Kargil War Hero Loses to Bureaucracy

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Kargil War Hero Loses to Bureaucracy

Y.S. Rana

Yesteryears when his war cry in the battlefield rattled the enemies, now his voice is not being heard in a world where money makes the mare go. The real hero who deserves to be remembered lost in the present day economics. This is an irony of present time. People have a fad to forget many such heroes who have created a difference in the society with their heroic acts, the acts that entitle them the status of real hero. Can one recall– who is Dev Parkash? If you do not know, here is the answer. Dev Parkash is winner of Vir Chakra in Kargil War, who fought valiantly in Kargil for country’s honour. Now back from the olive green uniform is engaged in a different kind of battle which appears more difficult to him than the heights of Kargil. Today he finds himself at the receiving end of bureaucratic red tape. Notably, officials of his area including tehsildar and SDM do not know him while members of panchayat or a leader are well known to the officials. He has faced humiliation a number of times at the hands of civil administration, he complained. Sitting in his small house in village Dhundla on Una-Hamirpur highway, he seems to be a tired man. While talking to Himachal This Week he said that he made a number of sorties to DRM office at Ambala for renewal of his railway pass for the past seven years. He submitted copies of citation letter issued by the Ministry of Defence, Government of India recognising his act of gallantry performance and a copy of the Gazette of India (March 11, 2000) which states, “Naik Dev Parkash, section commander of 13 J and K Rifles, was tasked to assault Point 5140, a strategically important feature in Drass Sector during Op Vijay. He volunteered to move with his section and exhibiting excellent field craft, command and motivation which led to recapturing the strategically important feature.” Perhaps it was the quickest recapture of a post and that too without any injury and casualty to his men. His heroic effort fetched him the Vir Chakra. He said that the District Sainik Welfare Board, Una, paid him Rs 50,000 annually for his heroic achievement and Rs 2,000 per month by the Defence Ministry besides monthly pension. The official at DRM office did not accept these documents as ‘relevant’ and demanded full text of said gazette notification. He further rued that during his last visit to Ambala, the dealing hand while browsing through his documents suspected his identity.  He says he was tired of visiting the authorities and hence decided not to visit the DRM office again. Every visit cost him Rs 1,000. He has to spend from his own pocket to visit Jabalpur for the renewal of his railway pass.  “If a gallantry awardee is being treated like this for a small work, one can imagine what will happen to others ex-servicemen,” he remarked.  The only son of his parents, Dev was passionate about joining the Army right from his childhood. His father was also an ex-serviceman. Today, father of two sons and a daughter, Dev said that he wanted one of his sons should join the Army and serve the nation like him. In spite of tall promises made by the government, he has not been able to get his son into the Army. He further stated that there were provisions of reservation for war widow and war casualty but there was no provision of reservation for gallantry award winners. Burdened with many family liabilities, he is in dire need of a job for his son at this stage of life. “It is not possible to pull on with such a meager income when one has no other source of income,” he said and added earlier he ran a small shop selling small items to supplement his income but he closed the shop now. Another Kargil hero now fights a battle against bureaucratic red tape that has made him somewhat cynical