The Chiefs Of Army Staff 1947 to 1962

The British Indian Army and many of its young and eminent officers  had the good fortune to serve under some of the most  eminent Commanders of the Allied Forces like General Sir Archibald Wavell, General Claude Auchinleck,General Joseph Stilwell. They imbibed the true spirit of soldiering and most of them came to head the Indian Army in high ranks and a few becoming its Chiefs  after independence. When the British partitioned India, many opted to Pakistan as per their choice.

Auchinleck joined the Indian Army as an unattached second lieutenant and in 1904 joined the 62nd Punjabis. He learnt Punjabi and was able to speak fluently with his soldiers. He got familiarized with  a knowledge of local dialects and customs. This familiarity engendered a lasting mutual respect among the troops he commanded..

The 6th Indian Division, of which the 62nd Punjabis were a part,  landed at Basra in  December 1915 for the Mesopotamian campaign.North of Basra, the Punjabis were in heavy action in dreadful conditions: cold, rain and mud as well as determined Turkish defence reduced the regiment to 247 men and Auchinleck took temporary command when his regimental commander was wounded.  the Turkish army inflicted a humiliating reversal on the British and eventual success was hard won. Auchinleck learnt a number of practical lessons from this experiences. The most important was that  soldiers' health and well-being was critical to an army's effectiveness and he became convinced of the need of adequate rest, hygiene, good food and medical supplies for the troops.

On the outbreak of  Second world war  Auchinleck was appointed to command the Indian 3rd Infantry Division but in January 1940 was summoned to the United Kingdom to command IV Corps,the only time in  that a wholly British Corps was commanded by an Indian Army officer though a Briton. In January 1941 Auchinleck was recalled to India to become Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army in which position he also was appointed to the Executive Council of the Governor-General of India.

Following Mountbatten's arrival in 1943, Auchinleck's India Command (which had equal status with South East Asia Command in the military hierarchy) was responsible for the internal security of India, the defence of the North West Frontier and the build up of India as a base, including most importantly the reorganisation of the Indian Army, the training of forces destined for SEAC and the lines of communication carrying men and material to the forward areas and to China. Auchinleck made the supply of Fourteenth Army, with probably the worst lines of communication of the war, his immediate priority. 

 William Slim, commander of the Fourteenth Army was later to write about him in a glowing tribute:

"It was a good day for us when he [Auchinleck] took command of India, our main base, recruiting area and training ground. The Fourteenth Army, from its birth to its final victory, owed much to his unselfish support and never-failing understanding. Without him and what he and the Army of India did for us we could not have existed, let alone conquered"

Auchinleck continued as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army after the end of the war helping, though much against his own convictions, to prepare the future Indian and Pakistani armies for the Partition of India (August 1947). In November 1945 he was forced to commute the sentence of transportation for life awarded to three officers of the Indian National Army in face of growing unease and unrest both within the Indian population, and the British Indian Army. In June 1946 he was promoted to Field Marshal but refused to accept a peerage, lest he be thought associated with a policy (i.e. Partition) that he thought fundamentally dishonorable  Having disagreed sharply with Lord Mountbatten , the  Viceroy of India, he resigned as C-in-C and retired in 1947.

However many senior British Officers and British Officers of the British Indian Army were in favor of partition. VP Menon, the Reforms Commissioner and Advisor to the Viceroy,  was  reported to have sounded Sardar Patel in Simla that Jinnah had the support of influential British opinion in his claim for Pakistan, and also more importantly, Jinnah was supported by most of the high officers of the Army in India. All of the high officers of the Army at that time were British.  Auchinlech,  as C-in-C was perhaps the only one to oppose partition. However, the idea for partitioning India  to create Pakistan as a buffer state in the West to counter the Russian influence percolating into Indian Sub continent was in their drawing board for long.
It is therefore no wonder many of the  very senior officers of Indian Army in the independent India imbibed the high qualities of  Auchinleck as we will see in subsequent narratives. 

C-in-C / COAS  of the Indian Armed Forces/ Indian Army

General Sir Robert McGregor Macdonald Lockhart  15 August 1947 31 December 1947.

 General Lockhart took over as C-in-C , after having been the Army Commander of eastern Army . He has the dubious distinction of the first ever Chief to be sacked by the Government of India though still being a British Dominion. in 1947.

Kashmir, the Princely State, the third letter in the acronym of “Pakistan” had not decided to join either Pakistan or India.. The Maharaja of J and K was thinking of making it a neutral country on the lines of Switzerland. It was speculated  that there was a possibility that he might accede to India, as J&K was geographically contiguous to both India and Pakistan and he was free to do so. 

