darshhan wrote:
According to this report the avg. salary of an Indian soldier is one-fourth of what UN provides.The way this country treats its soldiers is extremely shameful.A toothless organisation like UN pay more than what Indian govt. pays and mind you the work undertaken by Indian defence forces is much more intensive and dangerous.Unlike UN deployments which focus mainly on peacekeeping Indian soldiers have to be prepared the full spectrum from conventional warfare to counter insurgency.This is sheer injustice.And all this coming from a nation which touts itself as the next superpower.
Infact this is the dichotomy of this country.It promotes itself as the next superpower but behaves like a banana republic when it comes down to its Armed forces.It talks of the second highest economic growth in the world but its conduct matches that of a beggar.
The question of "low pay" is quite relative. As a comparative example,
entry level salary of a soldier in the US Army is about
USd 28k pa.
Entry level salary of an Indian Soldier is about 1.44 lac pa, or about USD 3k. (as per most calculations done post the 6th CPC)..
So the US soldier is paid about
10 times the salary of the Indian soldier. However, in comparative terms, per capita income of US in nominal USD terms is about
45 times India's per capita income.! the situation is even more skewed if one takes the numbers on PPP basis (something a lot of people put more credence on compared to nominal USD terms).
Also in terms of "scale comparisons". The US soldier gets paid about 7% of the salary of the US President (
28k compared to about 400k), the Indian soldier gets paid about 7-8% of the Indian President (
1.44 lac compared to 18 lac).
So its not a problem with India paying its soldiers any less compared to its means...Not to say that our soldiers dont deserve a better deal, they do, but that is a topic for a larger discussion than just salaries..
The UN business is quite beyond its sell by date..For an Army that is continuously "overstretched", sending out corps sized numbers of troops on UN missions doesnt seem all that prudent..India's overseas missions need to be expeditionary in nature, serving under the Indian flag..UN missions are as useless as the organisation sponsoring these missions! We belong to a bigger league, and time has come to behave likewise..JMT..