Wounded for life

 

 

Three years ago when the then President A.P.J Abdul Kalam was dedicating the country’s first post-Independence war memorial in Chandigarh, a young and distraught widow cried out in agony: “Memorials for soldiers are good, but the army and society at large should take care of the families of those who sacrifice their lives for the nation.” The lady was Manreet Rana, whose husband Lt. Col Amardeep Singh and 34 others were washed away while constructing a crucial bridge over Satluj river at Kharo in the Kinnaur region of Himachal Pradesh on September 8, 2005. The whole team was wiped out when the bridge collapsed, and the Army, realising the contribution made by the team, immediately declared it a “battle casualty”. However, when it came to securing compensation that was her due, things were not so easy for this mother of two widowed at the young age of 31. The question she would be asked was: “Usko kya goli lagi thee, ya woh landmine ke karan mara thha?” Manreet was vocal about the government being apathetic to non-war casualties and also earned the displeasure of certain authorities. “What others and I are saying should be taken in the right spirit. We are not cribbing but only asking for a fair deal for dependents of those who sacrifice their lives for the nation.”

Today she is wary of the Press and does not wish to come to the forefront. “Personally, I have received a lot of help from the army and the government but there are others too and the authorities should be more sympathetic in dealing with these cases,” says Manreet.

She is right. The battlefield exploits of intrepid soldiers like Capt Mohan Singh, Shaurya Chakra, Capt Gurjinder Singh Suri, Mahavir Chakra, and Havildar Anand Kumar, Sena Medal, are stuff that legends are made of. No enemy could stop them from accomplishing their difficult missions. But their families are today at the mercy of an insensitive system that does little to alleviate the irreparable loss that they suffered.

Post-martyrdom, these brave soldiers are often laid low by the apathy of a nation that forgets them and their families. Captain Mohan Singh has survived to tale the tale, but in the case of the other two men mentioned above, their families have been left to fend for themselves. What hits many army widows most is that three years after the casualty they are required to vacate their official residence and this is extendable only by six months. The army widows have been demanding that this facility should be extended to them for at least five years.

Only the names change, not the complexion of the problem. Scores of women like Manreet are getting a taste of the government’s apathy around the country. Their belief in the system is beginning to waver. Jaya Babbar is still awaiting the Rs 5 lakh compensation promised by Assam government after her husband Major Inderjeet Singh laid down his life fighting insurgents and was awarded the Kirti Chakra (posthumous) in August 2003.

She says: “It is only fair that the law be amended to give army widows an extension on the official residence. After a soldier is killed in war or peace, the widow has to cope with much. First she has to deal with a grave personal tragedy and then fend for the children and herself. And then she has to run from pillar to post to get her due.” Most casualties are of the young as they are the ones in the forefront. So most of them have not reached a stage when they would have a house of their own. Living with parents or the husband’s family becomes a choice for many but it means curtailment of the freedom of the children and also works as blow to the self esteem of the affected individuals.

Tears still flow down the cheeks of Jaya as she recalls the fateful day when her husband left home in Guwahati to never return. Having made her home in Chandigarh, she says “When I asked for a flat in the discretionary quota, I was told that I should go to J&K for that as my husband hailed from there. One does not understand this state-wise division because it is the Indian national army.”

The pension awarded to an army widow is the last salary drawn by her husband minus the allowances. This too bothers the widows. Jaya says: “The Sixth Pay Commission gave but a marginal hike. All my life I will get the same pension. Had my husband lived, the salary would have kept increasing and our daughter Priyamvada’s future would have been secure.”

The other demand of widows of officers has been a Class I job as befits an officer’s wife and more so when they are qualified to get it. Manreet has been struggling for this and Jaya also says: “I am teaching in a private school for a small salary. I would be very good at doing an administrative job and I feel it is my right to demand this of the government.” She also points out that while her husband had willed everything to her and she got it, she has seen cases where parents-in-law of widows take half the compensation. Many of the widows feel that when the government and the media join hands as was the case in Kargil, the compensation is better and quicker. However, stories of Kargil widows also show that they have had to fight many battles and very often with their own relatives. Take the case of Sudarshana Devi of Jiya village in Kangra. She was just 20 when husband, Rifleman Rakesh Chand of JAK Rifles, went to Kargil and died on June 14, 1999. During his last rites, she pushed aside the village elders and offered a shoulder to his coffin, while it was being taken for cremation.

After this began her travails as a widow. Her husband's family called her a witch, who had killed their son. A bitter battle ensued for the compensation when she decided to remarry. Today, Sudarshana is a mother of two, and an empowered woman who, along with her second husband, runs a petrol pump at Tahliwal in Una district.

Monica Devi of Tang village in Yole Cantt, Kangra, was six months pregnant when her husband, Ravi Kumar, was brought home dead from the Poonch sector in Kashmir in 2006. He was driving a vehicle to take rations to a battalion in Poonch area when he died in and accident. Her daughter, Prakriti, is two and a half years old now and she lives in her late husband's home. Pointing to pictures in her wedding album, she says, "Life has given me a cruel shock. I now live only for this little child." While the urban educated army officer’s wife is able to put her case forward and struggle for benefits but who is to take up the case of a Monica and many other simple rural girls like her whose husbands form the anonymous force of jawans in the Indian Army.

