Bipin Rawat was a key player in Balakot surgical strike

Story by Aasha Khosa | Posted by Aasha Khosa | Date 09-12-2021

General Bipin Rawat

New Delhi

General Bipin Rawat was one of the key players when India shifted gears and changed its Military doctrine from defensive to defensive-offense mode, and struck terror camp inside Pakistan. It was the Balakote surgical strike of 2019 on a Jaish-e-Mohmmad seminary in Pakistan that changed the security paradigm in south Asia. Rawat was the chief of the Army Staff when following a political signal from the Narendra Modi government, India transgressed into Pakistan and struck at a terror site.

This action was smart a combination of bold security action and smart diplomacy; it rattled Pakistan and made it slow down its strategy of continuing its proxy war against India by sending terrorists to Kashmir, Mumbai, and other places and pretending innocence of the possible actions of ‘non-state actors.’

Islamabad may not have publically acknowledged - in the same way, it did in the case of capture and killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden from its territory by the US strike party - yet it’s on record that Pakistan’s Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa has said that the Balakote has changed the threat perception from India to Pakistan. For the first time, India looked aggressive in combating cross-border terror sponsored by Pakistan under Bipin Rawat as the Army Chief. It was one of the most meticulously planned a strike that took Pakistan nearly one month to erase the evidence of it.

After becoming the CDS, General Bipin Rawat continued to make bold statements on Pakistan. He said that the Indian Army can fight on two fronts - Pakistan and China - and if Pakistan chose to attack India (While soldiers were engaged in a tense situation with China In Ladakh), it would be inflicted with 'heavy losses.'

He also said the Indian Army is ready to take over the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and is only waiting for a nod from the political leadership. He has openly called for the blacklisting of Pakistan by the Financial Action Task Force.

In response to Imran Khan’s statement that his country was ready for friendship with India, General Rawat had said unless that country became secular, the two could never become friends.

In January 2018, Bipin Rawat, then Army Chief again warned Pakistan’s nuclear threat, He said the Indian Army was ready to take action across the border regardless of the nuclear threat from Pakistan.

Recently he also said India's biggest enemy is not Pakistan but China.

It will therefore be a big challenge for the Modi government to find a Military leader to fit in his shoes. The government has a week to announce Rawat’s successor.

General Bipin Rawat was the Deputy Chief of Army Staff during another 'surgical strike' on POKin September 2016. He was also one of the main players in conceptualizing the Indian Army's 'surgical strike' in Myanmar after the attack on the Indian Army in Manipur.