 Welcome to NewsClick. We have with us once again Major Priyadarshi Chaudhary who is a Shorichak winner and counter insurgency expert. But much more than that he is the joint coordinator and spokesperson of two very important movement. One is the United Front of Ex-Servicemen and the other is India Unites, a joint front of Khissans and Javans. Welcome Major. Major I like to start with what is happening currently in this country. BJP and the right wing forces are going ballistic, criticizing and condemning people who question the Balakot trade or raise any question regarding the raid. In fact, former chief of the army staff V. Kissing who is now a minister, a junior minister in this government has gone to the extent of saying that probably we need surgical strike against all the critics from politicians, students to activists to media who question the armed forces. Major as a former soldier and one who has seen service more than six years in Jammu and Kashmir in the 90s. How do you react to this? I mean do you think civilians have no right or the media has no right or the opposition parties have no right to raise any questions of the armed forces in this country? So let me put it this way. The trigger for the Balakot operation was the Pulwama incident. It was a terrorist incident. We lost 44 of our brave hearts. Subsequently many more five others were killed. And during the last time I came here I had spoken about that we do not need to politicize this issue. This is purely a military matter and the armed forces should be given the leeway to strike back at a time and place of their choosing which they did. There is no need to politicize it. This rampant politicization of the armed forces is a threat to our democracy and to our nation and also harms the armed forces. Now having said that it is the government and the BJP which is seeking to do this politicization of the armed forces by asking for votes on the back of these operations that the army conducts whether it was surgical strike the first one post-Ori or even now. So once you do that the country and the rest of the opposition parties will ask you because you have made it a political issue. It is only but natural that other political parties will question you or firstly nobody is doubting the efficacy of the armed forces or whether the strike has happened. But if you take a step back and look at the sequence of events that have happened within 24 hours of Pulwama happening the BJP posters had sprung up across the country asking for votes. So they had something up to sleep. The armed forces were given a task and as an arm of the nation they carried out that task. You immediately go on overdrive saying that forget the real issues of the people which is across segments and I am saying talking about a gradient distress, unemployment, lack of jobs, jobless growth, armed forces, one rank one pension, the litany of who is there, student issues all of that takes a back seat and you are only harping about that you have taken a strong action. Strong action have also happened in the past in the past governments but nobody saw it fit to politicize the role of the armed forces or a strike for electoral gains. In a democracy if the government and the BJP wants to politicize it then they should expect that others will ask questions about it. We are not holy cows. And hard questions. Whatever it is you either do not politicize it and let the armed forces do their job but if you intend politicizing it you will be countered. It is a natural reaction you made it an electoral issue the other opposition parties and having said that the armed forces are not holy cows they are an arm of the state. In a democracy people will question them but they need not question them on operational elements. But for the first time in the last five years because of this rampant politicization and asking for votes in the back of surgical strikes of one or two or whatever you call it they have made it and it is actually we are playing into their hands. They have not released the data of the strikes but their control channels whether it is the media or social media talk about imaginary fictitious figures of 300, 400 where the armed forces in the briefing have not given out they achieve very clearly said it is not up to us to tell you we have conducted the strike and the opposition parties took it at that. It is the political part BJP which is saying 400, 500 and the Troll army or the this thing they are the ones talking about the numbers. So when they talk about the numbers the other political parties ask them about the efficacy of the numbers. They are not questioning the armed forces they are questioning BJP there is the difference. So let us not fall into the trap of false nationalism or impose narrative on to us that is what is dreadful. It is very interesting that while we are talking about the surgical strike one and two and BJP is trying to take advantage of to harvest votes in the in the coming general election. Since January the ex-servicemen have renewed the protest demanding one rank one pension. In the light of BJP taking credit for what the armed forces have carried out how do you read their the way in which they have handled the one rank one pension issue which has been demanded by the servicemen for a long time and BJP in 2013 in fact the prime minister in Modi in 2013 that Ravadi is on record promising that if they were to come to power they would implement it. So major would you like to take our readers or our viewers through what is the one rank one pension demand what has the BJP done and why is it that in January again revive this protest. So one rank one pension if you look at the historical perspective of it the initial agitation was started in 84 85 by Lefnkanal Inderjit and it is very clear which the two elements to it which says that if a certain individual who is retired from service with a certain rank and has a certain length of service should draw the same pension in terms of so for example same length of service same length of service is important. So if a Havaldar has retired in 1988 with 17 years of service and Havaldar retiring now with the same length of service should draw the same pension it flows from the cause of natural justice right and the second element to it is any enhancement of pension should automatically be passed on to past pensioners these are the two elements of it. In 2000 agents have been launched this agitation during UPA 2 demanding this he started the agitation united the ex-servicemen under one umbrella and started the agitation for it. The government ordered a committee under General Kanduri who is from the BJP and it was tabled in parliament in 2011 and a former army officer yeah. So the principal was accepted and adopted by the parliament in 2012. The problem was that again congress was UPA was in power they did not do comprehensive viability study based on the recommendations. So initially in 2013 they say allocated 500 crores as ad hoc allocation from the budget. You mean 2014 the last one was 500 crores this killed it up to 1000 again financial viability had not been done. So in September 2013 the prime minister designate promised in front of the united front of I think 4 lakh people there and he promised that when he demanded a white paper on the subject and said if I come to power I will implement it. It did not happen and so 2015 till June we waited and we had series of meetings with the government functionaries that then defence minister Arun Jaitley. When we went to him we were actually shocked by a statement of his which said that he and he told group of people delegation that had gone there and said and address general sir and said general sir the politicians who promise at the time of elections do not do it for the people. He said that. So we were absolutely shocked we just walked out and we started the agitation in July of 2015. In August 14, 2015 this government lot charged us at gentleman. For the first time in the history of this country veterans who had been protesting peacefully were lot charged that drew outrage from across segments of the society and the anger was so high that the government finally had to do something about it. So they passed an order of 7th November 2015 but that was not OROP. There were 7 anomalies to that and it is well documented about why it is not OROP. Suffice to say that the financial the interim allocation which general which Manur Parikasav had done was for 10,000 crores pending the viability study. When the studies were done actual OROP entailed only 8,300 crores. This present allocation or what we call pension enhancement we do not call it OROP pension enhancement accounts for 5,500 crores and the government said we have given you OROP which is not OROP. It is a principle. It is about the fight for justice. It is not about a dole. It is something which is a due right to us. The difference is only 2,800 crores. Something in the BJP and the government prevents it prevents them from giving out that balance. And they did a huge media campaign through controlled media and through the sympathizers within the armed forces saying that kuch to diya. So we say kuch to diya if you are satisfied please go ahead and do whatever you think you do not have to talk about it. This fight is for our boys right 98.2% of the ex-servicemen are from the ranks. Today the person who retired in November in 2014 when OROP was given and the person who is retired now a sipai at the lowest end of the table. The difference in pay or difference in pension is 6,700 crore rupees which is a substantial sum at the grass root for a sipai and we have scaled it up to the rank. Like I said we are committed to getting this for our boys and we will continue to raise the ante and drive up political cost for not giving us OROP for that 2800 crores is the gap and we will continue to raise the political cost and the political cost involves electoral hits. Ex-servicemen after the OROP agitation fragmented again section said we have got something past governments have not given us some anything so we should be thankful. We said we are thankful. We are thankful for the government today but there is a difference and the difference is not much. So one man judicial committee has been pending in the Ministry of Defense for 2 years without seeing the light of the day. So we decided to scale it up and take it on to other sections of society. We as soldiers fight for the country and it is time that the country fought for us. This imposed narrative to OROP the dead people asked us now when we scaled up the agitation to farmers, youth, women's organizations, chip fund organizations a whole other segment knows that this government is lying. OROP has not been given. What is it so unique about the servicemen that you believe that they are entitled to OROP which was promised which is part of the... What sets you apart? So it is the terms and conditions of our service. The main criteria here is to maintain the youthful profile of the army our boys retire after 17 years the initial ones after 17 years they start retiring after 17 years. So effectively you will see a boys retiring from the at the age of 35 to 42 when their own social responsibilities are at the peak. The children are small, they have to go to school, there is no other second employment in terms of whatever the conditions are such in the country that there are no jobs. It is almost impossible to find a soldier getting a second job. Anyway our boys 90 percent of our boys come from farming backgrounds they go back to being farmers. So it is with the Jawan Kisan agitation it is a symbiotic relationship with us. Now look at it this way because our boys retired early which is not so in any other service including the CAPFs they retire at 58 to 60. So if you compare lifetime earnings our boys are at a disadvantage 53 percent versus if you compare a constable of CRPF or a BSA. His lifetime earnings and one of our CPIs our boys only get 53 percent. It is the responsibility that the nation knows to this boy for having sacrificed his youth for the better part of his life and looks after him after he is retired. Now that we are close to elections and it is going to take place by next month. As ex-servicemen what do you think needs to be done to ensure that the commitments that have been made to you by parliament again and again are lived up to. So in the mass movement agitations that we run whether it is the one rank one pension agitation or when we coupled with India Units with the Jajavan Jai Kisan agitation and then when we scaled it up further to students, women's organizations, minorities, chit firms all of that we are looking to make a difference electorally and I am being very blunt about it. We will make a difference electorally. We are geared up as an electoral or as a political pressure group which is not in electoral politics. But having said that we focus around issues just people's issues whether it is one rank pension one pension or agrarian distress we focus keep a focus firmly on people's issues. We build consensus with opposition parties around our issues. We keep the dialogue open with the government. What are you demanding of political parties this time which would be different from. So the India Unites or the Jajjans there are three sets we have given a roaster of around 15 demands the main constraints of political parties to all political parties all the political parties farmers have three demands. We have three of our own ex-servicemen since we are the principle constant and three demands of the youth. Then minorities have a singular demand. Chit firms has a singular demand. I can give you that list of 15 odd points that we have issued to all political parties and these are all low hanging food and this is something like for us it is one rank one pension prevention of degradation of offices which prevents us are serving the boys who are serving. One of the major threats to national security is the lack of offices. 12,000 offices shut our boys in the units where they authorize 23 to 24 offices per unit having to make do with 10 11. So effectively they do not get time to train with the boys spend time with the boys get to know them better and these are men and this is a combat unit is supposed to fight or to live and die is a you have to lead many to combat. If you do not get to spend time and train with your boys how not are you going to lead these boys into battle. If it is all fine to beat the war drums and say we will go to war we will go to war but there are issues there the multiple issues there. I have also given out a manifesto of points that needs rectification by whichever government comes into power and we will talk about it subsequently. But coming back to your main question yes this time onwards we will make an electoral difference we are not going to wait for 4 years or 5 years to ask questions of the government we are going to ask every 6 months regardless of which party comes into power. Thank you Maju we will for this time we end now but we will be covering other issues from time to time because this is a very important issue for us and we look forward to having you with us. Thank you for watching NewsClick if you have any feedback do get back to us if you have any suggestion do write to us.