Military should be kept out of politics in democracy: Army chief Bipin Rawat

New Delhi: In a candid admission that in recent times politics is making an unwanted appearance in the military, the Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday sought a return to the “good old days” when “women and politics were never discussed” in the military.

“The military should be somehow kept out of politics. Of late, we have been seeing that politicisation of the military has been taking place. I think we operate in a very secular environment. We have a very vibrant democracy where the military should stay far away from the polity,” Gen Rawat said during his address at the United Services Institute’s (USI) annual lecture on national security on Wednesday.

“Whenever issue linking any military establishment or military personnel where political entity comes in then that is best avoided,” he said adding that the military performs best when they don’t get into the political affairs of the country.

Known not to mince words nor hold his punches back, Army chief General Bipin Rawat may well have been mouthing Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu’s famous deceptive war strategies when he solicited the Indian media’s help to deceive the enemy into thinking what is not.

Admitting that while the purpose of the media is to come out with the truth, to highlight the truth and to keep the citizenry informed, the chief said, “At times there may be a requirement to spread out some disinformation, spread out some half-truths Surprise and deception require lot of disinformation This is one area where I think the military needs to move forward”.

“For this, it is important that we have all the media channels on board so that they appreciate what is the purpose of the information that is being communicated... not all of which will be usable to all... some of it will be disinformation which is being spread across for the purpose of deception... so there the media has to understand why half-truths is being informed to them and why the military insists on the publication of the half-truths in popular media... it is for the purpose of surprise and disinformation...”