The second regime of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Modi 2.0) appointed Lieutenant General (R) Anil Chauhan as India’s second Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) in September 2022, succeeding late General Bipin Rawat. Although Chauhan had retired from his army service by the end of May 2021, he was nominated as Military Adviser at the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) a few months later in October 2021, succeeding Lieutenant General Vinod Gulabrao Khandare, who had extensive experience in tri-serves intelligence affairs beginning from Modi’s previous tenure.

Although Modi 2.0 amended service rules to enable the appointment of retired service chiefs as CDS, the likelihood of such a prospect actually being considered was very low, owing to multiple factors. Primarily, a just-retired service chief is more “attuned” and “in the loop” to developments of concern impacting India’s national security by virtue of attending regular meetings and civil-military briefings. Second is the issue of “discomfort“; since Chauhan never reached elevation to four-star rank during active military service, he would technically remain “junior” (by virtue of designation) to an incumbent service chief. Thirdly, even if a service chief (four-star rank officer) is reinstated after retirement, his junior officers would view the designation holder rather ceremoniously.

Profile

Chauhan hails from the Pauri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand. He was commissioned into the 11 Gorkha Rifles (Infantry) in 1981 and attended the Young Officers course and commando course at Commando Training Centre in Belgaum, Karnataka. Per regimental traditions, he must have learned the Nepali language. He remained associated with his parent regiment till the completion of his first tenure as Brigadier. In between this timeframe, as a Major, his fellow Gorkhas served extensively to capture strategic peaks in the 1999 Kargil War.

Shortly before promotion to full Brigadier rank (May 2009), Chauhan presented a paper at the Indian Army’s Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) titled “Consequence Management in the Aftermath of a Nuclear Strike”. In this paper, he discussed the damage estimation and scenarios in the midst of a hypothetical nuclear war between India and Pakistan. He specifically ruled out the possibility of Pakistan striking India’s offensive formations with nuclear weapons inside its own territory as the pay-offs would be counter-productive but proffered that if Pakistani missile forces were to launch strikes inside Indian territory, border areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat would be most vulnerable to counter-force strikes. In contrast, New Delhi and Greater Mumbai areas would be most favourable as targets for counter-value strikes. Chauhan’s paper was renamed and subsequently published as a book.

In his first stint as Brigadier, Chauhan served as Commandant of the 11 Gorkha Rifles Regimental Centre (Lucknow). His extraordinarily lengthy service within his parent regiment since commissioning was finally disrupted when he was deputed to the Directorate of Indian Army Veterans under Adjutant General’s Branch, where he drafted policies related to pensions, entitlements and welfare schemes for military veterans.

Chauhan was later promoted to Major General and appointed Chief of Staff of 15 Corps (Chinar Corps) in occupied Srinagar, reporting to the then General Officers Commanding (GOCs) Lieutenant General Gurmit Singh and his successor Lieutenant General Subrata Saha. Thereafter, he served again in Indian-Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOJ&K) as GOC of 19 Infantry Division based in occupied Baramulla, which is overseen by 15 Corps.

On Republic Day 2014, a few months before Modi 1.0 came to the fore, Chauhan claimed to the press that Pakistani forces allegedly carried out indiscriminate firing across the Line of Control (LoC) “to disrupt peace and tranquillity”. He claimed these elements were also “inimical” toward “cross-LoC trade”. In those days, only the army spokesperson routinely commented upon hotline talks held between the Directors General Military Operations (DGMOs) of both countries.

Another important backdrop to these comments was the December 2013 DGMO-level talks between Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia of the Indian Army and Major General Aamer Riaz of the Pakistan Army that resulted from a meeting between premiers Manmohan Singh and Nawaz Sharif in September. Both sides had agreed to strengthen de-escalatory mechanisms along their borders. Thus, Chauhan’s narrative as a division commander parallel to the Indian Army’s official spokesperson was somewhat strange and unconventional (Indian Army commanders would subsequently become more vocal, individually, during the Modi regimes).

What we glean from Chauhan’s comments against Pakistan as GOC of the 19 Infantry Division is that he does indeed express his views publicly, as long as they indirectly favour the government’s narrative.

Subsequent to these tenures in Northern Command, Chauhan was promoted to Lieutenant General and moved to the Eastern Command, where he would serve as GOC of 3 Corps (Spear Corps) in Assam that has been defending against insurgency in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Nagaland. Also, in this tenure, Chauhan hosted and led the Indian delegation for 11 rounds of bi-annual Indo-Myanmar Regional Border Committee talks in October 2017 that were dubbed an overall “success”. The backdrop to these talks is important, as Modi 1.0 had carried out a cross-border raid into Myanmar in mid-2015 on the pretext of striking insurgent targets that severed bilateral relations. Modi’s NSA (National Security Adviser) Ajit Doval was rushed to the neighbouring country for damage control.

Shortly after the talks with Myanmar, in December 2017, Chauhan and his commander Lieutenant General Abhay Krishna (Eastern Army Commander) hosted Rawat (then Chief of Army Staff) for his 2-day visit to the Northeast. Krishna was himself a predecessor to Chauhan at 3 Corps.

After a year in the Northeast, Chauhan was recalled to Army Headquarters and appointed DGMO. His past engagement with Myanmar military commanders may have proved a handful for coordinating “Operation Sunrise”, in which both countries carried out targeted attacks against the NSCN(K), ULFA, NDFB and PLA (not the Chinese Armed Forces), as well as anti-Myanmar entities including in Arakan and other insurgents in China-Mizoram borders. On the other hand, he was also coordinating with the Indian Air Force (IAF) for the so-called “surgical strikes” in Balakot, leading to military escalation with Pakistan.

