Army chief Rawat seeks Bharat Ratna for Field Marshal Cariappa

Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat on Saturday here said it was time to recommend Field Marshal K M Cariappa's name for the highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna.

"Time has come to recommend Field Marshal Cariappa for Bharat Ratna," the Army Chief said as he unveiled statues of Field Marshal Cariappa and General K.S. Thimayya at this hilly town in Karnataka's Kodagu district, about 240 km from state capital Bengaluru.

The statues were unveiled at Cauvery College.

The bronze statues were installed in the vicinity of the 'Lyn House', the ancestral house of Kodavdira family, to which both the Generals belonged to.

Cariappa was the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Army and was conferred the Field Marshal rank on April 1986. He is also a recipient of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his role in the Burma campaign against the Japanese during the Second World War (1939-1945).

Thimayya, a 1954 Padma Bhushan awardee, was Chief of Army Staff from 1957 to 1961. He was the only Indian to command an infantry brigade in World War-II.

Cariappa was born on January 28, 1899 and died May 15, 1993 at the age of 94 in Bangalore (now) Bengaluru. Thimayya was born on March 30, 1906 and died in harness on December 17, 1965 at the age of 59 in Cyprus, where he was serving as the Commander of the UN Peacekeeping Force.