Kaustubh Diwan

Colonel Shukla's recent critique of the IAF mistakes cultural confidence for institutional decay & selective nostalgia for strategic analysis. As a veteran IAF officer I find the piece more revealing of the author’s assumptions than of any genuine leadership deficit in the service. The charge that Sanskrit quotations and references to the Ramayana at official briefings somehow “Hindutva-ise” the Air Force is particularly thin. Indian public life has always drawn upon our civilisational language. When an air marshal opens a media briefing with a verse, it is treated as ideological signalling. Had the same officer quoted Churchill or Clausewitz, it would have been praised as intellectual breadth. The objection appears less about professionalism and more about discomfort with any open affirmation of Indian civilisational identity within uniformed institutions. That discomfort is the author’s, not the IAF’s. The suggestion that Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra’s post-retirement appointment is evidence of ideological reward is equally unconvincing. Officers who plan and execute complex operations under real constraints are often asked to take on civilian responsibilities for a variety of reasons, competence being high among them. Reducing a successful operational career to a political transaction does a disservice. It also assumes that every subsequent appointment must be viewed through a single ideological lens. This makes an analyst with an agenda. On the “zero-error syndrome,” the article recycles an old complaint. Risk aversion is a real institutional tendency in any large military, particularly one that operates under nuclear thresholds and simultaneous continental and maritime pressures. Equating measured caution in 2020 with a permanent loss of offensive spirit is an oversimplification. The same service now accused of timidity has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to hold and dominate difficult terrain when the operational picture and political guidance aligned. Leadership is not measured by how quickly one escalates; it is measured by whether the force remains ready, cohesive and capable when the moment actually arrives. The claim of a growing disconnect between “lions” and “donkeys” is the oldest refrain in military commentary. Junior officers have always grumbled about seniors; seniors have always fretted about the quality of juniors. What has changed is the volume of public commentary that turns ordinary institutional friction into a civilisation-level crisis. The IAF continues to attract, train and retain officers who fly demanding missions in difficult conditions. That record is more relevant than seminar-room complaints about language and vocabulary. Colonel Shukla ends by invoking the Truman–MacArthur clash as a model of principled military independence. The analogy is misplaced. India’s constitutional framework and civil-military traditions are not those of America in 1951. Indian service chiefs have long given candid military advice while remaining within the boundary set by elected authority. That is not weakness; it is the system working as designed. Demanding that senior officers “seize the moment” by publicly challenging government policy is not a call for better leadership. It is a call for a different political arrangement altogether—something practised in Pakistan. In the end, the article reads less like a diagnosis of military leadership and more like serious discomfort with the cultural self-confidence now visible in parts of the armed forces. One can debate the wisdom of particular public statements or post-retirement appointments. Turning those debates into a sweeping indictment of the IAF’s professional character is rather like criticising the entire batting order because one batsman prefers a particular stance. The scoreboard of operational performance remains the best measure. On that measure, the IAF continues to hold its own explains Air Marshal Nambiar of the Kargil fame.