Two Wings Of The Bird

IT would be wrong and even malicious to overhype the current crisis in the Indian Air Force. But from what I can understand about the disparity of pay between the engineering officers and the flying boys, it's a big bad joke in the 50th year of our Independence. Both Mulayam Singh Yadav, as the defence minister, and Air Chief Marshal S.K. Sareen should have anticipated the resentment spawned by the sudden and sharp increase in the flying allowance of pilots. They had the resources at their command to gauge the possible outcome. The two should squarely take the blame for unrest in the force.

Ultimately, it's a simple question of rubbing in the hierarchy, real or imagined. If Rs 9,000 is paid to a pilot as special allowance and only Rs 226 to an engineer, it only shows the scant importance the defence establishment attaches to its engineer officers and ground duty officers—and lest one forgets, they are all part of the team that keeps the force flying. Besides the big gap in allowances, I personally feel that the ground duty officers and airmen are not being given the respect from their seniors as in the past.

People like Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, Air Chief Marshal Arjun Singh, Baba Mehr Singh and Jumbo Mazumdar used to make the airmen feel they were in no way inferior to them just because they were not the King's Commissioned Officers. Everyone was made to feel they were part of a team with a mission. That mission was to build India a credible air force. When I was commissioned, my chief did not say he belonged to the fly-ing branch. He belonged to everyone. To the airmen, the ground duty officers and the pilots. Not superiority or differences within, but overall cohesion was the spirit.

The accent in the past was on having a good team. There was never that "us and them" feeling, which is so agonisingly present today. I remember during the 1971 war, I was a senior maintenance officer at the Western Air Command, Palam. It was my responsibility to provide engineering, armament and logistics support to the operation. And I had a chief who made me feel I was part of the core team. Minus the man who is supposed to provide maintenance support you cannot plan an operation. Those days, seniors in the force were aware of this fact. Remember, should there be even leftover resentment among airmen or  the ground duty staff, the morale of the whole force is affected. Which, clearly, is not in national interest.

In the past, we had in the IAF technical officers who rose from the ranks to become Air Vice Marshals. One such man was Harjinder Singh. Once he was told that technical officers don't appreciate the problems of flying officers. His response was touching: he took to fly-ing. He earned his wings at the age of 41. This was unique in the history of military aviation anywhere. In the mid-'50s we started a scheme for engineers and medical officers to learn flying. I do not know why this scheme was abandoned.

Over the years the gap between officers and the ground staff has been widening by the day. I would like senior NCOs, who are the backbone of the service, to be given their due place as they are an effective link between officers and the ground staff. But values have changed. I remember in the past when payscales were revised, the officers always looked at the column affecting the airmen first. The guiding principle then was: "Think of your men first, then yourselves."

 I would attribute the sort of discontent prevailing today precisely to this downslide of values. I don't subscribe to the view that it's an emotional outburst from airmen. I would like to see how many commanding officers today say hello to a Corporal? Airmen, one must understand, are educated, knowledgeable and, most of all, sensitive.

The present unrest is an avoidable pinprick. The confrontation between the pilots and the ground staff, which are actually two wings of the same force and should ideally be part of a single family, is most unfortunate. It should not have happened. The government, the air chief and senior officers in the hierarchy should not have permitted things to come to such a pass. For, they do have the resources, and intelligence is gathered every morning. Just like a parent ought to know which child is running fever, which child has not gone to school and which child has not done its homework, senior officers should have seen the fault-lines. Having failed to prevent the unrest, they should now bend over backwards to sort out the whole mess.

Another point. This year on October 8, Air Force Day, the Vayu Sena Medal was awarded to 28 IAF officers. It is very disheartening to see that only one airman—Sripati Debanath Carpenter/Rigger 233273, a junior warrant officer—has qualified. I would say 90 per cent of any force is made up of non-officer ranks and to say that of the 90 per cent only one qualified for the award is like saying 90 crore Indians and not a single Olympics Gold medal. There should be some sense of proportion.

As a matter of faith, I do not see the dark side of the Indian Air Force, because I am a product of the force and owe much to it. Having started from the bottom of the IAF hierarchy and retired as Air Commodore, I could not have asked for more from the force. It has been over 22 years since I had my last days in the force and that only serves to bring out the stark contrast between those gracious days and the current air of bad blood. It does pain me when I read about the brewing discontent in the newspapers. Quite frankly, I have no answer when people ask me if this is the service I am so proud of?

(As told to K.S. Narayanan)

(Air Commodore A.L. Saigal was Director of Armament and Safety Equipment, Air Head -quarters)