• Pioneering Defence Reforms and Embracing Technological Advancements
  • Army Day 2025 Focuses on Modern Warfare and National Strategy

By Maj Gen (Dr.) Ashok Kumar, VSM (Retired)

New Delhi. 14 January 2025. As India embraces an era of transformative defense reforms, the Indian Army is stepping forward to shape the future of national security through enhanced jointness, theaterisation, and a steadfast commitment to indigenisation. On the occasion of Army Day 2025, the Army’s leadership is poised to articulate its vision for aligning with the Ministry of Defence’s “Year of Reforms,” paving the way for a more integrated, agile, and technologically advanced force.

With a focus on building consensus for theaterisation, the Army is leading the charge toward a unified operational framework alongside the Navy and Air Force, ensuring a cohesive defense strategy. At the same time, the push for indigenisation has gained momentum, reflecting the Army’s dedication to reducing dependence on foreign imports and empowering domestic defense manufacturing. This renewed focus on self-reliance is essential for sustaining legacy systems while modernizing its arsenal to meet the demands of modern warfare.

As the Army takes stock of its capabilities and gaps, it is positioning itself to not only meet emerging challenges but also redefine its role in ensuring India’s strategic dominance in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Army Day 2025 is not just a celebration of legacy but a pivotal moment to shape the path forward, highlighting the Army’s commitment to innovation, collaboration, and national resilience.

Army Day is celebrated every year on 15 Jan. This date has been selected based on the date on which an Indian General took over the reins of Indian Army on 15 Jan 1949 immediately after the ceasefire was declared in J & K after 1947-48 War. Indian Air Force and Indian Navy continued to function under Britishers even after this date and got their chiefs as Indians as late as in 1954 and1958 respectively. This early lead probably is one of the reasons which have helped Indian Army to take its present shape capable of handling both external as well as internal threats. It has become a daily challenge for the army to mitigate the difficulties faced by our countrymen in multiple domains. It is equally true that both the sister services are also marching ahead in consonance with their national responsibilities despite coming in Indian hands a little later.

This Army Day on 15 Jan 2025 holds a special significance for the Indian Army as it completes 76 years since its first Chief General K M Cariappa took over command of the Indian Army. The current Army Day is being celebrated in Pune as part of newly adopted rotational policy. This selection of location can also be part of our strategic signalling wherein we have now indicated our renewed focus to look at our national interests. This new strategic concept invokes moving away from erstwhile concept of India as a country with continental borders having some maritime boundary. The new strategic construct sees India as an island country with some continental borders which brings up a totally different security perspective which is intimately linked to Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and largely linked with Indo-Pacific Region (IPR). The new construct will place India well ahead at regional level as well as at international level.

With this new construct emerging on the national scene, responsibility on the Indian Army is much more now as compared to yesteryears. This responsibility can be undertaken with capability development, restructuring the organisational structures in tune  with  future warfighting and creation of an army which is more potent as compared to its adversaries and  fully equipped with modern technological advancements. What could be a better occasion and day as compared to this Army Day to take a stock of our strengths as well as capability gaps to evolve future plans. Though there are institutional mechanisms to address these concerns and challenges in the Indian Army, this is a special occasion when the future vision of Indian Army can be articulated in the public domain.

Some of the focus areas which could be probably focused on this Army Day could be as under:

  • Early Lead for Jointness, Integration and Theaterisation. The defence forces are working day and night towards enhancing Jointness, Integration and Theaterisation. Unlike countries like USA, Russia and China where Theaterisation has been implemented forcefully, India is moving ahead on this path with ‘consensus building’. In such a situation, it is quite natural for COAS to have a reasonable clarity on likely nature of structures and processes which are likely to come up in months ahead. Indian Army can take the ‘First Mover’ advantage by aligning itself well in advance with likely changes expected to be unveiled. Declaration of such an intent on this Army Day will galvanise the efforts in this direction.
  • Aligning with Defence Reforms. Ministry of Defence (MOD) has declared the Year 2025 as the ‘Year of Reforms’. There are nine aspects which have been included to capture the Reforms in its entirety. With their successful implementation, the defence forces would definitely take the positive shape. Indian Army continues to be the most important constituent of our defence forces and therefore success of these declared Reforms by MOD will depend on the success generated by Indian Army in these nine areas. Indian Army must declare its Annual Action Plan 2025 on this Army Day giving out a clear cut action plan for the entire year related to Defence Reforms.
  • Creation of ‘Drone Force’. Indian Army has focused on technology absorption in a big way. Year 2024 was celebrated by Army as the Year of Technology Absorption. Technology absorption is also focussed in the MOD Year of Reforms. As number of countries are focussing to create Drone Forces, Indian Army must take lead in this field as well. This Army Day must be used to declare the creation of ‘Drone Force’ in the Army. This will be an apt action given that China has apparently ordered a million of Kamikaze drones.
  • Maintaining the Legacy Equipment. Despite our efforts for indigenisation, our inventory still has large number of legacy equipment. These cannot be replaced overnight. A large percentage of this is of import origin. These equipments are still our mainstay for war fighting and therefore a clear road map needs to be unveiled this Army Day to sustain our legacy equipment. Even the plan to sustain small arms currently held by Indian Army could be a good beginning till we get quality indigenous small arms.
  • Focused Indigenisation. Indigenisation is the single most critical growth area which needs to be focussed with utmost priority. While multiple efforts are underway for indigenisation, a renewed focus and an out of box approach is needed for the requisite push. This Army Day can be used to indicate those out of box ideas to achieve indigenisation as early as possible.
  • Doctrinal Changes. With new tenets of warfighting emerging, induction of new equipment taking place and integrated approaches coming closer, IA must institute doctrinal changes. This Army Day could be used to identify and declare future doctrines to be unveiled by Army.

There are other numerous areas which could be worked at by Army throughout the year inconsonance with MOD Year of Reforms , however, focused announcement on above six areas or other areas considered relevant will go a long way which will fit in the true spirit of Army Day. This message from the land of Shivaji this year will reverberate even beyond Pangong Tso Lake.

(Maj Gen Ashok Kumar, VSM (Retd) is Director General Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS), a Kargil war veteran and a defence analyst. He specialises on neighbouring countries with special focus on China. The views in the article are solely the author’s. He can be contacted at editor.adu@gmail.com).