By August 1947 (and even earlier) India was already grappling with the influx of refugees, food shortages and lack of most of the essential services. The Armed forces were getting reorganized. This was the most opportune time to invade Kashmir by proxy backed by regular forces. The planning and preparation for that probably had already been finalized in the drawing boards of Pakistan with active participation of British Officers who opted to go with the Pakistan Army.  The raids commenced in October 1947 barely within two months of Jinnah assuming office of the Governor General. Had Mountbatten taken over as the Governor General of Pakistan, in his capacity as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces he would have got wind of it and could not have permitted employment of regular forces to take part in the invasion of Kashmir.

He might have even sounded India in advance. (He remained in India till June 1948). Lt.Gen. Sinha , in an article  narrates the events leading to the dismissal of Sir. Robert. Sir. Robert McGregor McDonald Lochart,  "was informed by his British counterpart in Pakistan of the preperations being made for the invasion of Kashmir . He failed to apprise the( Indian) Government nor did he take any action in the matter. Pakistan's invasion of Kashmir in October 1947 cought us totally unprepared. The Indian Army miraculously managed to retrieve the situation."  Sardar Patel took up the issue with Jawaharlal Nehru to sound the Governor General who sacked General Lockart. However, the reason for his sacking was not made public. 

General Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher    1 January 1948 - 15 January 1949

During  World War II , he served as Assistant Adjutant General at GHQ India from 1941. He was put in charge of Administration ,Southern Command in 1942. After the War he was appointed General Officer Commanding Bengal and Assam Area in India. In 1946 he became General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Eastern Command  and in 1948 he was made Commander-in-Chief, India. We can infer that he was mostly employed in Staff duties during the war. He retried in 1949 and returned to England.

Field Marshal Kodandera Madappa Cariappa  16 January 1949- 14 January 1953 

The first Indian Chief of the Indian Army and led the Indian forces on the Western Front during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1947. He is among only two Indian Army officers to hold the highest rank of Field Marshal (the other being Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw). His distinguished military career spanned almost three decades, at the highest point of which, he was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Military in 1949.

On outbreak of war with Pakistan in 1947, he as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, directed operations for the recapture of Zojila, Drass and Kargil and to re-establish a linkup with Leh. In all this, he showed tremendous energy in moving troops, against considerable odds and finally ensuring success. This ensured his elevation to the supreme post of commander in chief. There were  two officers senior to him — both King Commissioned Officers (from Sandhurst) of the 1918 batch. KS Mahadeo Singh and MS Himmat Singh ji.  Mahadeo Singh had not enough combat experience and was superseded by Cariappa during the Second World War itself and finally he retired in 1948. MS Himmat Singh ji remained as a prisoner of war in Japan for 4 years (1939–43), which made him lose war experience. 

There is an interesting episode regarding the appointment of Cariappa. The authenticity is to be verified.

Jawaharlal  Nehru , it appears,  called a meeting of army officers perhaps when Gen Bucher was to retire.

Nehru proposed, "I think we should appoint a British officer as a General of The Indian Army as we don't have enough experience to lead the same." One officer Nathu Singh Rathore asked for permission to speak.

Nehru was a bit taken aback , however he  asked him to speak freely.

Rathore said ,"You see, sir, we don't have enough experience to lead a nation too, so shouldn't we appoint a British person as the first Prime Minister of India?"

You could hear a pin drop.

After a pregnant pause, Nehru asked Rathore, "Are you ready to be the first General of The Indian Army ?"

Rathore declined the offer saying "Sir, we have a very talented army officer, my senior, Lt. Gen. Cariappa, who is the most deserving among us."

 I am not sure how far this story is true. However Lt. Gen SK Sinha has a different story to narrate. I  narrate it at the cost of repetition.   " KM Cariappa, a senior most  Commander,was  to take over as Army Chief. The political bosses wanted  to have Rajendra Sinhji,  junior to him, appointed as chief. Sinhji was the brother of the Jam Saheb of Navanagar . WhenRajendra Sinhji heard of this, he told Jawaharlal Nehru that he would rather resign if he was appointed the chief.  Not only Cariappa was senior to him , but also  his supersession will  lead to political interference in the selection of Army Chief. Cariappa was appointed the chief. " Of Course, Rajendra Sinhji became the Chief,  when he was due.

There is another reason as to why Nehru was not very enthusiastic in appointing Cariappa as Chief . Cariappa wanted  that he be given another three months to drive the Pakistanis from the occupied areas in Kashmir. Nehru over ruled him and took up the matter in the UN much against the advise of even some of the cabinet colleagues. The rest is history and we are paying the price  for it even to day and no knows for how ling we will continue to do so.  Cariappa's  initiative projected him as ambitious and perhaps that was the reason why he wanted  either a Britisher to head the Army  or in his place Rajendra Sinhji.

