General Dalbir Singh, the quiet general
Sandeep Unnithan August 8, 2014 | UPDATED 14:49 IST
General Dalbir SinghAs an instructor at the IndianMilitary Academy (IMA) inOctober 1987, General Dalbir Singh, then a captain, urgently dialled a senior regimental officer in army headquarters and requested to join his unit. The 4th battalion of the 5th Gorkha Rifles was among the first two Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) units deployed in Sri Lanka. Earlier, a visit to his former commanding officer's family in Dehradun to convey he had been killed by the LTTE, told him the IPKF was not on an ordinary peacekeeping mission. In 24 hours, Company Commander Dalbir Singh was on an An-32 into Palali airbase in northern Sri Lanka where his unit was extricating a Sikh Light Infantry company, savagely ambushed by the LTTE in University of Jaffna. India's 26th Chief of the Army Staff, General Dalbir Singh, is someone who chooses his battles carefully.Two years ago, as commander of the Dimapur-based 3 Corps, he remained silent after being subjected to an unprecedented public attack and disciplinary action by the then army chief General V.K. Singh. The outgoing chief had directed his ire at a raid conducted by a Corps military intelligence unit. But the intense, personal nature of the barrage seemed more to do with halting General Dalbir's chances of becoming army chief.
The public attack by the ex-chief continued even after General Dalbir was exonerated of all charges by the defence ministry and cleared as army chief by the outgoing UPA government, a decision ratified by the Narendra ModiGovernment in June this year. In July, a petition filed in the Supreme Court by his IMA batchmate, LtGeneral Ravi Dastane, challenged his elevation as Eastern Army commander in 2012. The petition resurrected some older charges of negligence filed by V.K. Singh but the court refused to stall his appointment. "It was clear in my mind that I had done nothing wrong," the General told close associates when the attack resumed this year. "The truth shall prevail." In public, he maintained a studied silence throughout, talking on national television only to make a statement after taking over as army chief on July 31. He laid down his priorities-modernisation of the force, development of critical infrastructure and welfare of ex-servicemen. Lieutenant General Jasbir Singh (retired), his schoolmate from Sainik School, Chittorgarh, recalls him as a brigadier trekking to all the 50-odd counter-infiltration posts strung along the LoC in north Kashmir.
Outgoing army chief General Bikram Singh described his successor at a private gathering in the Capital as a "soldier's general" and "rooted to the ground". It was, perhaps, a reference to his humble background-the son of a junior commissioned officer from Bishan village in Haryana's Rewari district who tilled the family land and attended classes in an open-air school. Admission into the Sainik School in 1965 put him on course for the National Defence Academy and finally an army commission in 1974. He is among the first service chiefs in recent years not to attend the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, though not a prerequisite for becoming army chief.Like Bikram Singh, General Dalbir assiduously avoids the media. On July 31, there was that brief finger-wagging warning from him to Pakistan that incidents such as the beheading of Indian soldiers in 2013 would not be tolerated. And then, silence. The media shyness may be a continuation of his predecessor's plan of insulating the Army from media exposure and restoring the sanctity of the chief's office after two years of public hazing in V.K. Singh's tenure. "The nation's weapon of last resort had become a subject of drawing room gossip," says a senior army officer. The new chief has also gone the extra mile to trim public ostentation. Visitors who flocked to the open house he threw at his official home the evening of his takeover, July 31, were instructed to come without bouquets and gifts.
Keeping the world's third largest army away from media gaze may be the easy part, but restoring its sharp edge in his 30-month tenure will be a Himalayan task for General Dalbir. Little has changed since a March 2011 internal army assessment revealed deficiencies of Rs.60,000 crore in the stock of ammunition, missiles and vehicles. It will take at least five years of enhanced budgetary support to restore the Army's ability to fight a fullscale war against Pakistan or China.
The service also needs to allocate resources for a 90,000-soldier Mountain Strike Corps. The Corps was sanctioned at a cost of Rs.64,000 crore.
Most of this money will be spent to equip the Corps with helicopters and howitzers. This will prove to be a major worry given the Army's snail-paced acquisition. It got its last new 155 mm howitzer when General Dalbir was a company commander in Sri Lanka. Its last major doctrinal and acquisition thrust came in General N.C. Vij's tenure between 2003 and 2005.
Assisted by then vice-chief Lt- General Shantanu Choudhary, Vij initiated the Mountain Strike Corps proposal, built a counter-infiltration fence along the LoC and formulated the Cold Start doctrine in case of war with Pakistan. LtGeneral Syed Ata Hasnain, former Commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, sees a similar alignment in the Army with Lieutenant General Philip Campose's appointment as the vicechief. "This is an excellent opportunity for General Dalbir to replicate that model and put the Army on the path of modernisation," says Hasnain. The 760 km LoC with Pakistan isthe frontage for a potential arc of instability this year. The United States military drawdown from Afghanistan coincides with Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir later this year.
Army officials anticipate heightened infiltration from across the border. The 3,000 km disputed border with China is also being attended to, but quietly. General Dalbir's plan involves speeding up the Army's mobilisation along the border. He has prioritised building up of border infrastructure with China. This preparedness will not, however, come in the way of India's ongoing military diplomacy with China. The two sides resumed military-to-military exchanges in 2013 after a four-year break. The Border Defence Cooperation Agreement between the two countries will ensure that incursions like the one in Ladakh's Depsang area in April last year don't escalate into hostilities. Shouldn't be a hard task for a man who thinks before he fights.
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