Extension To Army Chief Throws Up Many Possibilities

The one-month-long extension to Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande until June 30 has understandably set the rumour mills agog in military circles. Gen Pande was set to retire on May 31, and the current Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS), Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi, being the senior-most amongst the current Army Commanders, was widely tipped to be the next Chief of Army Staff (COAS).

Now, most observers are left wondering who will succeed Gen Pande on June 30 since Lt Gen Dwivedi and his coursemate, Lt Gen AK Singh, currently the Southern Army Commander and the next officer on the seniority list, are both supposed to superannuate on June 30 as they reach the age of 60.

There are no definite answers to why the government took this rarest of rare steps of giving an extension to the incumbent Army Chief, but one possible school of thought is that the authorities want the next government, which will take office post-June 4 when the Lok Sabha election results will be announced, to make its own choice. As a result, there are several permutations and combinations being discussed across several military WhatsApp groups and forums.

One lunger gup (mess gossip) mentions the possibility of going by the recent example of Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria’s manner of appointment as Chief of Air Staff (CAS) in September 2019.

ACM Bhadauria, as Vice Chief of Air Staff (VCAS), was to retire on 30 September 2019 along with his Chief, ACM BS Dhanoa. However, the government appointed ACM Bhadauria as the next Air Chief since technically he was the senior-most after ACM Dhanoa, who, according to tradition, had ceased to be in the post at 12 noon on September 30, while ACM Bhaduaria still had some hours left to retire!

This ruse was earlier used in the case of the IAF itself in 1991 in appointing Air Chief Marshal NC Suri. That decision was taken by the caretaker government of Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar!

So, technically, the new government in June 2024 can use a similar method to appoint any of the two senior-most generals—Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi and Lt Gen AK Singh—to the top post on June 30, when Gen Pande’s extension ends. Another alternative the rumours mills are rife with is to ask Gen Pande to quit a couple of days ahead or even a week before June 30 and appoint his successor to take over on June 30! This ploy was employed in appointing the head of India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), in December 2010 when the incumbent Chief KC Verma offered to step down a month before his scheduled retirement to make way for Sanjiv Tripathi, who would have otherwise retired before Verma ended his scheduled tenure.

However, given the unpredictability that governments across the political spectrum have employed in appointing officers to the top-most posts, no one is ruling out a completely unexpected decision next month.

Ironically, it was exactly 50 years ago to the month that such a rare step of extending the tenure of the incumbent Army Chief had been taken by the Indira Gandhi government.

That time, in April 1974, Mrs Gandhi extended the services of Gen GC Bewoor by a year, ostensibly to make up for his short tenure of 18 months as Army Chief till then. Gen Bewoor’s appointment to the top post was delayed since his predecessor Gen, later Field Marshal, Sam Manekshaw, had been given an extension in the wake of the successful 1971 war. The retirement age of the Army Chief in those years used to be 58 years and Gen Bewoor should have superannuated in April 1974 since he would have completed 58 years on April 11. His expected successor was Lt Gen PS Bhagat, who would have turned 56 (then the prevalent retirement age for three-star officers) only in October 1974.

The government of the day, however, was not in favour of Lt Gen Bhagat, seen to be an upright and tough officer, much in the mould of Field Marshal Manekshaw. So, according to military old-timers and several accounts of the time, the government decided to give a year-long extension to Gen Bewoor, effectively ending the chances of Lt Gen Bhagat to become the next Chief. However, as a possible compensation, Lt Gen Bhagat was given the post of the Chairman of Damodar Valley Corporation. He joined the post as a serving Lt Gen in July 1974 and served there with great distinction.

Nitin A Gokhale