The appointment of Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen. Bipin Rawat as the next army chief, has sparked off a somewhat needless row, with the Congress demanding to know why Lt Generals Praveen Bakshi and P M Hariz, who were senior to General Rawat, were ignored.
Traditionally, while the government has the last word in such a selection, the senior-most general usually gets the slot. The only instance when this did not happen was in 1983, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decided to bypass General SK Sinha and named General AS Vaidya instead as Army chief.
However, senior most officers of the two other services have often been ignored in favour of people lower in the hierarchy. In 1973, Air Marshal OP Mehra was appointed IAF Chief, despite being technically junior to Air Marshals MM Engineer and Shivdev Singh. In 1988, Air Marshal SK Mehra was appointed IAF, forcing his senior, Air Marshal MM Singh, to put in his papers.
In 1990, Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas was named Navy chief by the VP Singh government, superseding Vice-Admiral Sukmal (Tony) Jain. And in April 2014, Vice-Admiral Robin Dhowan was appointed as the Chief of Naval Staff, over his senior Vice Admiral Sekhar Sinha, who quit.
So, to argue that superseding senior officers is an unprecedented act in our forces would be factually incorrect. Having said that, while the superseded officers usually put in their papers in protest, it does send confusing signals down the ranks, and often senior officers have been ignored more for political considerations than merit.
In this case, however, the government’s said that the selection was made after mapping needs against experience, and General Rawat, having served along the LoC with Pakistan, the Line of Actual Control with China, and in the troubled northeast, was the right man for the job. So, the Congress and other parties should give the matter a rest