Kamla Lowe is 98. But don’t be fooled by her age. She’s sprightly as ever, and tuned into what’s happening around her. Kamla follows the news and is therefore aware of the ongoing protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed National Register for Citizens by the Dadis of Shaheen Bagh. She sees her reflection in them: they are fighting for what they believe is right, as she has been.

Kamla’s husband, Indian Air Force squadron leader JM Lowe, was killed in a flying accident on June 19, 1962, leaving her with their son Sanjeev, then four. Lowe, 37, was a test pilot on deputation with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. He was flying a Gnat when he suffered “violent pitch oscillations” and crashed.

Fifty eight years later, Kamla is still fighting for her entitlement.

Sitting in the living room of her son’s home in Gurgaon, Kamla is waiting for some sunshine. It has been unseasonably cold, and at her age she feels the chill in her bones. Speaking to Newslaundry, the Lowe family recalled their struggle after the crash and the fight to receive pension.

“The Supreme Court and the Armed Forces Tribunal are hiding behind the technicality that she went to them late. They have turned a deaf ear to her pleading that she was never informed of her entitlement by any authority, and in fact repeatedly misled, in writing, by the IAF that she was not entitled to Special Family Pension,” Sanjeev said, referring to his mother.

Sanjeev added that then Air Commodore VR Damle, late Air Marshal PK ‘Babi’ Dey’s father-in-law, had tried to help them secure the pension “in his personal capacity”. “The letter he wrote in August 1962 is the first instance of anyone interceding for her to get pension,” Sanjeev said. “But Air Commodore Damle died early. My mother remembers seeing a lock on his door, and being told of his demise.”

“Air Chief Marshal Pratap Chandra Lal also tried to intercede on our behalf,” Sanjeev added. “But nothing came of that either.”

The struggle

For the first nine years after the crash, the Lowe family did not receive any pension. The IAF informed Kamla that she wasn’t entitled to one, since her husband had opted for life insurance at HAL. “My father’s entitlement as a serving Air Force officer deputed to HAL was for a special family pension as per the Air Force Pension Rules of 1961, which predated his fatal crash,” Sanjeev said.

At the time, the Lowe family received an insurance settlement of Rs 1.25 lakh. “So, other than Rs 4,810 paid as annual premium for an IAF test pilot on HAL deputation, there was no additional cost on the IAF and the HAL for nine long years. We received our first pension – a nominal amount in 1971 – under the Ordinary Family Pension category, which was the wrong category applied to us. My mother got Rs 90 a month, and a child education allowance of Rs 20 per month was given until I was 18 years.”

In 1972, Sanjeev noted, new rules came about recognising that the families of military personnel who died in service were deprived of income they would otherwise have earned for the rest of their lives. “As a result, a higher rate of pension was given to soldiers, including test pilots deputed to HAL, as a Liberalized Family Pension.” The pension was 100 percent of their basic salary, and applied retrospectively.

“This pension is what we are fighting for,” Sanjeev said. “The Armed Forces Tribunal and the Supreme Court, though sympathetic to our cause, did not really give us any relief.”

Partial victory

Kamla wrote several letters to the Air Force over the years and, when nothing came of them, knocked the door of the Armed Forces Tribunal and, eventually, the Supreme Court. In 2017, the military court finally ruled in her favour, recognising her husband’s sacrifice and directing the Air Force to give her pension. It was only partial relief, though: it was the wrong category of pension, and the arrears ran back just three years.

“The total insurance amount paid to her, at the time of death of her husband, was Rs 1.25 lakhs by any stretch of imagination; it could not have been anybody’s case that this young widow and child were to survive for the rest of their lives based on this one grant of insurance,” the tribunal added in its verdict, noting that Rs 8,691.65 had been deducted from the insurance settlement amount as estate tax. “The terms and conditions of that insurance are not before us. However, it would be pertinent to mention that no insurance scheme can take away the right of pension of a serviceman, and therefore, consequently the widow.”

The tribunal reminded the government of a Supreme Court ruling that pension was a right, not a bounty. “Employees cannot be asked to sign undertakings contrary to law,” it reiterated, granting Kamla benefits under the Special Family Pension.