Almost seven months after the Balakot fiasco, Chauhan was sent to lead the Eastern Command theatre. At the same time, he was replaced at MO Directorate by Lieutenant General Paramjit Singh, an experienced counter-terrorism expert and purported planner of the 2016 “surgical strikes” in Pakistan. Chauhan took the reins of Eastern Command from Naravane, who served briefly as Vice Chief and then eventually as Chief of the Indian Army. He superannuated after his second stint in the Eastern Command.

Observations

Chauhan’s origins and commissioning bear striking similarities to Rawat, who also hailed from the Garhwal district in Uttarakhand. Doval also hails from the same district and reportedly played a key role in appointing Rawat as Army Chief while superseding two senior General officers of the time (Lieutenant Generals Praveen Bakshi and Pattiarimal Mohamadali Hariz). Even Anil Kumar Dhasmana, a former Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief during Modi 1.0, was purportedly selected by Doval on account of his origins in Garhwal.

Available information about his military service also reveals extraordinary lengths of deputation within the 11 Gorkha Rifles continuum and later closeness to both Rawat and Doval. The latter can be further confirmed by the fact that within a few months after retirement, Chauhan was asked to become Military Adviser at the NSCS, effectively providing military advice to Doval himself.

It is also quite incidental that two of Chauhan’s superiors in 15 Corps went on to become Deputy Chiefs of Staff in the Indian Army and are aligned with the ambitions of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Gurmit Singh is a vociferous supporter of Modi, describing the latter’s tradition of celebrating Diwali with soldiers as “endearing” and serves as Governor of Uttarakhand viz President of India. Subrata Saha is a Member of Parliament (MP) and Minister without portfolio in West Bengal for the BJP and is touted as the face of “Make in India”. He is presently also serving a second term in the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), which provides long-term advice to the NSCS and has been responsible for drafting India’s nuclear doctrine and national security reviews in the past.

The Military Adviser’s seat at NSCS was created during Manmohan Singh’s tenure with Lieutenant General (R) Prakash Menon as the head from 2011-2014. It became relatively dormant during Modi 1.0 before being revived in 2018. Chauhan was the third Military Adviser (overall) and only the second nominated by the BJP.

Some academics of India proffer that the NSCS operates with 600+ staff members and has a wide mandate beyond one man’s (the NSA’s) policy advice. The strength and scope of NSCS’s activities notwithstanding, the following merits attention:

• In April 2018, a year before the general elections, Modi 1.0 instituted a “Defence Planning Committee (DPC)” for higher defence planning and engagement under the headship of the NSA.
• A few months later (October 2018), a notification amending 1999 rules was issued, which designated the NSA as Chairperson of Strategic Policy Group (SPG) instead of the Cabinet Secretary, effectively arming Doval to supervise strategic defence reviews and coordinating among different ministries.
• Post the 2019 elections (June), Modi 2.0 designated NSA rank equivalent to Cabinet Minister, placing Doval above the secretaries of Defence, Home and External Affairs.

If top-level military advice was the prerequisite for selection, Naravane possesses far more experience than Chauhan in the eastern sector, having been deputed as Military Attaché to Myanmar during his early service and two tenures at Integrated Defence Staff, i.e. more past engagement with personnel from sister services. Notwithstanding Naravane’s stronger credentials, prominent members of the Indian intelligentsia, such as Bharat Karnad, argued (with good standing) that Indian Navy Admiral (R) Karambir Singh would be best suited (and purportedly a carefully considered) candidate for CDS. Without a doubt, Karambir was more vocal against China and actively engaged with Western counterparts on concerns of perceived Chinese belligerence in the region.

The fact that the CDS seat was kept vacant for almost nine months after Rawat’s demise, and Naravane was not automatically elevated despite being Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee in concurrence, indicates he was not politically favoured. Note that the rules about reinstating a veteran as CDS were amended two months after Naravane’s retirement (June 2022). It also reveals that the elevation was considered more on populism instead of well-defined procedural mechanisms.

Conclusion

Perhaps India’s all-powerful NSA felt that another fellow Garhwali like Rawat would best serve at his whims (remain passive) and not concern himself too much with higher defence planning. Having never attained four stars during service, Chauhan is certainly deprived of particular experiences to which only services chiefs are exposed, neither has he coordinated regularly with sister services at the joint level except perhaps during his tenure in MO Directorate.

Respected defence journalist Lieutenant Colonel (R) Ajai Shukla reports that Chauhan “is known to express his views frankly, not necessarily adopting the conventional approach. For example, while discussing the proposals for Agnipath and Agniveers – the new scheme to widen and increase the intake of short-service recruits into the military – Anil Chauhan is learned to have suggested changes that made the scheme more practical and workable than the version the defence ministry had suggested”. What we glean from Chauhan’s comments against Pakistan as GOC of the 19 Infantry Division is that he does indeed express his views publicly, as long as they indirectly favour the government’s narrative (recall these comments were made during the Congress era and before Modi 1.0 and he was not the Army or Northern Command spokesperson). His dissenting notes on the Agnipath and Agniveer schemes were not registered anywhere for the public record so as not to embarrass the incumbent regime. This is peculiarly cautious for someone known to be so candid and apparently “dissenting”.

If being selectively “frank” and “unconventional” is a yardstick for preference by the BJP, Chauhan is not much different from Rawat. Perhaps these “qualities” were absent in Naravane and Karambir. As the CDS is, by mandate, nominated for a term of three years in office, the BJP can have a “friendly face” to pass the time until the next general elections in 2024 (campaigning will become more intense next year).

Rawat’s tenure did not witness any mentionable activities from the theaterisation perspective despite proclaimed support from the BJP. Therefore, in view of his precarious nomination and lesser experience than the service chiefs he will now lead, Chauhan’s term is not expected to be any different.