Gen Dhiraj Seth VIJAY doctrine sets the Army agenda on day one

Gen Dhiraj Seth VIJAY is the acronym the new Chief of the Army Staff reached for within hours of taking over the Indian Army. He assumed charge as the 31st COAS on 30 June, and used his first media brief to lay out what he means to prioritise.

The brief followed the ceremonial Guard of Honour at South Block, where Gen Upendra Dwivedi had handed over the baton after more than four decades in uniform. Gen Seth opened in Hindi, called the day one of pride and humility, and thanked the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister for the trust placed in him. He is the first Armoured Corps officer to lead the force since 1997, a lineage his early stress on modernisation only sharpened.

Then he turned to VIJAY.

Gen Dhiraj Seth VIJAY framework, letter by letter

Each letter carries a priority, drawn in part from the Defence Minister's Decade of Transformation guidance. V is for Vigilance. Gen Seth tied it to constant watch over the borders and emerging threats, and to holding operational readiness high enough to meet any challenge to national security.

I stands for Innovation and Transformation. Innovation would run through doctrine and technological solutions alike, the general said, shaping mindset, method and capability, with the transformations a changing battlefield demands carried out in step.

J is for Jointness and Integration. He committed the Army to synergy with the Air Force and the Navy, and cast national security as wider than military strength, resting on Military-Civil Fusion and a Whole of Nation Approach that feeds nation-building and the Viksit Bharat 2047 goal.

Behind Jointness sits the theaterisation question the three services have circled for years. Integrated Theatre Commands, meant to place land, air and maritime assets under single operational heads, remain a work in progress, and the synergy language reads as a signal that the Army means to stay inside that process rather than work around it.

A is for Aatmanirbharta. Here he was blunt about the destination. "To Win Our Wars with Indigenous Solutions," he said, making self-reliance the test every capability decision now has to clear.

Y closes the acronym, and it is the letter he lingered on.

Yoddha First, Soldier First, is how he framed it. In his reading everyone from the newest Agniveer to the most senior veteran is a warrior, and that body of warriors is the Army's real strength. Lifting the technological threshold and training standards of soldiers would be a chief priority, he said, while the welfare, empowerment and professional growth of veterans and Veer Naris matter to him personally.

The technology-enabled, future-ready Army

Modernisation ran under the whole brief. Gen Seth described the Army as combat ready and battle hardened already, yet needing to push modernisation with fresh resolve to stay ahead of a shifting security environment. What he wants built is a technology-enabled, future-ready force able to operate across multiple domains.

None of that is new language for him. An Armoured Corps officer commissioned in 1986, Gen Seth has commanded the XXI Strike Corps and both the South Western and Southern Commands along the western front, and served as Vice Chief from April 2026. Much of that stretch was spent inside the Army's long-term modernisation and capability-development plans.

Gen Dhiraj Seth VIJAY and the push for indigenous solutions

The Aatmanirbharta line lands in the middle of a running argument over how Indian the Army's newest kit really is. Recent inductions have drawn exactly that scrutiny, from a Belarus-linked kamikaze drone whose indigeneity was questioned to the row over whether the Suryastra rocket launcher is domestic engineering or a rebadged import. Set against those disputes, cleaner deliveries such as the indigenous Prahar light machine gun show the other face of the same drive.

Gen Seth named no programmes. He set the bar and left it there.

Yoddha First, from Agniveer to veteran

The soldier-welfare strand is where the brief turned personal. Veterans and Veer Naris, he said, are part of the military family and not an afterthought to it. Training and technology for those in service, welfare for those who have served, both sit near the top of the Ministry of Defence agenda he now helps carry.

Continuity from Gen Upendra Dwivedi

Gen Seth closed by bowing to Gen Upendra Dwivedi and the chiefs before him, crediting their leadership for the force he inherits. He assured citizens that the Army stands ready to protect the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interests. His motto ties the rest together. The Prime Minister's JAI mantra for the armed forces, he said in his official remarks, is the foundation of VIJAY: from JAI to VIJAY.