Havildar Anand Kumar belonged to the army’s elite Special Forces. His widow, Rajni Devi, recounts that her husband successfully completed nine of the most difficult courses. “Nobody in the village would believe that I was his wife. He was such a handsome man and looked so young,” she says with unconcealed pride.

But Rajni hides her sorrow for the sake of her children. “We never ever quarrelled. He used to come home for two months in a year and I made it a point to do nothing that would sadden him,” she says.

Rajni was happy taking care of her in-laws and children but fate had something else in store for her. Her husband died after killing two terrorists in Kashmir in 2007. She was left with the responsibility of bringing up three children, two sons and a daughter. Two years on, she is yet to receive the dues promised to her after her husband’s death.

Rajni’s struggle has been akin to banging one’s head on a stone wall. When she approached the local administration for the dues promised to her, no help was forthcoming. She tried in vain to get a bust of her husband installed on the earmarked land. Moreover, every time she asked the local administration for the 25 bigha of land promised by the state government, she was asked to pay a bribe.

Rajni has all but given up hope. She now wants to devote her time and whatever money she has to securing the future of her children. She has dropped the idea of putting up a bust in her husband’s memory. She has instead agreed to erect a gate to honour Havildar Anand Kumar’s martyrdom. The soldier’s regiment, Rajputana Rifles, says Rajni, has been been her side through thick and thin and that has been a big consolation. But not everybody has been that lucky. Honorary Capt Mohan Singh survived even after he was hit by 17 bullets. The scars on the body of this valiant soldier bear testimony to his courage. The Shaurya Chakra sits pretty on him. Ten years ago, on 6 August, 1999 to be precise, Mohan Singh was complteley drenched in blood. He had been hit on the left leg and the right hand. Yet he killed two Afghan terrorists. He managed to clip open the pin of his grenade and hurled it on a third terrorist and killed him.

Today, he is left with an incapacitated left leg and a right hand and scars all over his body. But like a true soldier, he has not lost his zest for life even though he is still struggling for his one-time payout of Rs 11,000. That amount is paid to every Shaurya Chakra medal winner in a addition to a paltry sum of Rs 200 every year.

Says Capt Mohan Singh: “My regiment and the local Sainik Board have been writing letters to the state government since the year 2000 but it has all been in vain. Had I been a domicile of Uttarakhand I would have got Rs 10 lakh and Rs 50,000 every year.” He isn’t of course the only brave Indian soldier who is up against a system that thinks nothing of making men like him run from pillar to post in quest of dignity.

Take the case of the late Capt Gurjinder Singh Suri. He belonged to a family that has been serving the Indian armed forces for generations. His grandfather retired from the army in 1964, only a year after Gurjinder’s father joined the ranks. He not only continued the proud family tradition but went on to create history in the Indian Army by becoming the only Ordinance Corps officer ever to be awarded a Maha Vir Chakra.

Capt Gurjinder Singh was serving on deputation with the Bihar Regiment. It was November 9, 1999 when he led a special operation at Faulad Post and destroyed the enemy completely. Retired Colonel TP Singh, Gurjinder’s father, says with obvious pride: “It was such a difficult area that his body could not be evacuated for as many as four days. In this one operation, which lasted for just 90 minutes, the team was given one Maha Vir Chakra, one Vir Chakra, two Sena Medals and several mentions in dispatches.”

Col Singh recalls what a soldier from Gurjinder’s unit said when he arrived to hand over the dead officer’s personal belongings to the family. “When I saw Gurjinder’s personal effects, I burst into tears. The soldier said that while I had lost a son, the unit had lost a father-like figure. The grief was equal for all of us.” But obviously the administration did not share the grief and pride of Col Singh and the Bihar Regiment. The family has faced apathy at every step. Gurjinder’s father says, “I come all the way from Chandigarh to collect Rs 400 every year because of the pride associated with it. I am the proud father of an MVC officer. But when I went to ask for the five bigha of land promised by the local administration they asked me whether any politician had made an announcement regarding this. I was even allotted a government accommodation but only on paper.”

The bust erected in Gurjinder’s memory tells its own story. It is in a state of total neglect. The grill around the bust has been pilfered. Col Singh, who celebrates the anniversary of his son’s martyrdom every year, intends to replace the cover. A plaque put up to commemorate Gurjinder’s valour is also fading, another visible manifestation of official indifference.

The plaque stands at the beginning of the road leading to Martyrs Home – it was named after Capt Gurjinder Singh. His distraught uncle succumbs to cynicism. For most people, the Maha Vir Chakra is no more than a piece of 100-gram metal, he says. The family even hears snide remarks to the effect that Gurjinder’s martyrdom has brought much wealth to the Singh household. This pain is aggravated manifold by the rapidly rotting system represented by the Sainik Boards and the unresponsive redressal mechanism.

