Defence theatrisation | Disagreeing with jointness

Most of the 20th century’s conflicts were fought with land, naval and air forces working as separate units, though the successful prosecution of a war often saw close coordination between the three. Thus a ‘theatre command’ would have units from the army, navy and air force, and operate under a common commander from any of the three services. The proposal to set up unified commands for the Indian military was first proposed after the Kargil War in 1999, when coordination between the Indian army, navy and air force was found to be lacking. Finally, the Narendra Modi government decided to go ahead with the theatrisation plan, and appointed former army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat in December 2019 as the Chief of Defence Staff to undertake the mammoth exercise to reform and reorganise one of the world’s biggest armed forces into theatre commands.