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New Delhi: Like his predecessors, India’s newly appointed Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Dhiraj Seth, has sought to define his tenure with an overarching organisational vision, unveiling VIJAY (Victory) as the Indian Army’s guiding framework. 

Announcing the VIJAY – Vigilance, Innovation, Jointness, Atmanirbharta and Yodha – agenda on July 1, a day after assuming office, General Seth said, according to the Bharat Shakti news portal, that the framework is built upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s military mantra of JAI – Jointness, Atmanirbharta and Innovation.

“JAI se VIJAY,” the portal quoted General Seth as saying, encapsulating his vision for steering the Army through an increasingly complex security environment characterised by technological disruption, contested borders and rapidly evolving forms of warfare.

The increasing use of memorable slogans and organisational catchphrases by Army chiefs is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. Earlier chiefs of Army staff generally articulated broad institutional priorities, without attempting to package them into a single overarching brand.

In recent years, however, successive COASs have increasingly sought to define their period in office soon after taking command by articulating broad organisational priorities, though not always through catchy acronyms, as General Seth has done with VIJAY. The choice of a memorable acronym is also consistent with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s well-established preference for slogan-driven messaging.

Concomitantly, there has been little or no institutional mechanism to hold each COAS accountable at the end of his tenure for whether he achieved the objectives he had publicly set out. As a result, these stated priorities have often functioned more as aspirational vision statements than as measurable performance benchmarks.

Outgoing COAS Gen Upendra Dwivedi (2024–26), for instance, championed the Army’ “Decade of Transformation” and designated 2025 as the “Year of Technology Absorption”, placing particular emphasis on drones, integrated battle groups (IBGs), multi-domain operations and the rapid assimilation of emerging technologies.

His predecessor, General Manoj Pande (2022–24) focused on transformation through automation, digitisation, Atmanirbharta and capability enhancement. Before him, General M.M. Naravane (2019–22) emphasised human-centric leadership, force modernisation, integrated battle groups (IBGs) and preparations for eventual Integrated Theatre Commands (ITCs), while General Bipin Rawat (2016–19) championed organisational reforms, greater jointness and preparedness for simultaneous contingencies on India’s northern and western fronts, before becoming India’s first Chief of........

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