General Bipin Rawat

After India’s top military man, General Bipin Rawat, was killed today when the Russian-made Mi-17 V5 helicopter in which he was flying went down, some in Delhi instinctively are raising suspicions of foul play as an investigation begins into what likely was a horrific accident.

The helicopter’s origin may carry more significance than meets the eye. Many in the late general’s generation of top military brass were trained in Russia. Moscow also remains the largest arms supplier to India, but under Rawat its share of weapons sales to the Indian army has fallen to 49 percent from 70 percent, as Delhi increasingly buys arms from France and Israel.

India in 1961 was a co-founder of a global group named the Non-Aligned Movement. In reality, it was mostly non-aligned with America and the West during the Cold War, even as it carried water for the Soviet bloc. Since the 2014 election of Prime Minister Modi, however, Delhi increasingly positions itself as a strong ally of fellow democracies — and specifically against China, America’s strongest adversary.

To Delhi’s chagrin, President Nixon befriended China in the 1970s, building the relationship as a buffer against the Soviet Union. These days, India is telling America, “We’d like to be your China for dealing with China,” says Cleo Paskal, Asia watcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

As the first news of the helicopter crash started spreading in India, the internet was rife with speculations that Pakistan or China were behind an act of sabotage. Such speculation cannot now be substantiated, but it’s significant that “they’re not saying the U.S. did it,” Ms. Paskal tells me, adding: “The level of suspicion toward China and Pakistan is so high that that’s the first instinct among Indians.”

Pakistan, India’s traditional foe, is increasingly seen in Delhi as China’s cat’s paw. With its murky intelligence establishment’s ties to terrorist groups, Pakistan remains a tactical menace while China has become the strategic foe. At times China uses Pakistanis and their allies as proxies against India.

A major shift in India’s approach to China’s communist regime occurred after the June 2020 armed clash between Indian troops and soldiers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Twenty Indian troops were killed in the fight at Galwan Valley, on the edge of a disputed territory held by China. Beijing’s aggression after decades of calm at that Himalayan frontier crystallized in the minds of Rawat and his military brass the menace that the PLA represents for India.

No longer non-aligned with the West, India under Mr. Modi also shifted away from past dogmas, including such staple policies of the Non-Aligned Movement as its insistence on fully backing the Palestinian Arabs at Israel’s expense.

Instead, Delhi’s military establishment now cooperates with Jerusalem when it comes to small arms, anti-tank missiles, and high-tech equipment such as drones. Much of the research and development is done in Israel, while a good part of the manufacturing is in India — to the benefit of both countries, which have deepened ties on many non-military fronts as well.

“Rawat was a great friend of Israel and of Israel’s security establishment,” says Daniel Carmon, Jerusalem’s ambassador in Delhi between 2014 and 2018.

Three years ago, Rawat led a commemoration at Jaipur of the 100th anniversary of the World War I battle in which the British-Indian army liberated Haifa from the Ottomans. The troops’ sacrifice in that battle, Mr. Carmon tells me, is widely remembered and taught in the Indian military. It has contributed to the deepened friendship between the countries.

Since Mr. Modi’s rise to power, “India realized it can cultivate warm relations with Israel and continue to support the Palestinians as well,” Mr. Carmon says, “and Israel has no problem with that.”

As Mr. Modi’s top military adviser, Rawat modernized the military, including by pioneering a post akin to America’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that unified India’s army, navy, and air force under one command.

Rawat’s rise was helped by his innovative and successful approach to anti-terror warfare against government adversaries in the northern part of the country. As the military’s top general, he deepened anti-terror coordination with America, Israel, and European countries.

He was killed along with 12 others, including his wife, in what may well have been an accident. They were flying to a military academy at Tamil Nadu in dense fog and through bad weather. Yet the crashed helicopter may remind Indians that Russian aircraft (and anti-aircraft S-400 missiles, which India has recently purchased) seemingly are not what they used to be.

Meanwhile, even as Rawat died in a Russian-made craft, his and Mr. Modi’s legacy will forever be the reorientation of the globe’s largest democracy away from a Soviet- and Communist-friendly “non-aligned” stance. India is now deeply allied with the world’s other democracies.

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