Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat is no more. The vacuum he leaves behind would be difficult to fill. Years of experience at the apex of the Indian Army followed by the final two years as Chief of Defence Staff, India’s first, have all tuned his brain and steeled his resolve to give the right kind of responses to enemy designs at the right time. It was evident in the way China came calling in Galwan Valley, Ladakh, where within hours of an unconventional attack from PLA in 2020, special commandos of the Gorkha regiment were airlifted and the Chinese made to have a “feel” of Indian force’s lethality. General Rawat had taken over as CDS just months before and his advice mattered. He was army chief when the Chinese were challenged in Doklam in 2017. He had led the first surgical strike under the Modi dispensation, in 2015, when the Indian forces crossed the eastern borders and dismantled NSCN-K insurgent camps in Myanmar that posed a threat to the North-Eastern states.
Notably, Rawat was vice chief of army staff when the 2016 post-Uri surgical strikes on terror camps along LoC in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was carried out. During the Balakot IAF bombing in 2018 he as the army chief provided the ground support in the western sector. Rawat carried with him a great sense of poise. The Kshatriya-Rajput blood in him and his family history of being part of the Indian military for generations all added to his aura of being a soldier of the first order. His utterances have at times drawn flak from various quarters, as in the threat he held out to the stone-pelters in Kashmir Valley “to dare come with weapons” and taste the might of the military. His comment about the IAF being a supporting force to the Army did not go down well with the warriors up in the air.
As Chief of Defence Staff, Rawat was busy with the task of modernizing the Indian military through training and acquisitions. He knew his job and the political establishment had reposed full confidence in him. Prima facie, the mishap in the Nilgiri Hills looked like the result of bad weather conditions. A detailed tri-service probe has been ordered, which should pin-point to what went wrong. India’s brave soldiers will miss General Rawat and his demise is an irreparable loss to the nation. Renewal and reinvention are integral to life and survival. All our Homage to General Bipin, his wife Madhulika and the other deceased brave-hearts.
