Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 other personnel died on Wednesday after the Indian Air Force chopper they were travelling in crashed near Coonor in Tamil Nadu earlier today.

The aircraft was on its way from Sulur IAF base in Coimbatore to Defence Staff College in Wellington when it crashed. According to media reports, Rawat, along with Chief of Army Staff MM Naravane, was just 10 minutes away from the destination when the ill-fated incident took place. 

In a statement on Wednesday evening, the Indian Air Force confirmed that CDS Gen Bipin Rawat along with 12 others have died in a helicopter crash that took place earlier in the day.

Who was General Bipin Rawat?

Born in March 1958, General Bipin Rawat comes from a military family with several generations having served in the armed forces. He was commissioned to the fifth Bn(battalion) and the Eleventh Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army in December 1978 after completing his education and training from the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy.

Bipin Rawat was a graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. He has also attended the command and general staff course at Fort Leavenworth, USA. Rawat was also an alumnus of St. Edward School, Shimla and the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla. He had completed his M Phil in Defence Studies from the University of Madras. He also held diplomas in Management and Computer studies. He was also awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy(PhD) by the Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Meerut.

In December 2016, General Bipin Rawat took over as the 27th Chief of Army Staff (COAS) succeeding General Dalbir Singh Suhag. He had an illustrious and exemplary career, having superseded two senior officers to occupy the position of the army chief, becoming only the second officer to be appointed to the top post after General AS Vaidya, who had superseded General SK Sinha.

First Chief of Defence Staff(CDS) of India

Then in August 2019, in a landmark military reform, General Bipin Rawat was elevated to the post of Chief of Defence Staff(CDS), a position specifically created by the Centre to improve integration between the three arms of the Indian Armed Forces—The Army, The Navy and The Air Force.

A military officer par excellence, General Bipin Rawat was decorated with various awards for his gallantry and distinguished service with the UYSM, AVSM, YSM, SM, VSM, COAS over the span of his 38 years of service. He was also a part of the US peacekeeping force and was twice awarded the Force Commander’s Commendation while serving the United Nations. The IMA, Dehradun, awarded him the Sword of Honor.

Distinguished service rendered and valour displayed over the span of four decades of his service

During his service in the Indian Army, he served as a Brigade Commander, Southern Command, General Staff officer Grade 2 at the military operations directorate and held many more positions during his tenure. He commanded forces in difficult terrain such as Kashmir as well as along the Line of Actual Control bordering China. He is widely credited for facilitating better relations between the armies of India and China through regular border meetings, interactions and joint exercises. When he was an Army Chief, General Rawat stood his ground against the expansionist Chinese PLA at Doklam plateau on India-Bhutan-China tri-junction for 73 days in 2017.

The first CDS also played a pivotal role in reducing the armed insurgency that had wracked India’s northeast region, with one of his career highlights being supervising the 2015 cross-border operation into Myanmar in which the Indian Army successfully responded to an ambush by NSCN-K militants. He oversaw the Surgical Strike from the operation command of Dimapur-based III Corps.

Rawat was also a part of planning the September 2016 surgical strike when Indian army personnel carried out an audacious cross-border operation into Pakistan occupied Kashmir and destroyed terror launch-pads that were responsible for infiltrating terrorists responsible for the killing of 18 army officers in Uri earlier that month.

Under the leadership of Rawat, the Indian Army had undertaken some of the most stringent steps to curb the menace of terrorism emanating from Pakistan. It was under his tenure as the Chief of Army Staff that Army provided robust defences along the border with Pakistan when the Indian Air Forces carried out the Balakot strikes in February to avenge the killings of CRPF personnel in the Pulwama attack.

General Rawat has also contributed towards the National Security and Leadership by authoring a slew of academic articles which have been published in various journals and publications.

References:

opindia.com - OpIndia Staff