It was Modi who, with fanfare, announced the creation of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) institution in 2019. And it is Modi who — since the death of the first CDS, General Bipin Rawat, in a tragic helicopter crash in 2021 — slowly but steadily has hollowed out that very institution, with the just-announced appointment of the next CDS only confirming how disastrously the CDS experiment has veered off course. Both the authority and purpose of the CDS institution have been eroded by the government that set it up. Modi created the CDS post to establish a “single-point military adviser” capable of providing impartial tri-service advice and reducing bureaucratic barriers between the armed forces and the prime minister. Yet the government has increasingly transformed the office into a politically managed bureaucratic position within the Ministry of Defence. The incumbent CDS a Lieutenant General is junior to all the three present service chiefs who are supposed to work under him, irony died a thousand deaths. As the BJP slogan aptly says, “Modi Hai To Mumkin Hai” (When Modi is there, anything is possible).
