Toting up legacies of two generals poised to fade away
Two generals are in their legacy period: General Chauhan just handed over the chief of defence staff baton, while General Dwivedi is doing his farewell rounds. Both have been around at a consequential time operationally and in terms of developments in civil-military relations. A look at what they leave behind is timely, though the last word on either cannot be pronounced just yet.
The lucky general
General Chauhan’s retiring a second time round is a notable first. This is the second precedent he sets for his successor, General Subramani. It seems that the route that’s proved lucky for both – through the national security council secretariat as military adviser to national security adviser (NSA) – serves to ideologically vet and socialize CDS candidates. General Subramani took care to reference the ‘honourable prime minister’ in his inaugural address to the press.
Despite this advantage, General Chauhan’s legacy can be summed up in one sentence: Just prior to demitting his chair after some four years and one extension, General Chauhan sent up a proposal on theaterisation to the ministry. Presumably in his prior billet as military adviser, he’d have been privy to the thinking of both, his regimental mate, General Rawat as CDS, and of ethnic kin, Ajit Doval as NSA. Yet he was left out in the cold; yet another case of political abdication and attempt at firing from uniformed soldiers, which in this case at least turned out a blank.
If anything must be laid at Chauhan’s door, it was his inability to goad on his mentor, the NSA, and political master, the raksha mantri. Even that is not so much his personal cross to bear as much as commentary on the military’s heft in the national security system. That said, till the ministry pronounces on the recommendations, his legacy cannot be figured out in full; and in the event, credit - if any - will be shared by his successor if he can pull it off in his tenure.
Since General Chauhan had command authority only over a few fledgling outfits (notably the Strategic Forces Command takes its marching orders from an unelected civilian, the NSA), it’s his first-among-equals position as chair of the chief’s committee on which his showing must be gauged. He can be credited with limiting Op Sindoor, given that it had non-military objectives at the outset; included a peaceful outreach when underway; and was stopped promptly, once the air force got even. The last he may have to share with Trump! Even so, the political leadership thought it prudent to consult some veterans too on the last evening, betraying either goose bumps or under-confidence in the uniformed leadership.
A good thing was the CDS admitting to losses suffered in the air, albeit doing so on foreign soil and somewhat economically for a democratic country. A bad thing was letting pass the targeting of the Nur Khan air field, though the escalatory potential of such adventurism was known prior, particularly since he himself is an acknowledged nuclear expert and is the military adviser to the nuclear command authority.
As the deterrent value of Op Sindoor remains uncertain, no definitive acclaim can be accorded. Given that Op Sindoor persists as Op Sindoor 2.0, it is clear that Op Sindoor itself is a self-acknowledged failure of the regime. Therefore, if it was at all a strategically sustainable step is questionable. That it resulted in the limbo of indefinite duration dubbed the ‘new normal’, shows up a deficit in strategy making, attributable directly to NSA Ajit Doval. Given that the regime already wants to walk back from the posture – with its backers calling for talks with Pakistan - is a telling commentary on myopic strategy making. As principal military adviser to the raksha mantri, the general must have had a say; so, must bear with his share of the scrutiny. However, domestic political aspects having more to do with it – keeping Pakistan in the doghouse is good for keeping Indian Muslims on the backfoot, both together constituting the Other in the regime’s world view - General Chauhan can be let off, but not wholly.
A lasting impact of his tenure is in his introduction of the concept of fusion into the discourse and in practice. Though the concept is nothing new, it caught steam on General Chauhan’s watch. He went a step further aping China in recommending that the military and defence stakeholders be ideologically convergent. With no clarity on the ideology he had in mind or whether he was referring to a work ethic or a patriotic sentiment, it cannot out-rightly be said that he was only plugging atmanirbharta. A danger is that fusionism, though visualised as securing and enhancing civilian stakeholder participation in national security, may well turn out the other way round, it being a two-way street; for instance, military involvement in moving competitive exam papers about!
The less lucky general
There is precedence in a serving chief not making it to CDS. General Naravane – by his showing in handling the Chinese and in being sceptical on agnipath - had perhaps ruled himself out of the running. General Pande retired when the CDS post already had an incumbent. For now, coup-proofing concerns and a continuing continental mindedness rule out sister service nominees for CDS. Therefore, General Dwivedi not making it is comment-worthy: a four-star chief is thought not fit, while his own three-star vice chief retiree is. The only thing distinguishing General Subramani from the competition is the ‘soldier-scholar’ tag; which arguably suited his last appointment better, considering that its first incumbent was also dubbed likewise.
Ordinarily, the Chief ought to go down in history for enabling at long last a structural innovation envisaged two decades back. He has overseen the raising of integrated battle groups, which would allow the land war component to take the battle to the enemy. With the army restricting itself to stand-off fire assaults and air defence in Op Sindoor, it felt the need to fast-track a capability to launch conventional limited attacks, which at the next crisis could help it respond in quick time to either a terror atrocity or the adversary’s upping the ante.
However, the General’s last verbal scrum with Pakistan – on nuclear portents of a conflict - suggests that while the intention of war limitation is there, there is little confidence in it. Since this is a work-in-progress, the final word on the measure – whether it proves an escalatory first step up the proverbial ladder or a slip into a morass – can only be kept in reserve.
It also has another underside: that the army is not quite lacchak – for want of an apt word - enough to respond to crisis outbreak. It intrigues as to why the army needs tailored forces when its units and formations should be able to combine into employable forces in a reasonable time-frame. To do away with what weighs the army down, such as ‘bull’ and superfluous housekeeping, appears not to have been explored. For now, he can only be known for keeping up the din on Op Sindoor.
Chiefs are expected to be political savvy enough to serve as an institutional guiding light. In General Dwivedi’s case, it is cannot be said with any certainty if he is complicit with the regime’s political project or merely lax. The former is not unlikely, given his - soundly criticized - move of replacing the painting in his office on the 1971 victory with one depicting a fantasy battlefield, the notable feature of which is a saffron-clad figure directing military forces.
Distressingly, the figure has since been reproduced elsewhere, most strikingly in the headquarters of the more consequential of operational commands. At the photo-op site at its headquarters – that lately witnessed the American ambassador pose - the backdrop has a looming statue in precisely the same commanding posture as the one in the painting, overshadowing the Chakra and the full-length profiles of the nation’s two field marshals. The figure depicts Chanakya, with the hall bearing his name.
It is to invoke an imagining that the armed forces go to battle along lines thought up by a strategically-minded national security establishment. It indicates the fusionism the military desires, in which a whole-of-nation approach to national security is directed by a political body with access to Chanakyan counsel: materializing the motto of the defence staff college: ‘to war with wisdom.’
Notwithstanding this, the symbol can well instigate an alternate imagining in light of a caste-infused social reality, in which a brahmin orders kshatriyas about. The military cannot be party to the conditioning that goes into social reordering, through making such symbols unremarkable. If an unwitting participant, the military is still liable to be called out – as here.
In salute
To be sure, both generals were reputedly fine human beings. General Chauhan also lived simply, going by the manner his cottage gate at the center of Lutyen’s Delhi has not been ‘done up’ with public monies as that of other brass-hats. This is not a factor to be dismissed lightly in a milieu that has decidedly coarsened. Both retained and demonstrated character qualities instilled by their common alma-mater, the academies. General Dwivedi just made his last visit to his squadron, proudly handing it the academy banner for topping the league table.
It bears reminding that they have weathered the most challenging era in terms of civil-military relations, geopolitical quakes and regional conflict outbreaks. It cannot be said with any conviction that anyone else could have done any better. The nation owes the two much for managing their political masters while keeping the family silver relatively intact.
