New Delhi: Serving senior army officers, including of the rank of generals, who have held several sensitive operational appointments in recent years, have offered a detailed rebuttal to the political criticism emerging around former army chief Naravane’s alleged remarks in his memoir on the government’s response during the 2020 military crisis with China.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officers said the interpretation being pushed in political discourse that prime minister Narendra Modi failed to give a “definite answer” to the military leadership misunderstands how civil-military decision making works during an active confrontation.
From the army’s perspective, one senior general said, the prime minister’s message to the leadership that they should do whatever they deemed fit represented the strongest possible form of political backing.
The officer explained that in military parlance this amounted to strategic guidance rather than indecision. Strategic guidance, he said, is the responsibility of the political leadership. It sets the broad objective and accepts responsibility for consequences, while deliberately avoiding operational micromanagement. Tactical and operational decisions, by doctrine and practice, must be left to uniformed commanders with real-time situational awareness.
According to the general, the prime minister’s stance conveyed two critical assurances to the army leadership at the time. Complete trust in their professional judgment and full political ownership of outcomes. “What more would a field commander or an army chief ask for,” the officer said, “than the freedom to act on the ground without being told do this or don’t do that.”
The officer said the internal mood in the defence establishment, particularly within the army, was never negative about the handling of the crisis. This, he said, was because the political leadership made it clear it would not interfere in military decision making. Commanders were free to respond as the situation evolved, based on ground realities rather than political signalling.
He added that this assessment was not his alone.
According to the officer, the view that the political leadership had provided full support without interference was widely shared among serving peers and senior officers who were closely following the developments at the time. Within professional military circles, he said, the episode was largely seen as an example of clear political backing coupled with operational autonomy.
In that context, the officer said, the autonomy granted to then army chief Manoj Mukund Naravane and his team was not only accepted but appreciated within the force. The absence of prescriptive instructions from the political executive was seen as a mark of confidence, not abdication.
From the army’s institutional standpoint, the general said, the episode reinforced a core principle of effective civil-military relations. Political leadership provides strategic direction and political backing. Military leadership exercises freedom of action.
