Field Marshal () is a five–star officer rank and the highest attainable in the Indian Army. Created in 1973, it exists as a ceremonial recognition, awarded exclusively to officers deemed to have rendered exceptional service during wartime.
Modeled after British military ranking system, the rank is the Army's equivalent to the Marshal of the Indian Air Force (MIAF) the only other five-star rank in the Indian Armed Forces.
Since its inception, the rank has been awarded only twice, to S. H. F. J. Manekshaw in January 1973 and second, to K. M. Cariappa in April 1986. Outside the Army, the only other officer in the armed forces to have ever held a five-star rank was Arjan Singh, who was promoted as Marshal of the Indian Air Force in January 2002.
History
Preceding era
During the British Raj, the rank structure of the erstwhile British Indian Army (BIA) was modeled after the British ranking system, and upon India's attainment independence in 1947, the Indian Army, which succeeded the BIA, retained the rank structure with several modifications to its insignia; however, given that no officer in the BIA had ever been promoted to the rank of field marshal, the rank was also omitted from the Indian Army's rank structure. Consequently, the four-star rank of general existed as the highest attainable rank, and remained so until 1973.
S. H. F. J. Manekshaw (1973)
thumb|President [[V. V. Giri presenting the rank of Field Marshal to S. H. F. J. Manekshaw in January 1973]]
The idea to introduce the rank of field marshal was first proposed by the Union Government in early-1972, just a few months after India's military victory in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war. At the time, the Army's successes came to be strongly identified with General S. H. F. J. Manekshaw, who for his part, had been a principal commander during the conflict vis-à-vis his leadership as the then-Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) and Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee. Thus, it was conceived that Manekshaw's wartime leadership merited a promotion to the rank of field marshal, a notion which was then strongly supported by then-prime minister Indira Gandhi. However, the measure was reportedly opposed by then-defence minister Jagjivan Ram and the civilian bureaucracy, which feared an unbalanced tilt in civil-military relations. The confusion was resolved in 1987 when the title honorary was dropped, allowing Cariappa to retain his rank substantively. Although it is usually prepared in metal gold furnishing, Manekshaw personally requested his rank insignia to be prepared in black metal, as he belonged to the Gorkhas, whose officers customarily wore their insignia in black.|| Chief of the Army Staff<br/>(1969–1973) ||Awarded in service for exceptional wartime leadership during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War.