Gen Dhiraj Seth Takes Over as 31st Chief of the Army Staff

Gen Dhiraj Seth took over as the 31st Chief of the Army Staff on 30 June, succeeding Gen Upendra Dwivedi, who retired the same day after more than four decades in uniform. He is the first Armoured Corps officer to lead the Indian Army since 1997, and the seventh from the corps to hold the post.

Change of command at South Block

The handover followed a ceremonial Guard of Honour at the South Block lawns in New Delhi. Before relinquishing charge, Gen Dwivedi laid a wreath at the National War Memorial.

Gen Dwivedi described his successor as "a seasoned soldier and a capable leader" and said he was confident the Army would keep rising under the new chief. His own tenure, which began in June 2024, ran through Operation Sindoor in May 2025, the cross border action that has shaped much of the Army's recent work on firepower and drones. The Ministry of Defence confirmed the takeover in a statement on 30 June.

The change of command was announced by the Army's official handle, ADG PI: 


Gen Dhiraj Seth and the Armoured Corps lineage

Gen Seth is the seventh Armoured Corps officer to become Army chief, and the first since Gen S. Roy Chowdhury, who held the post from 1994 to 1997. Of the six who came before him from the corps, two stepped up after the position fell vacant without warning. The Infantry has supplied most of India's chiefs. Five have come from the Corps of Artillery and one from the Corps of Engineers.

He was commissioned into the 2nd Lancers, one of the Army's oldest armoured regiments, making him the third officer from that regiment to rise to the top of the service.

From desert regiments to the Sudarshan Chakra Corps

An alumnus of the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla and the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, Gen Seth was commissioned into the Armoured Corps in December 1986. His service has run across very different theatres, from desert warfare formations to counter insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir.

He commanded an Armoured Regiment in the desert sector, an Armoured Brigade in the Western Theatre and a Counter Insurgency Force in Jammu and Kashmir, command tours that carried him across the spread of terrain the corps trains for.

After his promotion to Lieutenant General, Gen Seth led the Sudarshan Chakra Corps, one of the Army's premier strike formations, then served as General Officer Commanding, Delhi Area, where he led the Republic Day Parade in 2023. He went on to head two operational commands in succession, South Western Command and Southern Command, before moving to Army Headquarters as Vice Chief of the Army Staff.

His staff and strategic appointments include Brigade Major of an Independent Armoured Brigade in Jammu and Kashmir, Operations Officer with the United Nations mission in Angola, and Assistant Military Secretary at Army Headquarters. At the Defence Services Staff College he was awarded the medal for the best all round student officer.

Architect of the Army's modernisation push

Gen Dhiraj Seth is widely seen as one of the architects of the Army's modernisation. He has held the appointments of Colonel Capability Development for Mechanised Forces, Brigadier Perspective Plans and Acquisition, and Additional Director General Capability Development, work that fed directly into the Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan and the capability roadmap that now guides the service's inductions, from its indigenous light machine gun programme to the run of domestic loitering munitions reaching frontline units.

As General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command, he pushed technology adoption and closer civil military work, and oversaw the integration of drone squadrons into armoured units. He also ran large joint and tri service exercises in newer areas such as cyber, information warfare, multi domain operations and amphibious warfare, among them Exercise Trishul. The same emphasis on home built firepower has carried into contested inductions such as the Suryastra rocket system. Through this period the command kept a steady focus on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief.

A military family

Gen Seth comes from a military family. He is the son of Lt Gen Krishna Mohan Seth, a former Adjutant General of the Indian Army who later served as Governor of Tripura and Chhattisgarh. Father and son have both commanded the Sudarshan Chakra Corps, a rare line in the Army's record.

His younger brother, Rear Adm Ravnish Seth, is a serving Flag Officer in the Indian Navy, placing a serving Army chief and a serving naval officer in the same immediate family.

Gen Seth is a graduate of the Higher Command Course and the National Defence College, and has attended advanced military courses in France and the United States. He is regarded in the service as a scholar soldier.

Gen Seth takes over the post with a tenure that runs until 31 August 2028.