The curious case of Surjit Kaur Strange are *our* ways. When Surjit Kaur’s husband, late Sepoy Sital Singh of the Punjab Regiment, died in World War II in Waziristan, nobody could have fathomed the ordeal his widow would have to face 70 years down time.
Sital, a member of the 5th Bn of 8 Punjab Regiment, was stationed in HQ Waziristan of the British Indian Army where he died in the year 1940 in action. His now 90 years old widow, Surjit Kaur, was granted family pension under the Indian Pension Regulations by the Controller of Military Accounts, Lahore (later adopted by PCDA (P) Allahabad). In the 2000s, somebody advised her to check her entitlement since she was in receipt of ordinary family pension rather than any other enhanced pension that is granted to widows of battle casualties. When she took up the case with the District Pension Disbursing Officer, her existing pension was discontinued on the ground that she was not the widow of a soldier of the British Indian Army - that her husband was an employee of the Burmese Army & the Burmese Govt. From that day onwards, the DPDO started releasing her an ‘ex gratia allowance’ that is granted to Burmese Govt Pensioners of Indian origin who shifted to India after Burma gained independence in 1948 (Actually Burmese Govt releases pension to its employees settled in India and the balance between the Burmese pension and the minimum applicable pension in India is paid by the Indian Govt and the total amount is known as ‘Ex- Gratia Allowance’). The reason for reaching such a conclusion was that the old documents that she possessed somewhere said that her late husband was serving in the 5th Bn (Burma) / 8 PUNJAB, now who would tell them that the 5th Bn was colloquially and informally referred to as 5th Bn (Burma) since the 93rd Burmese Infantry had merged into the 5th Bn in 1922, and even the 93rd Burma Infantry was a part of the British Indian Army comprising Indian soldiers. In any case, how could a Battalion of the Punjab Regt be a part of the Burmese Army was anybody’s guess ! And how could the deceased soldier be an employee of the Burmese Govt when he died in 1940, 8 years before Burma became independent ! The Records Office of the Punjab Regt had transferred the records of 5 / 8 PUNJAB to the Rajput Regiment which supported the claim of the widow but her requests for re-commencement of the correct type of family pension still fell on deaf ears since the DPDO and the PCDA now claimed that because her husband died in Waziristan in Burma (Yes, this is what was claimed), she was entitled to ex-gratia allowance as is granted to families of Burmese govt employees. But what happened thereafter was truly amazing. When the widow approached the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) with her predicament, the same Records Office of the Rajput Regiment which had been supporting her earlier, this time went for a somersault and started parroting the PCDA(P) line that her husband was killed in action in ‘Waziristan’ in Burma (this the Records office said on oath) and hence was a soldier of the Burmese Army. Recently, the AFT finally brushed aside this dim-witted claim and granted her pension of the applicable type due towards her by honourably treating her a widow of a British Indian Army soldier. Why I am putting this story down is that it pains me when I keep hearing rants about the bureaucracy or babudom when our own are no better. In this case, just to support the dumb claims of some bored accountants, the Records Office of Rajput Regiment was cruel enough to state on affidavit that a KIA soldier of the Punjab Regiment was an employee of the Burmese Govt and that he had died in Waziristan in Burma. Not just that this lie was totally unethical and unwarranted and a slur on her late husband’s sacrifice but it was also against history and geography of the Indian sub-continent. Waziristan is in modern day Pakistan, not in Burma. She was issued a PPO by the PCDA(P) and not by the Burmese Accountant General. Burma attained independence in 1948 while the soldier died in 1940 and hence had no occasion of being employed by the Burmese Govt and probably the officer who signed the affidavit on oath did not realise that even a person with half a brain could say that ‘Punjab’ Regiment could not be a Regiment of post-independence Burmese Army. Let us control our own untamed bulls before we point fingers at others. The AFT came to the rescue of this 90 year old lady, others may not be so lucky. -- With best wishes S Chander
