CDS Rawat's boots hard to fill

Bipin Rawat was nearly two years into his term as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff and presiding over the most significant transformation of the defence architecture of the country. Rawat started his career as an officer in the Gorkhas and rose to command 5/11 Gorkha Rifles, the battalion his father Lt Gen L S Rawat also commanded. As Deputy Chief of Army staff, Lt Gen L S Rawat used to take me, then a Brigadier in the Defence Planning staff, and also from the Gorkhas, to brief the Prime Minister’s Office on the Gorkhaland movement in 1988. Completing his full term of three years as Army Chief, Rawat was noted for his aggressive approach towards counterinsurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir.