OPEN LETTER…….To Ex Adjutant General
By
A Veteran
Dear Lt Gen Ashwani Kumar (Retd),
Greetings of the festive season and welcome to the fold.
Hope this letter of mine finds you in fine nick after you have hung your uniform. Yesterday saw your 26 minute interview with Mr Ashish Singh of News X, which has been widely shared on social media platforms.
Sharing my thoughts in an Open Letter with a sense of dismay and trepidation after seeing your chat with Mr Ashish.
*To recapitulate briefly, there was a fracas over Army HQ’s unsigned & undated note to Honourable Finance Minister based on which Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued letter dated 24.6.2019 withdrawing IT exemption on disability pension & this snowballed into a major controversy. Erroneously thought that this would have made Army HQ rethink an inappropriate course it had embarked upon. Listening to your interview, it appears, no lessons have been drawn from an unseemly & totally avoidable controversy.*
*”History repeats itself first as a tragedy and then as farce”* aptly sums up the current situation.
Your fixity for excluding those with so called ‘lifestyle diseases’ is really disingenuous. War disabled, those getting disabled performing military duties is all very well in your scheme of things & you have coined a term for that – ‘disability by compulsion of service’.
But you cannot stand those disabled because of service conditions due to so called ‘lifestyle diseases’. I wish you had not gone by urban legends or your personal grudges to brand all ‘lifestyle diseases’ in a cavalier manner as being SELF INFLICTED. Literature on the causation of ‘lifestyle diseases’ is still evolving. Studies have repeatedly shown role of physical & mental stress and strain of service environment to be important factors for its causes. Isn’t it laughable when you go on to amplify by giving example of an officer who starts smoking & goes on to develop hypertension, labelling it as ‘disability by choice’. Wish chronic communicable diseases or so called ‘lifestyle diseases’ had such simple straightforward causes. Never heard this newly coined term -‘disability by choice’. You imply that one could just pick up a disability by approaching an armed forces doctor to monetize it. *How preposterous ! Aren’t there laid down procedures in armed forces like having an annual medical examination, holding medical boards to document a disability, review medical boards & release medical boards. Isn’t approval of such medical boards given right up the chain.*
Your interview makes it look as if there is no process in place ! Unexpected from a person holding such high office till few days ago.
*Lastly your touching upon a proposed ‘Code of Conduct for Veterans’ shows how touchy is Army HQ about justifiable criticism on social media platforms from veterans. As the adage goes ‘Charity Starts At Home’ how about Army HQ showing veterans the way forward?*
*Firstly Army HQ should stop writing Undated & Unsigned notes/letters (Anonymous Letters) to another ministry.* *Secondly Army HQ should take inputs from the environment & those affected before suggesting major policy changes to the establishment.* *Thirdly taking the sister services (Navy & Air Force) on board before writing to MoD/MoF after due deliberations in PPOC/CoSC.*
*Lastly Army HQ should not wait for erstwhile Chaiman Chief of Staff Committee to retire on 30th September 2019 and then send recommendations to MoD so that COAS could take over as the new Chairman CoSC from 30.9.2019.*
*Once you have been able to implement this ‘Code of Conduct for Army HQ’ please feel free to think about a ‘Code of Conduct for Veterans’.*
Sanguine that with display of a broader vision by Army HQ ‘Code of Conduct for Veterans’ would be superfluous.
Here’s wishing you a warm welcome as a Veteran.
*Taking a leaf out of current ‘Code of Conduct for Army HQ’ keeping this unsigned. Apologies for that.*
Warm Regards,
Xxxxx
04/XI/2019
