From Fighter Jets to Faith

Air Marshal (retd.) Jeetendra Mishra brings discipline, integrity and command experience to the Ram Mandir Trust as it seeks to rebuild faith shaken by the donation scandal.

The biggest challenge facing Air Marshal (retd.) Jeetendra Mishra, who was recently appointed first chief executive officer of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra in Ayodhya, can be articulated in a single word. It is not security or the vast machinery that keeps the Ram Mandir functioning. It is trust.

Mishra takes over the management of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust takes charge at an awkward moment for an institution that derives much of its moral authority from the faith of millions of devotees.

Till date, allegations of theft and irregularities involving temple donations have resulted in criminal investigations, eight arrests, changes in the Trust’s composition and the resignation of its general secretary, Champat Rai. The scandal has raised uncomfortable questions about whether offerings made in faith are being handled with the seriousness that faith demands.

Mishra’s appointment suggests that the Trust understands the scale of that challenge.

Known for his key role in Operation Sindoor, his CV is almost an advertisement for disciplined institutional management. It certainly sends out a reassuring message at a time when the scam-battered Trust is in danger of losing faith among devotees.

A fighter combat leader, experimental test pilot and veteran commander, Mishra retired in April this year as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Air Command. He has held a succession of demanding operational and organisational appointments, including Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations), commander of a fighter squadron, Chief Test Pilot at the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment and commander of two frontline air bases.

These are qualities that are needed to steer the Ram Mandir Temple Trust out of its present quagmire.

Notable in Mishra’s military record is that the Western Air Command was at the centre of Operation Sindoor, India’s robust and swift response to Pakistan and the terror bases lodged in that country. He was among its top planners and received a medal for distinguished service of exceptional order for his role. His other honours include the Sarvottam Yudh Seva Medal, Ati Vishisht Seva Medal and Vishisht Seva Medal.

No one perhaps is more suitable to hand the Trust’s current crisis as he. Asked about his strategy as CEO, Mishra, in interviews, has stressed that it would have to be developed under the guidance of the Trust and with his team. By this, Mishra appears to suggest that the CEO is being brought in not simply to impose military-style discipline on a religious institution but to make an existing institution work better.

After all, the donation controversy cannot be repaired merely through arrests or administrative reshuffling. Those actions may establish accountability for alleged wrongdoing. They do not automatically restore confidence among devotees.

A devotee dropping money into a donation box does so with an expectation that the offering will be handled honestly, efficiently and transparently. Once that assumption is disturbed, even an impeccably managed ledger cannot immediately restore what has been lost.

When asked how his Air Force background would help, Mishra unassumingly pointed not to some special military formula but to qualities such as discipline, hard work and integrity.

That selection process to the top job itself was unusually competitive. The Trust received 5,585 applications for the CEO’s post. A search panel headed by retired judge Pramod Kohli, with retired Lieutenant General Vishnukant Chaturvedi and former scientist Suresh Haware, assessed candidates through a 600-mark framework before interviewing 16 finalists in Ayodhya on August 11 and 12.

Mishra has emerged from that field at a moment when the Trust needed more than another administrator. It needs someone capable of signalling that the institution takes stewardship seriously.

“Lord Ram does not require my service,” Mishra has said. “It’s the nation and the people who require my service.”

This attitude may be his greatest asset. The Ram Mandir is not short of devotees. What its management now needs is to convince those devotees that their faith is being matched by institutional integrity.

Mishra has spent a career dealing with systems in which mistakes can carry enormous consequences. His real mission in his new assignment is to make devotees confident that when they give donations, their faith is not being misplaced.