God is not a fighter pilot. That is the punch line to an old joke in the Indian Air Force. That one line is today superbly ironic. The new chief of air staff designate, Air Marshal Fali Major, does not fly fighters. He is the senior-most air marshal in service and eligible in every way for the top job, but the decorated officer is a chopper pilot. Ground-breaking stuff.

Each of the 20 men who have served as chief of air staff since 1947 has been a fighter pilot. No government rule mandates that the IAF’s top post be manned by a fighter pilot; yet right from Air Marshal Thomas Walker Elmhirst, independent India’s first air chief, down to the current man in office, Air Chief Marshal Shashi Tyagi, they have been fighter pilots all. It has been the done thing and the promotion system has ensured that fighter pilots are lined up for the top spot, time and time again. Until now.

The succession question in the IAF has simmered for more than a year now, with the battle lines between fighter pilots and ‘other’ streams clearly drawn for what was, one way or the other, going to be a controversial decision by the government. The fighter mob, as we defence correspondents like to call them, lobbied carefully, ingratiating itself nimbly with an establishment that doesn’t know its front from its back. The ‘other’ streams were too scattered for any organised lobbying, so they stood back and held their breaths. And in the end that seemed to work.

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