One officer working with the Directorate General of Resettlement told TSI on condition of anonymity that the system has become a burden on itself. He said, “When an officer is on the verge of retirement or ceases to be of use to the system, he is sent here. The Zilla Sainik Boards are not answerable to the Rashtriya Sainik Boards and there are a lot of gaps and anomalies because of this. There is a fund of just approximately Rs 15 crore for 25 lakh ex-servicemen (ESM) or their families. The worst part is that even the letters related to the ESM keep lying for weeks and months.”

The same officer added that the inertia can be broken only if some young people under a youthful minister are placed in charge of ESM affairs. There is a huge difference in the policies of different states vis-à-vis awards to war heroes.

The most remarkable aspect of this story is that continuing neglect hasn’t stopped these families from sending another generation to the army. Says Rajni Devi: “The Army would be devoid of soldiers if we stopped sending our children.” So her eldest son is all set to join the Rajputana Rifles, the regiment in which his father served. His training will be over in December. Capt Mohan Singh’s two sons are already in the Army. His wife says, “If we don’t send our sons to serve the nation, who will? For us, no profession can be nobler than this.”

Capt Gurjinder Singh’s younger brother left a multinational company to join the Army after his brother’s sacrifice and he went to the same unit on deputation in which his elder brother had served with such exemplary distinction.

A nation that does not do enough to look after the families of its soldiers is asking for serious trouble. Is it any wonder that the armed forces are today grappling with a shortage of officers? Unless the nation puts in place an efficient support system for families of war heroes, young men will think twice before opting for the defence forces. How long will we allow the likes of Manreet, Jaya, Rajni and Col TP Singh suffer in silence? This is a war India must fight and win at all cost. Prisoners of Hope

The kin of missing POWs, despite have waited in vain for nearly four decades, believe all isn’t lost yet

Chandigarh-based psychiatrist Simmi Waraich, 40, was not yet four and her younger sister Neetu, barely two when her father Major S.P.S. Waraich was captured by the enemy in the 1971 war. "I do not remember much of my father but from what I heard of him. My entire childhood was spent waiting for him and I still have hope. Hope is the ultimate casualty in any war but we are not willing to give up. My mother remarried in 1985 (with the support of her daughters and her husband's family) after having made every possible effort for 14 years because it was confirmed that he was held prisoner in the Darghai jail in the North West Frontier Province. "

The kin of the missing soldiers have formed the Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association. Bharat Suri, the elder brother of Maj. Ashok Suri, still keeps hope alive with the 1975 letter of his PoW brother, Maj. Ashok Suri, written to his father Dr R.S. Suri. Dr Suri died after spending long years making rounds of Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a bid to try and trace his son. In 1983, six family members went to Pakistan on a visit, invited by General Zia-ul-Haq, the then president of Pakistan. It was a hush-hush affair as it was felt that too much media attention would mar chances of release. But things went wrong and relations soured when Indira Gandhi made some comments about Abdul Gaffar Khan's house arrest. Maj. S.P.S. Waraich was one of many soldiers whose fate is still not resolved 38 years after they were taken captive by the Pakistan Army.

Simmi, was part of a group of 14 wives and five other kin who went looking for their dear ones in Pakistan prisons in the summer of 2007, only to return home disappointed.

The kin of the missing soldiers have formed the Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association. Bharat Suri, the elder brother of Maj. Ashok Suri, still keeps hope alive with the 1975 letter of his PoW brother, Maj. Ashok Suri, written to his father Dr R.S. Suri. Dr Suri died after spending long years making rounds of Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a bid to try and trace his son. In 1983, six family members went to Pakistan on a visit, invited by General Zia-ul-Haq, the then president of Pakistan. It was a hush-hush affair as it was felt that too much media attention would mar chances of release. But things went wrong and relations soured when Indira Gandhi made some comments about Abdul Gaffar Khan's house arrest. Bharat has decided to take his father’s campaign further.

It is a controversial issue and the Indian Army, too, has not been able to resolve it. The government had tabled a list saying they believe there are 54 Missing Defence Personnel believed to be in Pakistan. But the army listed most of these men as killed, as did the air force. Maj. Waraich was listed as missing, but Maj. Suri was listed as killed until his letter came.

There was another curious case. A copy of 'Time' magazine dated December 27, 1971 carried a picture of an Indian soldier behind bars. The wife of Maj. A.K. Ghosh identified the man in the picture as her husband.

What happened to him? A disturbing account in 'Bhutto, Trial and Execution', on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's trial and execution, by BBC correspondent Victoria Schofield, mentions that the Pakistani leader was jailed at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore before his 1979 hanging close to the barracks of Indian PoWs "who had been rendered delinquent and mental during the course of the 1971 war". During the prisoner exchange, "the Indian government would not accept these lunatics", the book says. Simmi says: “Both the Indian army and Government should have at least refuted this. We have been asking for a Missing in Action cell on the lines of the cell in US. We were promised by the government but nothing has happened so far."

Nirupama Dutt