AA Edit | A rare reformist general who could think global

Gen. Bipin Laxman Singh Rawat, a second-generation officer commissioned into the Indian Army’s prestigious 11 Gorkha Rifles regiment who rose to become India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), was one of India’s most modern generals, at par on achievement with Gen. K. Sundarji.

Gen. Rawat was India’s first truly global military commander, recognised across boundaries as a military leader, whose passing had the UN Secretary-General, the US secretary of state, Russia and Israel, among others, who paid deservingly and befittingly rich tributes.

Gen. Rawat arguably had the most nuanced operational understanding of engagement among his predecessor chiefs. If Gen. Thimayya was a pioneer, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw a wartime hero, Gen. Sundarji a strategist and thinker, Gen. Rawat was the biggest reformer, who was also an action hero.
Gen. Rawat will go down as the most impactful, reforming leader the Indian Army has seen in its history. He successfully restored the role of the armed forces as a premier stakeholder in strategic decision-making, even influencing foreign policy.

Undaunted by criticism and often bludgeoning his way past India’s notorious decision-making inertia, Gen. Rawat introduced bold internal changes, such as making transparent a grievance redress system inside the Army and doing away with the outdated and patronising systems of the British Raj such as the archaic system of orderlies for officers. He streamlined the purchase of expensive military hardware and argued for a more robust “make in India” capability.

During his illustrious career, Gen. Rawat scripted several epic victories. As Army vice-chief, he played a key role in the surgical strike across the India-Pakistan Line of Control in 2016. Another career highlight was the Indian Army’s successful response to an ambush by NSCN(K) militants in Myanmar in 2015. Under Gen. Rawat’s leadership, a mission was carried out inside Myanmar in which all militant camps were decimated.

A highly vocal Army chief, Gen. Rawat was quick to publicly emphasise that force would be used against those across the border in Pakistan, if they threatened Indian interests. He was determined to end militancy in Kashmir. He planned the action in the Kashmir Valley which broke the backbone of terrorism in the Valley, creating suitable conditions for the abrogation of Article 370.

In various postings earlier, he successfully led a UN peacekeeping mission against militant groups in Congo in 2008. Incidentally, in Congo, Gen. Rawat and Pakistan’s Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa met and served together as brigadiers.

Once Gen. Rawat took over as CDS early last year, he made significant changes in the nation’s war-fighting strategy and capability with alacrity.

An officer with exceptional clarity of thinking, a go-getter, Gen. Rawat started the long overdue process of creating a formidable war-fighting capability by integrating existing commands of the Army, Air Force and Navy into theatre commands for better strategic planning and operational delivery. He believed, rightly, that China, not Pakistan, was India’s chief adversary; and was the first chief to say so in public.

The son of Lt. Gen. Lakshman Singh Rawat, he is a rarity of a son doing better than an illustrious father. This was not, for the ill-fated general, his life’s first helicopter crash. Over six years ago, as a lieutenant-general serving in the Northeast, he miraculously survived a Cheetah crash nose-down. Sadly, life didn’t have an encore destined for the national hero. Let us hope India gives him the best tribute of completing his dreams and achieving his vision.