Chief of Army staff and NDA: Why most COAS are from NDA?
National Defence Academy has produced some notable defense personnel who have served India in testing times. The pride and determination with which these people have taken the task of ensuring protection in the bounders of the nation are worth mentioning. NDA has also produced Chiefs of Army Staff who have made a name at their own will.
COAS who have been a part of NDA
There have been a total of 29 COAS in India and out of these 29 people, 12 of them are NDA alumni.
The twelve NDA Alumni includes Sunith Francis from the 1st course, Shankar Roy Chowdhury from the 10th course, Bipin Chandra Joshi from the 5th Course, Sundararajan Padmanabhan from the 15th course, and Ved Prakash Malik from the 14th course.
The other COAS who were NDA alumni are, Nirmal Chander Vij from the 21st course, Deepak Kapoor from the 30th course, Joginder Jaswant Singh from the 25th course, Vijay Kumar Singh from the 36th course, Bipin Rawat, the present COAS from the 56th course, Bikram Singh from the 40th course and Dalbir Singh from the 44th course.
All the above 12 COAS have been decorated with various Medals which include, Sewa Medal, Vishisht Sewa Medal, Ati Vishisht Sewa Medal, Param Vishisht Sewa Medal, Yudh Sewa Medal, and Uttam Yudh Sewa Medal. Some of the COAS has also been the Aide-de-Camp in their formative years.
Apart from their achievements in being COAS of the Indian Army some of them had other after retirement achievements that are worth the mention. General Vijay Kumar Singh went on to become the Union Cabinet Minister of State for External Affairs in 2014. He was also involved in Operation Rahat, the rescuing effort of Indians from Yemen in April 2015.
Further, Joginder Jaswant Singh became the 14th Governor of the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Nirmal Chander Vij has also been the former director of the Vivekananda International Foundation and former vice-chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority.
Why are most of the Chiefs from NDA?
There is only one reason for such a large surge of cadets from NDA becoming COAS in the future is that after just one year of graduation an NDA cadet gets commissioned and thus usually gets seniority over the cadets selected through AFCAT or CDS. The CDS or AFCAT alumnus has to go through the additional amount of training of about 6 months to get commissioned.
Qualities that are essential in the Chief of Army Staff
Apart from war and adverse situation handling credentials the qualities that are sought after to become the COAS of the Indian Army is sheer endurance both physically and mentally and at the same time the ability to make decisions that might change the course of action.
The ability to think methodically in the most adverse of situations and a grit of determination of no matter what it takes one will carry on. But that’s not all a good rapport with a subordinate, peer and team management skill is a requirement that is essential to attain the highest seat in Indian Army.
Age requirement to become a COAS
Usually, the senior-most officer who is a second-in-line before the ongoing COAS retires shall be considered in taking the role of COAS. But there have been situations where the third-in-line has also been chosen over the former.
If one has around a month left to retire and that is when they are chosen as COAS then by default the age of retirement extends to 62 years or a total of 3 years of tenures as COAS or whichever is earlier.