IAF Chief’s warning against ‘hasty’ theatreisation exposes rifts within Indian armed forces
New Delhi: Deepening cracks within India’s military establishment have come to the surface as Indian Air Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal A P Singh, cautioned the Modi regime against rushing into the theaterisation plan, underscoring the absence of unity among the country’s top military brass.
According to Kashmir Media Service, while speaking at the Army War College, the IAF Chief warned that creating new theatre commands in haste would “disrupt everything” and instead proposed setting up a joint planning and coordination centre in New Delhi under the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He stressed that “centrally planned” decisions could still be executed in a decentralised manner, without dismantling the current command structure.
The Air Chief Marshal, while underscoring the “primacy of air power” during India’s recent Operation Sindoor, openly opposed copying foreign models like that of the United States, warning that India’s requirements were different. “We should not just come under any pressure and say we have to implement it now. Somehow, we have to do it. It should not be done this way,” he remarked.
Singh’s comments, made in the presence of Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, have further exposed tensions within the services. Analysts recall that the mysterious helicopter crash in December 2021 that killed former CDS, General Bipin Rawat, India’s first theatreisation proponent, has long been suspected as an inside job linked to fierce opposition within the armed forces to the plan.
Observers say these open disagreements reveal the Indian military’s lack of consensus and strategic coherence. The discord not only undermines New Delhi’s war-planning structure but also weakens its ability to project itself as a stable regional power.
