Gen Dhiraj Seth salutes his father, then touches his feet, as three uniforms meet in one family

Gen Dhiraj Seth took over as the 31st Chief of the Army Staff on 30 June. Minutes after his Guard of Honour on the South Block lawns, he walked across to a retired officer seated among the guests, came to attention, saluted, and then bent to touch his feet.

The retired officer was his father, Lt Gen Krishna Mohan Seth, Retd. The salute was the soldier's. Touching the feet was the son's.

A serving Rear Admiral then saluted the new Chief. That was Rear Adm Ravnish Seth, Gen Seth's younger brother and a flag officer in the Indian Navy. 



A father who wore the uniform first

Lt Gen KM Seth was commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery. He commanded the 17 Parachute Field Regiment, and later the Bhopal based XXI Strike Corps, the formation the Army knows as the Sudarshan Chakra Corps. He went on to command III Corps in Nagaland through a hard phase of counter insurgency operations, and retired as Adjutant General of the Indian Army at the end of 1997.

His service did not stop with the uniform. He was Governor of Tripura, then Chhattisgarh, and held additional charge of Madhya Pradesh, before completing his gubernatorial tenure in 2005. He holds the Param Vishisht Seva Medal and the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal.

The same corps, a generation apart

Gen Dhiraj Seth commanded that same XXI Corps years after his father had led it. Father and son both held the Sudarshan Chakra Corps, one of the Army's principal strike formations.

The son took a different arm. Commissioned into the Armoured Corps in December 1986, Gen Seth is the first officer from the Armoured Corps to lead the Army since Gen Shankar Roy Chowdhary retired in 1997. He has commanded an armoured regiment in the desert, an armoured brigade in the western theatre, and a counter insurgency force in Jammu and Kashmir.

Before this appointment he was Vice Chief of the Army Staff. He is among the few officers to have held two operational commands, the Jaipur based South Western Command and the Pune based Southern Command, both tied to the western frontier with Pakistan. He holds the PVSM, UYSM and AVSM.

Three in uniform, across two services

The Seth household has put three men into uniform. The father and the elder son in olive green, the younger son in Navy whites. Their mother is Veena Seth. Gen Seth is married to Komal Seth, and the couple has two daughters.

A quiet handover

Gen Seth succeeds Gen Upendra Dwivedi, who laid a wreath at the National War Memorial and received a farewell Guard of Honour before demitting office. Gen Dwivedi retired after more than four decades in service. The change of command was marked on the South Block lawns, where Gen Seth formally took charge as the 31st Chief of the Army Staff.

Subject to service rules, Gen Seth is expected to hold the appointment until 31 August 2028.