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Indian Army Module - IV

Armed Forces Today

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Note
INDIAN ARMY

In this lesson you will study the Indian armed forces - Army, Navy and Air Force, their
roles, tasks, organization and rank structure. Before you learn how our armed forces
are organised today, you must understand how our army changed into a modern
fighting machine over a period of many years. In the earlier lessons you have learnt
about our ancient armies, the armies of the Mughal era and native armies during the
British era.
The changes in the army during the period upto the Mughal era were slow. Later, due
to technologies and new weapons and ammunition, the method of fighting changed
fast and armies started becoming modern, to fight with ammunition and weapons.
Invention of aircraft, vehicles with wheels and later tracks made the biggest changes in
the way wars were fought. India also learnt from the experience in World Wars and
made a lot of changes.

Objectives

After studying this lesson, you will be able to:
 analyse the way of transformation for Indian Armed forces during the British rule
as well as after independence.
 describe the role and tasks of Indian Army;

 state the Composition and Organisational structure of Indian Army and
 identify some of the important weapon systems of the Indian Army.

13.1 Historic Transformation of Indian Armed Forces

Indian military's expansion and transformation has happened in phases. There have
been distinct time periods in the history of the Indian armed forces when changes have
been made. The various stages by which the Indian army changed were as follows:-
 India's military structure during British rule.

 Changes in the Armed Forces after independence.
 Restructuring of armed forces after the 1962 China -India War.

 Reforms after the 1975 K.V. Krishna Rao Report.
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MILITARY HISTORY 1