Contrary what SS Khera portrays ( in his book " India's Defence Problem" Orient Longmans 1968  - about this book later in a special post) about the King's commissioned Officers who held top posts after independence Cariappa was a visionary.His request to Nehru to give him time to push out the intrusion in  Kashmir in 1948-49 shows his foresight. He correctly felt  as per his quote "In modern warfare, a large army is not sufficient, it needs industrial potential behind it. If the army is the first line of defence, the industry is the second." He was very firm that the Army should be a secular and apolitical entity.    "Army is there to serve the Government of the day, and we should make sure that it does not get mixed up with party politics. A soldier is above politics and should not believe in caste or creed". He lived and remained, as he said, "an Indian and to the last breath would remain an Indian. To me there is only two Stans - Hindustan (India) and Foujistan (the Army)."

During the 1965 war, his son, an Indian Air Force pilot, was shot down over Pakistan. He was captured and imprisoned as a POW. When Ayub Khan learned about this, he informed Cariappa he would not be kept in a POW Camp like other Indian POWs, since Ayub Khan had served under him  before independence. But Cariappa politely declined the offer, saying that every soldier in the Indian Army was his son, so he could not request special privileges for only one. Such was the integrity and moral courage of Cariappa. 

General  Rajendra Sinhji Jadeja  15 January 1953 - 14 May 1955

Rajendra Sinhji  joined the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 2nd Royal Lancers in 1922. As a King's Commissioned Indian Officer, he held various ranks and offices in the British Indian Army and served with distinction during World War II.

During this critical period after partition , he shouldered  many onerous responsibilities. He was made Brigadier in 1946, Major-General in 1947 and Lt. General in 1948. He served successively as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of Delhi and East Punjab (1947-48) looking after the refugee problems as well as division of military assets between India nad Pakistan; GOC Eastern Command (1948); and GOC Southern Command (1948-53). Operation Polo, which resulted in the integration of Hyderabad State with India, was executed during his term in office as GOC (South).

As the senior-most serving officer in the army, Rajendrasinhji was appointed Commander-in-Chief of India on 14 January 1953, following the retirement of General  K. M. Cariappa. Rajendrasinhji received the rank of General on the same day. With effect from 1 April 1955, the President of India was constitutionally designated the Commander-in-chief of India's armed forces. Rajendrasinhji then became the first head of the Indian army to be designated Chief of Army Staff. ( About Change of designation and Warrant pf Precedence in a later post).

General Satyawant Mallannah Shrinagesh  15 May 1955 - 7 May 1957

Among the earliest batches of Indians to be nominated for the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in the U.K. was subsequently commissioned into the 19th Hyderabad Regiment (presently the Kumaon Regiment) in 1923. The British those days had a system of quota for the erstwhile Princely States in India to nominate their wards for entry into Sandhrst.  Srinagesh's father was the Court Physician of the Nizam of Hyderabad and it is believed that the quota of Hyderabad was given to him. 

Till  1945, he was the Commanding Officer of the 6/19th Hyderabad Regiment (now 6th Kumaon). He then officiated as the Brigade Commander of the 64th Indian Infantry Brigade of the 19th Indian (Dagger) Division in Burma from August 1945. He was the first Indian Commandant of the Kumaon Regimental Centre in Agra in 1946. He was selected to go to Germany as Deputy Chief of the Indian Military Mission in November 1945. In that capacity, he  worked as the Economic Adviser & Consul looking after the interests of Indian nationals in Germany and locating missing Prisoners of War (POWs).He was then chosen to lead the 268th Infantry Brigade British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in post World War II Japan and served in that post till 1947.On his return from Japan, he was promoted to Major-General and was appointed the General Officer Commanding of the Madras Area. He was the overall commander of all troops in Jammu & Kashmir during the 1947–48 Indo-Pak War and held this command till the ceasefire on 1 January 1949. Promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General in 1950,  he was  appointed as the GOC-in-C Southern Command and held that post, till he assumed charge as the Army Chief  in 1955.

Genera Kodandera Subayya Thimayya  l 8 May 1957 - 7 May 1961

After  his graduation from RIMC, "Timmy", as Thimayya  was affectionately known, was one of only six Indian cadets selected for further training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the British Indian Army in 1926 into 8/19th Hyderabads  (presently known as Kumoan Regiment).

In Burma, he  as Commanding Officer of the 8/19th Hyderabads,  led  it with outstanding success in battle. He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier in the field in 1945. For his outstanding service in battle, he was awarded the much coveted Distinguished Service Order (D.S.O) and also a Mention-in-Dispatches.

His innate talents of professional soldiering and leadership were soon recognized by Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army. He was specially selected to lead the 268th Indian Infantry Brigade as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan after World War II. He got this assignment due to his outstanding battle experience as a Brigadier and being the only Indian to command a battle formation in the field.

