “act of commission” was to be followed by equally significant “acts of omission”.

The Constitution, vide Article 312, created two new “All-India Services” — the IAS and the IPS (to be joined later by the Indian Forest Service). Inherited from the empire was another category of bureaucracy, known as the Central Civil Services, consisting of 89 Group ‘A’ and ‘B’ services.

In 1961, the President promulgated the Allocation of Business (AoB) and Transaction of Business Rules, which provided the administrative framework and guidance for civil service functionaries of the Government of India (GoI).

For 58 years, in none of these documents was there any mention of the military till, in 2019, the 353rd amendment to the AoB Rules incorporated the new Department of Military Affairs (DMA). However, the constitution of the Chief of Defence Staff — a historic step — still did not find mention in these rules.

Since their status vis-à-vis the All-India as well as Group ‘A’ and ‘B’ civil services has remained undefined, successive CPCs, maintaining that the armed forces do not fall into any “recognised category”, have employed whimsical logic to depress their emoluments and, consequently, their status.

Apart from upsetting historic relativities with the IAS, IPS and the CAPFs, such alterations have created awkward situations for military commanders. Civilian personnel of organisations such as Border Roads, Military Engineering Services, Naval Armament Services and Armed Forces HQ Cadre, created to support the armed forces, having overtaken their military superiors in terms of pay grades, now demand an altered relationship.

The Service Chiefs, too, receive perfunctory attention from politicians and bureaucrats because they have no locus standi as per rules of the GoI. It is the civilian Secretary, Department of Defence, who is deemed responsible for the “…defence of India, and every part thereof” and speaks for the Services. This is an iniquitous situation which has stimulated civil-military friction for decades.

As the constitution of the 8th CPC has been promulgated, the issues highlighted above assume urgency. It is incongruous that the standing of the armed forces of the Union should remain unspecified and open to repeated misinterpretation vis-a-vis civilian and police organisations. It is similarly inappropriate that the Service Chiefs and the CDS — responsible for national defence — should be denied due recognition in GoI rules and remain “invisible” in the MoD.

A clear definition of the status of the armed forces as being on a par with the All-India Services and spelling out the role and functions of the military hierarchy will lead to smooth and harmonious civil-military functioning in the MoD and the inclusion of a Service officer as a constituted member of the 8th CPC will raise the military’s morale and bolster national security.

If NFU is considered a rational measure, it must not be denied to the military.