Recent attention has returned to the events surrounding the Rechin La episode of August 2020, particularly the claim that India’s political leadership sought to shift responsibility for that episode onto the then Chief of Army Staff, Manoj Mukund Naravane. The criticism is familiar: civilian leaders mishandled a military crisis and later sought cover behind the uniform.That criticism is not misplaced. It is also incomplete.What the political leadership did was wrong. This is no way to manage a professional army, either during a crisis or afterwards. Much has already been written on this aspect, and repeating it adds little. What remains insufficiently examined are the deeper institutional failures that made such buck-passing possible in the first place.To understand those failures, one must look not at personalities but at time, terrain, and doctrine.When the Rechin La incident occurred on the night of 31 August 2020, it did not take place in a strategic vacuum. More than two and a half months earlier, on 15 June 2020, B. Santosh Babu and 19 soldiers of 16 Bihar were killed in the Galwan Valley in a violent confrontation with Chinese troops.Galwan was not an aberration. It was a declaration of intent.By mid-June 2020, Chinese behaviour in eastern Ladakh had crossed from coercive signalling into open physical confrontation. The willingness to escalate was clear. From that point onwards, no senior military commander could plausibly claim uncertainty about Chinese intent in that sector.Yet when tensions resurfaced at Rechin La in late August, Indian forces were still operating under restrictive rules that limited a commander’s freedom to respond decisively to a hostile advance. This was not a failure of courage on the ground. It was a failure of institutional adaptation.This geography has been understood for decades. starting 1962. Both Major Shaitan Singh and Major Dhan Singh Thapa were awarded the Param Vir Chakra for separate actions in Ladakh during the 1962 Sino-Indian War, fought weeks apart but within the same strategic theatre.The importance of the ground had not diminished. What had changed was the latitude granted to those ordered to hold it.The late-August operation by Indian forces to occupy the Kailash Heights was tactically imaginative and operationally bold. It altered the local balance and surprised the PLA. That initiative deserves recognition.But capturing ground is only half the problem. Holding it requires clarity of intent and freedom of action.Also read: Behind the Silence of India’s VeteransThis leads to the most uncomfortable question of all: how was a feature of such importance left under rules of engagement that constrained a commander’s right to fire in self-defence?In his memoirs, General Naravane suggests that the government was casual about developments in eastern Ladakh, even recalling him from a planned visit only at the last moment. If that assessment is correct, it raises a basic issue. If the civilian leadership was complacent, whose responsibility was it to correct that complacency?In a democracy, politicians decide. But they do not generate ground truth. They depend on professional military advice to understand urgency, risk, and consequence. If urgency is not conveyed, it is not because politicians failed to imagine it, but because military leaders failed to insist upon it.The most troubling aspect of the Rechin La episode concerns the rules of engagement themselves. At Galwan, Indian troops were ordered to enforce disengagement without firearms. The result was catastrophic. One might accept such restrictions once — under protest. After Galwan, however, no professional commander could reasonably defend a doctrine that required soldiers to await permission before defending themselves against a hostile advance.Rules of engagement are not immutable law. They are operational tools. Between Galwan and Rechin La, more than two months elapsed. What lessons were learnt? Were the rules revised in a manner consistent with demonstrated Chinese intent? If restrictive rules persisted, why were they accepted?There is no precedent in military history for asking troops to hold tactically decisive ground while awaiting permission to defend themselves. If such rules were imposed, the moment to challenge them was before contact, not years later in memoirs.Also read: Four Questions Beyond ‘Jo Uchit Samjho Woh Karo’ Raised by Ex-Army Chief’s MemoirsIt is tempting to reduce Rechin La to a morality play — politicians as villains, generals as reluctant intermediaries, soldiers as victims. Such narratives are emotionally satisfying and analytically hollow.Galwan was the warning. Rechin La was the test.That the debate today revolves around memoirs rather than reform is itself revealing. The deeper failure lies not in who passed the buck, but in a system that made buck-passing inevitable.Until that is confronted honestly and institutionally, the cost will continue to be paid by soldiers standing on cold ridgelines, constrained by rules written far from the ground they are asked to hold.That is the failure that ultimately matters.If we Indians are very proud how the 120 Bahadurs (name of the famous movie) fought till the end- with rifles – they must ask as to why the same sector was later defended with sticks nails embedded with nails, or a ROE ‘No firing without my orders’.Alok Asthana is a retired Indian Army officer.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.