General Bipin Rawat is known for speaking out his mind and taking bold decisions. Time and again he has shown that what it means to be a true leader. In yet another bold decision, at the cost of upsetting some officers, he has decided to ban playing golf in the Srinagar. According to My Nation report, “At the Badami Bagh Cantonment, the chief noticed that while he and several senior officers were waiting for the bodies, some officers seemed unfazed by the deaths; they continued to play golf at the Army facility there. Given the insensitivity, the Army chief has decided to put a stop to golf for now.”
A handful of officers were unhappy with General Bipin Rawat’s decision but majority of the officers were happy as playing golf, when an encounter is going on, when soldiers are facing terrorists and Pakistan firing on the day-to-day basis, was amounting to insensitivity. General Rawat is believed to have said that when our troops are fighting and are dying at the Line of Control (LoC) there can be no place for an activity like golf. Here General Rawat has shown solidarity with the Jawans and once again proved that he is a no-nonsense chief. This small but significant decision taken by General Bipin Rawat is likely to boost the morale of young soldiers. Similar move is likely to be made in Ladakh region as well.
Earlier also golf had been banned in the valley. After the Uri terrorist attack in which 18 Indian soldiers martyred, the then Army chief, General Dalbir Singh Suhag ordered officials to stop playing the game, immediately. But the ban was limited to Uri region only. Meanwhile, there were some tweets criticizing the move of Army chief to ban golf in Sringar. Those who criticized it were immediately panned.
Surely. Golf is as essential as eating, drinking, reading when your colleagues are putting their lives on line for the nation a few kilometres away. https://t.co/ZCjaTdhbfR
— Abhijit Majumder (@abhijitmajumder) July 6, 2018
It is a welcome move and very good news, a crystal clear indication that those at the top are not just concerned with the problems of the ivory tower but they understand the sentiments of the troops as well and are firmly backing the troops.
Earlier also General Rawat has taken many bold initiatives and made bold statements. While making any statement he throws political correctness out of the window. Gen Bipin Rawat’s statement at a conference organized by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on the issues facing the North East region became a hot topic of controversy. General Rawat claimed that a ‘planned’ influx from Bangladesh is taking place as part of proxy warfare by Pakistan with support from China, with an aim to keep the area under disturbance. Taking the names of two political parties and referring to the increase in the Muslim population in the state of Assam, General Rawat said, “There is a party called AIUDF. If you look at it, they have grown at a faster rate than the BJP grew over the years. The AIDUF is moving at a faster pace in Assam.”
He is the one who has guts to call a spade a spade. He called Kashmir situation a dirty war. He said, “In Kashmir, people get up only to protest and pelt stones on the security personnel. If this is not a ‘Dirty War’, what else?” In an interview with PTI, he said “This is a proxy war and proxy war is a dirty war. It is played in a dirty way…People are throwing stones at us, people are throwing petrol bombs at us. If my men ask me what to do, should I say, just wait and die?” General Rawat further added, “AZADI will not happen, you cannot fight the Army”, this was the official 9 word declaration of Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat for the youth of Kashmir. With the decision to ban golf in Srinagar, General Rawat has once again proved that he will say and do what is right irrespective of how it is received by the media.