‘Bipin: The Man Behind the Uniform’ by Rachna Bisht Rawat is a very emotional book where each chapter reminds you of the fateful day 08.12.21
One of the most poignant scenes of Steven Spielberg’s 1998 war movie, Saving Private Ryan, was when the mother of James Francis Ryan spotted a US army vehicle heading towards her home to deliver the dreaded news: Ryan’s three brothers were all killed in the Normandy invasion. The scene exploded; a troubled, nervous mother was seen collapsing near her door as two officers of the US Army walked up to her to deliver the news of death.
Bipin: The Man Behind the Uniform by Rachna Bisht Rawat opens on the morning of December 8, 2021, at 11:30 hours precisely at the Sulur Air Force Station in Tamil Nadu, where a stocky Mi-17V5 helicopter waited to ferry Gen Bipin Rawat, chief of the defence staff, his wife Madhulika, and members of the general’s entourage to Wellington. Close to Wellington, a dense grey mist envelopes the chopper, causing it to stray 10 kilometres from its destination. Then, there is a deadly crash, and raging flames engulf the chopper. Col Vijay Rawat (retired), brother of Gen Bipin Rawat, was having a late lunch at his Jaipur home when he was asked to switch on the television channels to see breaking headlines about the crash of the chopper carrying his brother and his wife. Gen Bipin Rawat, the man in charge of overhauling and modernising the Indian army, had walked into the clouds. Gen. Rawat died along with his wife and 11 others.
Video footage showed the wreckage on a forested slope, with rescue workers trying to douse the flames.
The news channels had gone berserk. It was India’s most tragic moment. The Indian Air Force, in a statement, said General Rawat had been on his way to the Defense Services Staff College in Wellington, Tamil Nadu, to address the faculty and students when his helicopter went down near Coonoor, a hill station in the state, around noon local time. Death had come home without warning for Vijay.
Memories – fleetingly – moved in and out of his home. Vijay tells the author about the roti-eating competition at his home with Bipin, followed by a run to flatten bloated stomachs and regain appetite, and stealing fruits, playing many games of football and hockey. And then Bipin grew religious after attending a function of Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi. Prayers and meditation became routine, and a ring he procured from the Shirdi Sai Baba event was on his finger for over four decades, including the fateful day.
This is not a run-of-the-mill tome of life and times of India’s highest-ranking military official; it is a very emotional book where each chapter reminds you of the fateful day and the gruesome deaths that followed. I read through a chapter that reminded me of that crash and took me to the words of Brigadier Shivinder Singh (retired), first cousin, and childhood playmate of Bipin, fondly called Bunny. Seven years ago, on February 2, 2015, at Rangapahar Military Station in Dimapur, Nagaland, Bipin survived a chopper crash when the Cheetah helicopter crashed into the runway. Bipin nursed his wounds and ordered for another chopper and flew away in a new set of combat greens. He reminded everyone that he was from a family of soldiers, he would not take a break, nor would he consider a chopper crash a bad omen. General Rawat was born into a military family in Uttarakhand. His career included leadership roles in India’s troubled northeastern states, as well as United Nations peacekeeping missions abroad. He was named the army chief in 2016 and was elevated to the newly created post of chief of the defence staff in 2019.
I remember how the death of General Rawat was confirmed by India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, after hours of uncertainty, as senior officials rushed to the crash site in Tamil Nadu, and the victims were taken to a nearby hospital. The loss of General Rawat, who coordinated the various wings of India’s armed forces, had truly rattled India.”
Yet another chapter opens on you with the same news of the death of General Rawat. This time, Maj Gen Shashi Bhushan Asthana (retired) opens up about the accident and how pesky reporters called him for his reaction to the tragic accident. Maj Gen Asthana, writes the author, appeared confident that General Rawat would emerge from the ashes of the chopper. “He had always fought till the last.” Maj Gen Asthana remembered a boxing bout at the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun. As a cadet in the ring, Bipin Rawat survived many knocks on his face and eventually rose, cleared blood from his mouth and nose, and smashed his opponent with a solid uppercut to win the day. How could Bipin, now no longer a gentleman cadet but the chief of the armed forces, die? After all, he had survived one chopper crash and an IED explosion that hit his one-tonne vehicle near Uri in strife-torn Kashmir in 1988. The author quotes Col Durga Prasad, who had worked with General Rawat, saying: “I was sure he would survive this too. Unfortunately, this time it was not to be.”
The book works in an interesting format, where each chapter includes a former colleague of General Rawat narrating what the general did for his men in uniform. Consider the words of Lt Gen Subrata Saha (retired), former deputy chief of army staff and a colleague of General Rawat. Lt Gen Saha felt General Rawat was genuinely concerned about the welfare of troops. He knew that when more people are promoted, the level of satisfaction increases. As the coordinator of the various wings of the Indian military and the principal uniformed adviser to the government, General Rawat had the task of overhauling and streamlining the Indian military. He had a lot on his hands, ostensibly because recent clashes with Pakistan and China have again raised concerns about two-pronged threats on its borders. General Rawat had the difficult task of optimising resources. He had set out on a plan to unify the different wings of the armed forces into commands that could avoid duplication of resources.
“His legacy is the national defence reforms. They have not been concluded yet, but they are halfway home. It is just as well that this is happening, a little deliberately, since any reforms of that magnitude in the armed forces of the size that we have need to be brought in with care. The process is on, and it will get done. The first integrated command will be the greatest tribute to General Bipin Rawat,” says Lt Gen Saha. General Bipin Rawat, the book explains clearly, did a juggling act on two hostile fronts and that was a tough job. Tensions with China and Pakistan – both nuclear-armed – are a big headache and then if you have the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban then it is an added crisis. The breakdown of trust between India and China is such that a dozen rounds of talks have contained the tensions, but they have not resulted in de-escalation. Both nations are likely to remain on war footing, even if they never go to war. At the heart of it was General Rawat, an officer and a gentleman, who battled his critics in style and took emergency measures to reinforce a 500-mile stretch of the border high in the Himalayas. The idea was to push the forces from the long, volatile border with Pakistan to the increasingly contentious frontier with China. It was, for him, a constant and difficult juggling act. General Bipin Rawat, the book reminds us, lived with it and died with it.