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New Delhi: If it had not been preceded by allegations of embezzlement and ‘chanda chori’, the appointment  earlier this month of a retired Indian Air Force (IAF) Air Marshal as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust in Ayodhya might have been seen as nothing more than an admission that even divine affairs require a little military oversight and discipline.

In reality, the appointment is that and much, much more.

Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra has become the Trust’s first full-time CEO, four months after retiring as head of the IAF’s Western Air Command – which was at the forefront of offensive air operations against Pakistan during Operation Sindoor in May 2025.

The three-star officer’s appointment says something about the kind of credibility the Trust is now seeking, and where it has chosen to find it. It lies not only in Mishra’s military background – that’s of course important – but in what the armed forces have come to represent in contemporary India: discipline, trust, competence and national resolve.

But, for a Trust facing embarrassing questions over its administration and finances, the military’s aura offers something a conventional management appointment definitely does not. And that is where wider questions of politics come into play.

“When an institution at the heart of the BJP’s greatest political triumph needs to restore public confidence, it turns to the armed forces,” said a senior IAF veteran, declining to be named. He further added that the military’s institutional credibility was being ‘harnessed’ to shore up that of a party-sponsored Hindu religious trust battered by blatant corruption and wrongdoing, he added.

The reaction of much of the electronic and print media to Mishra’s appointment has been along expected lines: deferential, presenting the highly decorated and operationally experienced officer’s selection as self-evidently reassuring. Their collective message seems to be that with a retired Air Marshal of Mishra’s profile at the helm, the ‘chanda-chori’ dishonour can now safely be........

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