General Bipin Rawat, India’s first CDS, was on a mission to modernise the military. The nation will miss him

What is the News?

Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 others died after the Mi-17V5 helicopter crashed in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Who was Bipin Rawat?

General Bipin Rawat is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy. He was commissioned in 1978 into the Fifth Battalion of the Eleventh Gorkha Rifles of the Infantry.

General Rawat was appointed as the Chief of Army Staff in 2016. 

He was also the first Chief of Defence Staff appointed in 2019.

Major Operations during Bipin Rawat Tenure

General Rawat supervised a cross-border counter-insurgency operation in neighbouring Myanmar in 2015.

He was Vice Chief of Army Staff when India carried out a surgical strike across the Line of Control in September 2016, in retaliation against a terror strike on an army camp in Uri.

He was Army chief when India carried out airstrikes targeting a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror training centre in Pakistan’s Balakot in 2019.

The stand-off with China at Doklam on the LAC also took place under his watch. 

What were the reforms CDS Rawat was planning to implement?

As CDS, General Rawat was drawing up plans for the modernisation of the military and making it an efficient fighting force. However, the Integrated Battle Commands into which he wanted to reorganise the Army did not materialise mainly due to costs.

He was also preoccupied with the challenge of “theaterisation” or “jointness” of the armed forces, envisaging five “integrated theatre commands” that would combine the tri-services instead of each force having several regional command.

Source: This post is based on the following articles: 

• “General Bipin Rawat, India’s first CDS, was on a mission to modernise the military. The nation will miss him” published in Indian Express on 9th December 2021.
• “The straight-talking CDS who cared: General Bipin Rawat was always forthright. His job was tough. But he was on top of it” published in TOI on 9th December 2021.