Vacuum at top level of the military hierarchy

The untimely death of the India’s first CDS has created a vacuum and left major military reforms unfinished

The tragic and untimely death of the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat in a helicopter crash has created a vacuum at the highest levels of India’s military hierarchy. The ambitious reform of the armed forces into integrated theatre commands, for which Gen. Rawat had set ambitious targets, also remains incomplete.

Gen. Rawat took over as the 27th Army Chief on December 31, 2016 and as the first CDS on January 1, 2020. As he stepped down as the Army chief after three years of tenure and before he turned 62, his tenure as CDS was till March 2023. The age limit for the CDS’s post is 65 years with no fixed tenure defined.

After Gen. Rawat, the senior-most officer in the military is Army chief General M.M. Naravane, who has tenure till April 2022. He took over as the 28th Army chief from Gen. Rawat on December 31, 2019 and is distinctly senior to the other two Service chiefs. The Navy and Air Force have just seen a change at the top with Admiral R. Hari Kumar taking over as Chief of Naval Staff on November 30 and V.R. Chaudhari taking over as the Air Chief Marshal on September 30.