Page 336 - Leadership in the Indian Army

none. This was the main reason for establishing pay commission cells in the
Service HQs. The Ministry of Defence wanted to screen their proposals, but
the Service Chiefs did not accept this, and it was finally agreed that they

could send their proposals directly to the Pay Commission, with a copy to
the Defence Ministry, which could forward their comments if necessary.
Sinha had to interact closely with his counterparts in the navy and the air
force. The first obstacle was to get the others to agree not to raise issues of
disparities within the defence services. For instance, the other two services
were sore that army officers were entitled to orderlies, while they were not.
The army had a genuine grouse that its soldiers got inferior scales of

rations, compared to sailors and airmen. In the end, the three services
agreed not to raise these issues, as they could be used by bureaucrats to
create divisions among them, resulting in long-term losses rather than gains.
Sinha managed to ensure consensus among the three services. He put in a
lot of research, studying the pay scales and other perquisites for the past
hundred years or so. Questionnaires were sent to military attachés in Indian

missions abroad to determine the service conditions of soldiers in foreign
countries. To find out what attracted the Indian youth to a military career,
questionnaires were also sent to students through the National Cadet Corps.
Senior serving and retired officers were asked whether they would like their
sons to take up the same career. From the responses to all these
questionnaires, a databank was built up, which proved to be of great help in
formulating the proposals.

After a lot of deliberation, Sinha decided to base his recommendations on
four broad principles. The first was parity of army officers with the IAS
officers in terms of pay and allowances. The second was Class II status for
JCOs. The third was the equation of the infantry soldier with a skilled
worker, and the fourth was treating the erstwhile non-combatants, such as
cooks, washermen and barbers, as combatants and giving them the status

and emoluments of soldiers. The proposals were presented to the service
chiefs, as well as the army commanders, who fully endorsed them. It was
then forwarded to the Pay Commission, which complimented the army on
presenting most forceful and well-researched proposals, backed by cogent
arguments. Copies of the proposals, running into 300 printed pages, were
sent by Sinha, under Manekshaw’s signature, to all formations in the army.
This was done to apprise them that their interests had been well looked

after, and if the government did not give them their due, it would not be