THE anticipation that the appointment of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) will make a positive difference to India’s strategic and security interests, is proving itself to be true from the manner in which General Bipin Rawat is voicing India’s concerns in the most cogent and comprehensive terms. The freedom which the CDS enjoys to define national interest is addition to India’s strategic narrative, which was missing for all these years.

 

At the recent Raisina Dialogue where many countries came together to deliberate upon their respective perspectives on strategic issues, General Rawat was forthcoming in stressing the Indian need to emulate the American model of response to various security challenges. He also talked of bringing to book those countries that sponsor or shelter terror as their policy. And the most candid of his statements came as regards the national effort to wean strayed youth away from their radicalised detour. For the first time, some authority as high as the CDS talked about the deradicalisation camps India has been operating.

 

These statements from General Rawat make a great sense from India’s strategic perspective in the sense they offer a spread of ideas that India considers critical to its current and future needs in terms of security -- internal and external. In fact, what General Rawat talked about was actually parts of India’s core strategic philosophy in which many a hidden dimension often comes into play, such as socio-political effect of radicalisation of youngsters, or the impact of the American model of response to security threat-perception or actual threat on Indian mind, or the assertion that the countries sponsoring terror needed to be punished. These assertions make a great sense from the point of view of national interest in short and long terms.

 

That General Bipin Rawat chose to speak up on these core issues at the all-critical Raisina Dialogue also was a statement by itself. Let us juxtapose these statements with two statements by Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Naravane a couple of days earlier about the Army moving into Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir if ordered to do so, or the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in Kashmir was a historic step -- and we get a complete picture of the direction of changing metaphor of India’s strategic philosophy in the current times. The world will never miss these statements in their totality for two reasons -- one, they indicate India’s policy; and two, they were made around a forum as inclusive as Raisina Dialogue which offered an outlet to some of the recent global concerns that suffocated frank communication among nations.

 

It must be said, therefore, with a fair conviction that General Rawat’s assertions by themselves were meant to convey to various forces now operational on world stage -- caught in certain tumult -- how India’s response may be shaped by many stimuli in the current times. There would hardly be any better forum than Raisina Dialogue and any better person than CDS General Bipin Rawat to tell the world what India thinks like in the current constraints.

The assertions -- of General Rawat and General Naravane -- symbolised India’s wise-speak in a no-nonsense manner whose implications the world will never miss. Most statements by other nations at the Raisina Dialogue also represented many dimensions of global players and the issues embroiling them. But most critical among all those were the statements by General Rawat because of the newness of his recent appointment as Chief of Defence Staff empowered by the Government to be the best face of India’s strategic and security policies and needs of national defence. The world listened to him with a keen eye for detail.