Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, who passed away on 8 December after his IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter crashed in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, leaves behind a void in the Indian Army that will be extremely challenging to fill.
Rawat, who as Chief of Army Staff led the Indian Army during the 2019 Balakot air strikes, has seen it all and done it all.
A soldier with four decades of service, he went on to become the country's first Chief of Defence Staff in January 2020.
From commanding a battalion against China in the late '80s to leading a United Nations peacekeeping mission abroad in Africa, to neutralising militants and terrorists in the north and the east, this article looks at some of the many military achievements that General Rawat will be remembered for.
Sumdorong Chu (1986)
In the summer of 1986, soldiers of the Indian army discovered that troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had moved their positions and made it to 20 kilometres south of the McMahon Line, very close to the river of Sumdorong Chu.
The Eastern Command, headquartered in Fort William, Kolkata, was instantly alerted and so was General Krishnaswamy Sundarji, the then Indian Army Chief.
The chief, without any hesitation, sent two Mi 26 choppers and two brigades to Sumdorong Chu.
One of the battalions within the bridges was led by Rawat, who was Colonel Rawat at the time.
He commanded his battalion along the Line of Actual Control, the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory, in a military stand-off with China that was prevented from escalating.
His experience against China was considered to be one of the contributing factors in the decision to appoint him as Chief of the Army Staff in December 2016, superseding two Lieutenant Generals who were senior to him.
UN Mission in Congo (2008)
The United Nations Organization Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known by its French acronym as MONUSCO, is one of the most expensive peacekeeping missions in the world.
While more than 30 nations have contributed militarily, India is the largest contributor of troops to MONUSCO.
Bipin Rawat took charge in August 2008 of the United Nations' North Kivu Brigade in the Congo.
During the aftermath of the Second Congo War, Rawat deployed infantry combat vehicles to put down the rebels and enforce peace in volatile regions like Tonga, Rutshuru and Bunagana, Hindustan Times reported.
Local communities that had initially been quite suspicious of and hostile to peacekeepers now saw them as reliable protectors, often cheering for the Indian helicopters that targeted rebel zones and pushed them away from civilian areas.
Talking about the change in attitude of locals towards peacekeepers, Rawat later said that "they knew we were willing to go the extra mile to protect them."
"We were not fighting with our equipment, despite Chapter VII of the UN Charter, authorising the use of force in some scenarios. We have decided to fight with our equipment," he said.
The Indian brigade in North Kivu, with Rawat in charge, prevented an important Congolese province from being taken over by the rebels.
He was even awarded a commendation for his leadership, and his efforts in providing stability to Eastern Congo.
Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye, who was then the Force Commander of the UN mission in the Congo, wrote that Rawat's "leadership, courage and experience" ensured that Goma (the capital of North Kivu) didn't surrender to the rebels
"It was one of my most memorable assignments. I am glad I could make a difference there," he would reminisce years later.
Counterinsurgency in Myanmar (2015)
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland, designated by the GOI as a terrorist organisation, and the banned Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup attacked a convoy of the Indian Army in Chandel district, Manipur, in June 2015.
18 Army Jawans were killed in the attack.
Six days later, the Indian Army retaliated. 38 Naga militants were killed in 40 minutes in what was reported to be a blitzkrieg surgical strike inside Myanmar.
The attack was led by General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the Dimapur-based 3 Corps, Lieutenant General Bipin Rawat.
"The operation was carried out based on specific and very accurate intelligence," Rawat had told media sources after the operation was successfully completed, The Hindu reported.
Line of Control Strikes (2016) and Balakot Airstrike (2019)
Uri
In September 2016, after terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammed attacked an army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers, India retaliated by carrying out a surgical strike across the Line of Control in the same month.
35-40 terrorists were reported to have been neutralised in the strikes.
Part of the operational planning and closely monitoring the strike from Delhi was Vice Chief of Army Staff Bipin Rawat.
Three months later, he became the Army Chief.
Balakot
12 days after 40 officers of the Central Reserve Police Force attack in the 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack, India carried out an airstrike in a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Indian warplanes had entered the disputed region of Kashmir for the first time after the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war.
At the centre of this attack's planning was Chief of Army Staff Bipin Rawat.
During a meeting of army commanders before the strike, Rawat took his commanders into confidence and warned them that "this is (was) high-profile retaliation, therefore we must not be caught off-guard", according to Lieutenant General Satinder Kumar Saini, who himself was an Army Commander back then.
"Surprise is of paramount importance, after that we have to have a balanced posture, we will get retaliation," Rawat is reported to have said, while asking his officers to ready the air defence grid, The Indian Express reported.
In addition to General Rawat, 12 others including his wife died in the tragic accident that occurred.
The lone survivor of the crash, Group Captain Varun Singh, is fighting for his life in Wellington hospital.
Since the post of the Chief of Defence Staff was created just less than two years ago, and General Rawat was the first and only incumbent, there is some confusion within the military about who will replace him.
Without an immediate line of succession, the General's demise has created an unforeseen vacuum in the Indian security force.
(With inputs from The Hindu, The Indian Express, and Hindustan Times)
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