Gen Bipin Rawat: The Last Post

General Bipin Rawat, 63, was appointed as India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) in 2019.

The tragic passing of India’s Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, 63, in a helicopter crash leaves a huge void in the country’s effort to sharpen its strategic vision. Gen Rawat, accompanied by his wife Madhulika, his personal staff and Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel was flying to Coonoor when their ill-fated Russian Mi-17V5 crashed in the Nilgiris shortly after take-off from an army base in Suloor, Tamil Nadu.

As a shocked nation struggles to come to terms with the tragedy, many disturbing questions confront investigators trying to figure out what went so horribly wrong on a supposedly routine flight. After all, the twin-engine Russian Mi-17V5 is considered one of the safest transport helicopters in the world. Thanks to its advanced multi-function cockpit display and state-of-the-art avionics, it can operate round the clock equally well in mountainous regions or the plains, even in adverse weather conditions. The IAF operates scores of these workhorse choppers for its medium transport fleet and there have been no major crashes involving the Mi-17, save the lone accident in February 2019 in Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, one of the best indicators of the Mi-17’s immense popularity amongst militaries across the world is the US Army’s procurement of several of these choppers.

Gen Rawat rose from the ranks in the finest traditions of the armed forces and had an exceptional service record. Taking after his father, Lt Gen Lakshman Singh Rawat, who was the Vice Chief of Army Staff in 1988, he passed out from the Indian Military Academy in 1978 and was awarded the sword of honour. Coincidentally, he was also commissioned into the 5th battalion of 11 Gorkha Rifles, the same unit as his father. After serving in the Military Operations directorate as a major, and subsequently in the Military Staff branch handling postings and promotions, he had a much more dynamic posting that allowed him to participate in counter-insurgency operations. In June 2015, Naga extremists ambushed and killed 18 Indian soldiers; Lt Gen Rawat, then Dimapur-based 3 Corps Commander, led New Delhi’s swift retaliatory cross-border strikes. The next year, as Vice-Chief of Army Staff, he coordinated the surgical strike across the Line of Control into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

There could not arguably have been a better poster boy for modernizing India’s defence forces than Gen Rawat. That he was destined for a historic role in the Indian military was clear when, in 2019, he was appointed India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) tasked with integrating the three services. He went about it with aplomb and set the ball rolling on restructuring India’s tri-services commands through the newly established Department of Military Affairs (DMA). The establishment of theatre commands for joint-ness in operations is probably the largest defence reform ever undertaken by Independent India and Gen Rawat played a big role in it. He never minced words about the need to prepare for new challenges in the battlefields of the future such as in cyber and space domains and championed the creation of new Cyber and special forces agencies to bulwark the Defence Space Agency.

Described as a thorough professional and a gentleman, Gen Rawat was the quintessential ‘soldier’s general’. He never minced words when it came to the country’s defence preparedness.

True to his calling, he was on his way to deliver a lecture at the Defence Staff Services College in Wellington in the Nilgiris when fate stepped in. As someone who believed that India’s volatile neighbourhood makes it imperative for the military to think ahead if it is to keep its powder dry, Gen Rawat would have shared more thoughts on modernising the armed forces in the lecture he would, alas, never deliver. Perhaps the best tribute to his memory now would be for the military to continue its modernization drive that he had so passionately championed.

Rest in peace General. May your memory be a blessing.