WTF! My husband’s income has doubled after implementation of OROP. “Agenda kya hai bhai”. This ubiquitous tweet is flooding our timelines on Twitter.
Shocking to see how only these families have got double pensions…War against fauji? #AgendaKyaHaiBhai #FalsePropoganda #OROP #DirtyTricks pic.twitter.com/my42iNDbp0
— Shabbir Ahmed (@Ahmedshabbir20) November 3, 2016
First to give you context, OROP – the One Rank One Pension scheme for our retired armed personnel has become a major political crisis after an ex-serviceman committed suicide over the issue.
The ex-serviceman Ram Kishen Grewal , who had served in the Army for six years and following which he worked for Defence Security Corps was drawing a pension close to Rs 24,000. If the government had implemented the OROP as demanded by the ex-jawans, he would be drawing Rs 30,000 as pension. He killed himself for just a few thousands.
In his suicide note, he wrote that there are thousands of jawans who take premature retirement from Army and then join defence security corps. All those people would be denied the benefits of OROP, he writes. He wrote that he was sacrificing his life for the benefit of soldiers.
Now, the Narendra Modi Government, which has for the past month resorted to much chest-thumping via the surgical strikes conducted by the Army, in order to appeal to the patriotism of Indians, finds itself in an embarrassing situation.
So now an online Army, in complete disregard of the sacrifice made by Grewal has started a campaign to denounce the protests being carried out by many veterans at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. These veterans didn’t agree to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s version of OROP announced last year around the same time. They still had several demands that wasn’t covered by the government.
However, the sad part is that online Army has turned out to be quite incompetent in doing their job. They clearly haven’t heard the principle that every jugadu Indian swears by “Nakal with akal (Copy but with brains).” As if in auto-pilot mode, they decide to go Cntrl c + Cntrl V exposing their own ignorance of what they were defending.
Take a look.
Shocking to see how only these families have got double pensions…War against fauji? #AgendaKyaHaiBhai #FalsePropoganda #OROP #DirtyTricks pic.twitter.com/my42iNDbp0
— Shabbir Ahmed (@Ahmedshabbir20) November 3, 2016
First they call pension as “income”, then pretty much everyone copy pastes the same content giving a clear indication that this is part of a well-thought out campaign.
Twitter, being Twitter didn’t let the offenders off the hook. Much of the joke was on the handles while some of it was directed at the government.
I don’t understand this ridiculous rubbish over #OROP, my husband’s income has nearly doubled, WTF is wrong..? #AgendaKyaHaiBhai..? pic.twitter.com/3BanE3Z9cd
— ജോ (@Josa_in) November 2, 2016
The same tweet is made from handles irrespective of the gender of the person. Given that we still haven’t legalised gay marriages, the possibility of someone by the name of Subodh being married to an army veteran is bleak.
We can make fun of such ridiculously thought out troll activity to alter online public opinion. But when an ex-serviceman is killing himself over just Rs 5000, such campaigns are a downright insulting to the cause he laid his life for. A jawan at the border is as valuable as the ex-serviceman protesting at Jantar Mantar. For all those jawans, will sooner or later retire. We need to give them their due without resorting to such vicious and foolish campaigns.
