General Bipin Rawat - Bold, Outspoken Military Reformer

Bold, outspoken and sometimes controversial, General Bipin Rawat will be remembered as the man who initiated India’s biggest military reform

- Pradip R. Sagar

In late December 2019, when the Union government appointed General Bipin Rawat as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, his job was to restructure military commands and utilise resources better by bringing about jointness in operations. The target was ambitious, but the general seemed to be on track.

Unfortunately, on December 8, General Rawat, his wife, Madhulika, and 11 others died in a helicopter crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu. The couple is survived by their two daughters.

General Rawat was born in Pauri, Uttarakhand, in a Garhwali Rajput family that had served the armed forces for four generations. His father, Laxman Singh Rawat, was from Sainj village in Pauri Garhwal district, and had been a lieutenant general.

The son climbed higher. In his latest role as CDS, the four-star general was a single-point military adviser to the government. He was to serve for up to three years; the government had extended the age of retirement to 65 years.

Though the office of the CDS does not have any operational role in the functioning of the services, the increasing complexity of modern warfare meant that India needed a CDS for an integrated approach to defence strategy.

In January 2020, days into his appointment, General Rawat started brainstorming on how to streamline coordination between the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. A few months later, he began to prepare for India’s biggest-ever military reform—reorganising the forces into theatre commands (like in the US and China) for synchronised operations in future wars.