As he put it on Tuesday morning, no government in the past five decades had touched the issue, but he did, despite the financial crunch. Even as he made this claim in Goa, after launching a ship for the Coast Guard, defence personnel across the country were disagreeing with him to the point that they were beginning to return their medals in protest. This led Parrikar to make another statement, that soldiers don’t return medals and that they were being misguided. For this the Defence minister drew some criticism in the media and social media.
For those in Goa who have followed Parrikar’s political career from being a new MLA in 1994, to leading the BJP Legislative Party in 1999, to becoming chief minister and then defence minister, these statements do not sound incongruous to his personality. To the rest of the country which expects the Defence Minister to go by the book, criticism of soldiers by the Minister is something to baulk at. Parrikar has been known to make gaffes (remember the rancid pickle gaffe), and while many such off the cuff remarks may have been ignored in Goa, they surely don’t go unnoticed when the man is a Union minister holding an important portfolio.
OROP is an administrative measure and a long-pending demand of the defence personnel. Patting himself on the back and taking credit for the notification does not raise the minister in the eyes of the people or show his ability to tackle the defence needs of the country. It indicates, instead, that in the past year the country’s defence minister has not been able to introduce any new policy decisions in his ministry that would strengthen the country’s defence. Or make some contribution to the ministry that would earn him the praise of the nation. There was much expected from the IIT politician when he went to New Delhi, but he has failed to deliver. The fact is that the defence minister has divided his time between New Delhi and Goa in the past year drawing criticism in the media and the social media for this.
The Defence minister was not present when Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed the Rafale deal in France for 36 fighter aircrafts for the Indian Air Force in April this year. He was in Goa opening a mobile fish stall. The defence minister was neither in Delhi nor in Jammu and Kashmir when there was an attack on an Army camp in Uri in December 2014, a month after he took charge of the Defence ministry. He was in Goa releasing a book. And last month the defence minister was again in Goa campaigning for candidates supported by his party in the municipal elections, elections that were not held on party lines.
Surely he understands that he is needed in Delhi rather than in Goa, that his work is related to the defence of the nation and not the administration of the State of which he was previously chief minister. The defence minister of the country needs to devote more of his time to the defence of the nation and matters related to it. The issues are many, the challenges varied and the possibilities immense. Should he show more seriousness in the task allotted to him, he surely will be able to leave his mark on the ministry before he leaves it. Until he does that, all he will have to show for the time he headed the Defence ministry will be such administrative decisions, that even the beneficiaries of which are protesting.
