Sad state of Indian veterans

Kyt · Nov 23, 2008

Biting the bullet

Ravindran Nair was a soldier in the British Indian Army when he was stationed in Baghdad in 1945 during the Second World War. One day, while standing guard with two other soldiers at a roadblock, he saw three Iraqi soldiers with guns, crawling stealthily towards them. Ravindran took aim with his .303 rifle and shot dead one soldier, the bullet piercing the forehead.

The other Iraqis got up and scurried away.

“I didn’t feel bad about killing the sold ier because they were planning to attack us,” he says, recalling the 53-year-old episode.

Sitting next to Ravindran is Mark David, who saw action on the Burma front. “I killed two Japanese with my .303 rifle,” Mark says. He was shot at and the bullet stuck to his back for several decades. It was only last year that he finally got it removed.

Now, a third soldier: Suresh Prasad. He was a despatch rider based in Rangoon.

“One day while I was on my way to deliver messages on my motorcycle, I saw Japanese soldiers at a distance firing away,” trails off Suresh. He hid the motorcycle by the side of a hill and jumped into a trench. “The bullets flew over me,” he says. He stayed the night and at dawn, escaped on his vehicle.

More than half-a-century later, Ravindran, Mark and Suresh are together. At a Sainik Ashram in the suburbs of Kochi.

Here, at Kakkanad, are 17 other inmates and they share a large dormitory. Their age ranges from 60 to 89 years, and all of them were members of the British Army during World War II. Once the war was over, they were demobilised and spent several years doing small jobs, raising their families.

But now in the sunset of their lives, their families have turned their backs on them.

Ravindran’s older son is an alcoholic who used to harass him regularly. Unable to take it any more, he took shelter in the ashram.

“My wife stays with my younger son,” he says. Mark, at 89, is the oldest in the ashram, and has four daughters. But they don’t want to look after him. “My wife lives with my daughter, Susan,” he says. “I don’t get along with her. She even tried to poison me once.” So he came to the ashram in order to “live in peace and dignity”.

Suresh, 84, has six middle-aged children — four of them males — and 13 grandchildren.

“All my children are financially welloff, but they do not want me to live with them,” he says, as his eyes fill up with tears.

“So I have come here.” Such poignant tales don’t surprise ashram administrator K N Sivaram. “Around 70 per cent of the inmates here are those who have not been treated well by their children,” he says. “The concept of children looking after ageing parents is disappearing owing to the breakdown of the joint family. Sorry to say this, but the younger generation only thinks of themselves.” On a sunny Tuesday morning in November, the men sit around a long dining table watching television. A couple of them read newspapers. Two men are sleeping in the dormitory. Astonishingly, for the benefit of visitors, Mark, notwithstanding his advanced age, sings a rock and roll song, I love you, and shakes his hands and legs vigorously.

Most of them do yoga and bodystretching exercises in a roofed enclosure in the early mornings.

The ashram is the brainchild of (Retd) Colonel K B R Pillai. One day, in the early 90s, he saw a group of men holding a satyagraha in front of the Naval Base in Kochi.

“They were World War II veterans, seeking a pension for their services to the country,” he says. “I didn’t know there was a group like this. And then I thought, ‘I must do something for them’.” Those days, Col Pillai was founder-president of the Kerala Ex-Servicemen Welfare Association. He suggested the idea of rehabilitating the war veterans, and fellow members were enthused. In 1997, the association hired a building at Kochi’s Palarivattom and started the ashram — with eight inmates initially.

Soon, The New Indian Express wrote a piece on ashram. Among those who were impressed with the novel initiative was Colonel S Pope, secretary-general of the British Commonwea lth Ex Services League, who was then on a visit to India, and staying in Bangalore. “He expressed a desire to visit the ashram,” says Pillai.

At Kochi, Col Pope told Pillai that his was one venture he hadn’t seen in any of the Commonwealth countries he visited.

He went back to England and collected 10,000 pounds from ex-British officers in the Indian Army and sent it. “At that time, it came to Rs 6 lakh,” says Pillai. “It was the turning point.” Then, a certain Major M Parameshwaran died and his children donated Rs 50,000. The association suddenly had a Rs-6.5 lakh corpus. It was used to buy land at Kakkanad and erect a building.

Thereafter, the association has generated its own funds. “We earn money by employing servicemen in various selfemployment schemes,” says Pillai. “We run security and taxi services. In the ashram, we sell the fish that we breed in aquariums.

All the profits are ploughed back into the ashram.” Most of the inmates say they are happy, but all of them have one grouse: lack of a government pension. Says Ravindran: “Nowadays, even the personal assistant of a minister gets a pension. What has he done for the country? As for us, we have braved storms and heat and bullets. Why are we being denied a pension?” Pillai says it is true the veterans served the imperialist British army, but at that time it was the government in power. “So why should they be faulted for that?” he says. Numerous representations have been made, at the state and the centre, but since these veterans do not represent a powerful vote bank, nobody is interested.

(Some names have been changed)
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Kyt · Nov 23, 2008

Ah I missed the story that andy had posted before:

http://ww2chat.com/forums/news-articles/2295-indian-veterans-feel-unwanted.html

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Sad state of Indian veterans

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