He  proved  not only as  an outstanding commander but also  as a charming and skillful personality in dealing with such people as  General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific Theatre, the other Allies  and even the vanquished Japanese.

Thimmayya represented the country during the surrender of the Japanese in Singapore, followed by the surrender of the Japanese in the Philippines. As Indian Independence approached, he was recalled to India by then Commander-in-chief of British India, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck.

He returned to India in 1947, during the Partition, as member of the committee to agree to the allotment of weapons, equipment and regiments that were to remain in India, or to be allotted to Pakistan. Soon after the commission was completed, he was promoted to the rank of Major-General in September 1947 and was given  the command of the 4th Infantry Division and  the Punjab Boundary Force, dealing with the exodus and intake of refugees. In 1948 he was one of the active officers in the actions against the forces of Pakistan in the conflict over Kashmir. His commanded  the 19th Infantry Division in Jammu & Kashmir where he succeeded in driving the raiders and the Pakistan Army out of the Kashmir Valley. Personally leading the attack in the forwardmost tank, the surprise attack on Zoji La on 1 November 1948 by a brigade with Stuart Light Tanks of the 7th Light Cavalry, he succeeded in driving out the entrenched raiders and Pakistan Army regulars and  recaptured Dras, Kargil and Leh. He established the best of relations with Sheikh Abdullah and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad and even Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.  His pleas through the C-in- C , Gen Kariappa  to give him three more months to drive the raiders back to Muzzarfarabad fell on deaf ears. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru went to the United Nations. The rest is history.

In 1959, he handed his resignation in protest to Prime Minister Nehru due to Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon's refusal to consider his plans for preparing the Army for any likely confrontation with the Chinese and also for promoting Kaul , superseding Gyani and Kumaramangalam , out of turn. (There was an uproar in the parliament on Kaul's promotion and Nehru himself had to defend the undefensible. Gyani was however promoted soon thereafter.)  Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru refused to accept it and persuaded him in withdrawing his resignation. However, little action was taken on Thimmayya's recommendations and he continued as the Army Chief till his retirement on 7 May 1961. In 1962, China attacked an unprepared Indian Army in NEFA.

( Details of  Indian Army's preparedness or the lack of it in a seperate post later).

After retirement from the Indian Army, the United Nations sought his services yet once again. He was appointed as the Commander of UN Forces in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in July 1964. He died  of heart attack during this time in December 1965.  The street perpendicular to East Street (a road parallel to MG road in Pune),the Richmond Road in Bangalore and the main road through Larnaca/Cyprus (East to West) were renamed as Gen Thimmayya Road, in his memory. The Republic of Cyprus, also honored him by issuing a commemorative stamp in his memory in 1966.

General Pran Nath Thapar   8 May 1961- 19 November 1962

Trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the 1st Punjab Regiment in 1926. He served in Burma during the second World War and later in the Middle East and Italy. He commanded 1st Battalion of the 1st Punjab Regiment in Indonesia in 1946 and later went on to serve as the Commander of the 161 Indian Infantry Brigade in East Bengal. In November 1947, he was promoted to the rank of Major General. He served as the Chief of the General Staff for a few months and later as Military Secretary until August 1949. He was appointed Master General of Ordnance on August 1949. He commanded an Infantry Division for four years till 1954 and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General in 1954 as Commander of a Corps. He became General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Western Command in 1959 and took over as Chief of Army Staff  when Gen. Thimayya relinquished office. He was heading the Indian army during Chinese aggression and the Indian army suffered it's worse humiliation under  his leadership in the war. He resigned from his post in disgrace.

He along with Gen. BM Kaul were considered the confidante of the then Defence Minister VKK Menon and also Jawharlal Nehru.  When Kaul was promoted out of turn, Gen Thimayya tendered his resignation.

On his becoming the Chief of Army Staff who was next in line of seniority after Thimayya,  Kaul  a comparatively junior officer was made the Chief of the General Staff which was the top staff appointment. Thapar did nothing to impress on the Defence Minister to reconsider Kaul's elevation as the other officers in the top echelons might get a feeling that their careers and promotions might well depend on such relationships and associations with the political bosses rather than merit. Here again none of the bureaucrats in the MoD or not even the cabinet Secretary tendered correct advice to either the Defence minister or to the Prime Minister, nor Gen. Thapar had the moral courage to desist the appointment of Kaul as CGS.  Instead ,

Gen. Thapar soon surrounded himself with his yes men by large scale transfer of top military commanders. Eventually when the Chinese aggression became imminent and  Kaul was posted as the Corps Commander of a newly raised Corps at Tejpur to confront the Chinese, he proved to every one his lack of leadership traits needed for a military commander. Thapar had to tender his resignation as the Chief of Army Staff.

The Defence Minister himself had to resign due to public outcry.