Bai Goanna and the OROP news

         Bai Goanna said, “Jaitley is smart.”

“Where’d you meet Jaitley?” Shri Husband and I chorused.

“Saw him on television,” she said.

         Bai Goanna finds loud voices (A Goswami) and insufferable attitudes (MS Iyer) attractive.

         “How so?” I prodded her.  

         Bai Goanna said: “The way he handled the award-wapasi was fantastic.”

         Before I could say a word, Shri Husband, butted in: “Did he convince the awardees to make it a wapas-wapasi?”

         Bai Goanna, took her eyes off me and addressed Shri Husband: “Don’t be silly.”

         Shri Husband, annoyingly: “I’m serious. Can’t make out what’s happening. The channels seem to keep swapping the headlines: beef bans, intolerance, conspiracy theories…”

         Bai Goanna: “Don’t bring up multiple points.”

         Shri Husband: “Why not? Jaitley does exactly that, doesn’t he? If someone asks him about intolerance, he brings up Sonia/Uddhav/Kerala CM/God. Throws questions back instead of replying to those asked of him.”

         Bai Goanna ignored Shri Husband and went completely off-track: another Jaitley trick.

         She brought up something that’s NOT been seen on television news for many days. In between watching cops and a couple in Mumbai thrash each other, she said: “Long time no OROP.”

         “What?” Shri Husband asked, perplexed.

         “See,” Bai Goanna said triumphantly. “You’d forgotten. One Rank One Pension. The government made sure that headline went off the channels in mid-September.”

         Shri Husband: “Oh?”

         Bai Goanna reasoned:  “Till mid-September, the channels were covering the ex-servicemen’s protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.”

         “Yes,” Shri Husband recalled (and so did I). “For the first time in India people protested without abusing the government, shouting slogans against anyone or throwing stones.”

         Bai Goanna: “Military people behave as if they’re goras. They even believe in punctuality.”

Me: “Good thing?”

Bai Goanna: “Abroad maybe, but in India, you have to be like Indians, no? The British left us in 1947, and these military people are still following their traditions. No eating paan at work, no spitting in their offices, no wearing slippers at formal functions.”

Shri Husband snapped: “Your soldiers are known for their professionalism. Another British tradition maybe?”

I interrupted: “Bai Goanna, explain OROP.”

She said: “The government had agreed that a soldier who retired at a certain rank after putting in the same years of service, would get the same pension-amount as an identically placed colleague who may have retired in some other year. Right now, those who are in their eighties are getting much less than those who retired say last year, all things being equal.”

She halted to inhale.

Shri Husband immediately butted in: “Besides, soldiers retire in their mid-thirties/forties, not the usual sixty.”

“Why?” I wondered.

“Because you can’t have paunchy, flabby forty-year-olds panting into war… the defence forces have to be young and fighting fit.”

Bai Goanna carried on: “The veterans asked Jaitley whether or not the government would keep its promise. Yes or no, they asked.”

“And?” I wanted to know more.

Said Shri Husband: “Jaitley didn’t want to say yes and he couldn’t say no and so the channels must have been told to black out that bit of news, I guess. Bai Goanna has pointed out that nothing about the OROP has been on television or the print media since mid-September.”

I said: “Maybe the government doesn’t have the money.”

Shri Husband mumbled: “The government can cut down on wasteful expenditure, recover black money...” From the google-archives he read: “Implementation of the OROP…will not strain government’s fiscal position, minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha …said at the NITI Aayog.”

Then Bai Goanna read a snippet of two weeks ago: “There was a big gathering of ex-servicemen in Mumbai’s Azad Maidan.” Looking at us, she added: “That Jaitley, our FM, powerful man, no? Not a single channel covered the gathering.”

I don’t know whether she understood anything that she was reading out: “Jaitley had ruled out annual revision of pension under OROP but said government will safeguard interests of soldiers retiring at an early age through higher pensions.”

Shri Husband got irritated: “You should be praising the ex-servicemen, not Jaitley. They have asked – and rightfully so—that the OROP be implemented as recommended by the Koshiyari Committee.”

Bai Goanna retorted calmly, coolly, indifferently: “Jaitley knows better.”

“He’s spending the taxes I’ve paid all my life. I want to know how. And I’d like to be safe from our enemies, too.”

“Arrey, Jaitley promised…,” Bai Goanna began.

Shri Husband’s temper began to fray: “So did Parrikar, so did Modi… promises fulfilled partially. They say one thing, do another. And they blank out the truth from the television…”

Said Bai Goanna smugly: “They are powerful, not like you; the television people listen to them.”

Shri Husband googled again: “Jaitley said ‘we cannot have an OROP where pensions are revised every year... some arithmetic problem. Just wondering, why aren't the figures shared with us? What’s the point of blanking this topic?  The issue affects lakhs of ex-servicemen and war widows. Some bright software chap might come up with a solution.”

Lecture-baazi shuru, I thought.

Shri Husband continued to read: “Arun Jaitley said annual revision in pensions do not happen anywhere in the world.  I say, we could make a beginning here, like a make-in-India thing.”

Bai Goanna suddenly said: “You sound better than Jaitley, yaar.”

Sometimes, he (Shri Husband, not the FM) does me proud.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in.