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When Victoria Cross winner Subedar Major Umrao Singh (retd) requested the then British prime minister John Major to enhance the pension of those honoured with the medal, it was immediately raised from `A3 100 to `A3 1,300. However, the Government of India has failed to provide a better package to the country’s war heroes, says Lt-Gen Baljit Singh (retd)
Among my happiest memories of Army service is a 45- minute meeting with Subedar (Hony Captain-retd) Bana Singh in my office. The soldier narrated the story of the re-capture of a bunker from Pakistan army intruders on the Siachen glacier heights. That a group of 20 Indian soldiers under Bana Singh, with the most elementary skills in snow, ice and rock-climbing, literally inched up 2,000 feet of a near- vertical cliff-face, and that too under darkness and totally undetected, was in itself an extraordinary feat. I just could not take my eyes away from this gentle and unassuming Param Vir Chakra awardee. Sadly, last year Bana Singh seriously contemplated returning his PVC medal to the Government of India. The J&K Government had reneged from the promises made to him of monetary and land grants. The fact that Bana Singh is the only PVC awardee of Jammu and Kashmir and also one of the only three PVC awardees alive today, was apparently lost on the powers that be. So Bana Singh’s reaction to prolonged neglect and indifference was certainly not impetuous but righteous. Now on June 14, 2008, the Association of the Gallantry Award Holders also voiced a similar unanimous decision to return their gallantry medals en masse to the government if their very last appeal for a judicious increase in their monetary entitlements was not forthcoming. This brought to my mind
how, when confronted by a similar situation, the then British prime
minister, John Major, promptly rose to the occasion. The whole episode
was reported by The Times, London, under the headline ‘John
Major’s VC Hero’.
The 50th anniversary of the end of World War II was organised in London in 1995. The star attraction at a series of functions was the presence of legends such as the US Army’s five star General Omar Bradley of the Normandy landings fame, and among others, all the surviving gallantry award winners. In the Victoria Cross (VC) contingent there were five Indians. During the course of a garden tea party on the Buckingham Palace grounds, the Indian VC winners were formally presented first to the Queen and then to the prime minister. There was something charismatic about the six- foot four-inch, ram-rod straight Subedar Major (Hony Captain) Umrao Singh, which caught the fancy of Major. At the first opportunity he gravitated towards Umrao Singh’s table and enquired if there was anything Her Majesty’s government could do for the well-being of those decorated with the VC in India. Undoubtedly, Major spoke not only as the first minister of Her Majesty’s government but equally as the spokesperson of the British monarch, who is by tradition the chairman of the VC committee. Umrao Singh seized the opportunity and said that (a) it was unjust that his VC pension of `A3100 per year was paid to him at the same exchange rate of Rs 34 to the sterling as was the case in 1945; and (b) that in all fairness the VC pension for every holder aught to be enhanced so as to live with dignity. Major was aghast with this revelation of neglect and promised to have the grievance redressed at the earliest. The measure of Major’s earnestness was evident from his verbatim recounting of this entire conversation at the annual meeting of the Conservative Party a few days later. Evidently, he was shadowed by an interpreter as Major knew not the Haryanvi Hindi dialect. And this was the speech which had occasioned the article ‘John Major’s VC Hero.’ The upshot of it all was that when Umrao Singh landed at Palam airport, the Victoria Cross awardees were met by an officer from the UK High Commission. The officer conveyed to them Major’s compliments and informed them that with immediate effect their VC pension will be admissible at that day’s exchange rate or higher as the case may be, but never lower, for their lifetime. About six months later, The Times correspondent in New Delhi, not to miss a news scoop opportunity, personally drove to Umrao Singh’s village Palla (Haryana) to be the first to convey that the British Government had enhanced the VC pension from `A3 100 to `A3 1,300 per annum. Umrao Singh at once brought out a bottle of Old Monk rum, cracked the seal open, poured it in two steel tumblers, handed one to Christopher Thomas, and raising his own tumbler, said: "John Major, prime minister of Great Britain". He then called out to his wife: "Vimla, we can now live in style". I must state here to the credit of Haryana Government officials that soon thereafter, they too unilaterally granted Umrao Singh a VC pension of `A350 per month. Now the mandarins of defence (finance) are generally not averse to enhancing emoluments, provided they have a precedent to go by. Well, here they have one at the Central Government level and the other from Haryana at the state government level. So, what is the procrastination about? Rightly has the Sixth Pay Commission opined that entitlements and enhancements relating to gallantry awards are a policy matter for the Government of India to decide. Now if the government is in penury, let the Supreme Commander and the prime minister appeal to all serving and retired services officers to forego Rs 10 from their month’s salary/pension each month for meeting this extra and exclusive budgetary obligation. That sum is less than the cost of a bottle of cola and no officer will refuse such a public appeal. Meanwhile, let us hope that the winners of war gallantry awards will desist from parting with their medals no matter what the provocation and how deep the feeling of neglect. Here, too, we have a precedent of matchless equipoise. When Umrao Singh was offered `A3 32,000 for his VC medal by a collector from UK in the 1980s (knowing his financial difficulties), Umrao Singh’s response as reported by The Times was that to give away the medal "would stain the honour of those who fell in battle besides me."
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