Srinivas Kumar Sinha

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Lieutenant General S K Sinha PVSM, ADC
Governor of Jammu and Kashmir
In office 4 June 2003 – 25 June 2008
President	A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Preceded by	Girish Chandra Saxena
Succeeded by	Narinder Nath Vohra
Governor of Assam
In office 1997–2003
Preceded by	Lokanath Misra
Succeeded by	Arvind Dave
Vice Chief of the Army Staff (India)
In office 1 January 1983 – 1 June 1983
Preceded by	A M Sethna
Succeeded by	G S Rawat
Personal details
Born	(1926-01-07)7 January 1926 Patna, Bihar
Died	17 November 2016(2016-11-17) (aged 90)
Military service
Allegiance	British Indian Empire  India
Branch/service	British Indian Army  Indian Army
Years of service	1944 – 1983
Rank	Lieutenant General
Unit
Commands	Western Army I Corps 10 Infantry Division 23 Mountain Division 71 Mountain Brigade 3/5 Gorkha Rifles
Battles/wars	Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Service number	IC-1536[1]
Awards	Param Vishisht Seva Medal

Lieutenant General Srinivas Kumar Sinha, PVSM, ADC (January 7, 1926 – November 17, 2016) was an Indian Army General who served as the Vice Chief of Army Staff. After his retirement, he served as Governor of the states of Jammu and Kashmir, and Assam.^[2]

Early life[]

Srinivas Kumar Sinha was born on 7 January 1926 in the kayastha community in Patna, Bihar. He was the son of Mithilesh Kumar Sinha, IP, Inspector-general of police of the state of Bihar.^[3] He was the grandson of the first Indian Inspector General of India in the British Raj, Alakh Kumar Sinha. He graduated with Honours from Patna University in 1943 at the age of 17 and joined the Indian Army soon thereafter. He was recognised as the Best Cadet of the Officers' Training School, Belgaum, the war-time equivalent of the Sword of Honour. He was commissioned into Jat Regiment.^[4][5] He saw combat during the Second World War in Burma and Indonesia and, after India became independent, in Kashmir. He served two tenures in Nagaland and Manipur, where he participated in counter-insurgency operations.His son Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha a former diplomat, is serving as present Chief Information Commissioner.

Military career[]

Gen Sinha was promoted to captain on 10 September 1951.^[6] In 1953, Sinha secured the top position at the Defence Services Staff College in India and in 1962 again, at the Joint Services Staff College in the United Kingdom. He held all levels of active command in the Army from a platoon to a field army. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 9 June 1965.^[1] He commanded a battalion in Ladakh, a brigade in Manipur, a mountain division in Assam, an infantry division in Jammu, a corps in Punjab, and the Western Army. He held key staff and instructional appointments. He served as Director, Military Intelligence, Adjutant General, and Vice Chief of Army Staff at Army Headquarters. He also served as an instructor at Mhow and Staff College, Wellington. During his Army career, he was associated with Jammu and Kashmir from Day One that is, 27 October 1947. He was involved as a junior staff officer in organizing the massive airlift from Delhi to Srinagar in October 1947, in the wake of the attack from across the border in Pakistan, which was critical to the Indian efforts to beat back the raiders. In 1949, he was appointed Secretary of the Indian delegation on the delineation of the Cease Fire Line in Kashmir at a meeting convened by the United Nations. He led the Indian delegation to Italy in 1972 for a conference on the application of human rights to warfare. He was awarded the Param Vishisht Seva Medal in 1973 and was promoted to major-general on 28 December.^[7] He was made Honorary ADC to the President of India. He also served as the President of the Gorkha Brigade.

On 1 August 1978, Sinha was promoted to lieutenant-general.^[8] It was a surprise when he was not appointed Chief of Army Staff, a post that instead went to the Eastern Army Commander A S Vaidya. Following this, Sinha sought premature retirement from the Army in 1983.^[9]

Vaidya was in charge when Operation Blue Star (the June 1984 storming of the Golden Temple) took place. Sinha remained in national focus after quitting the Army through his lectures on academic subjects in Universities and numerous edit page articles in national newspapers.^[10]

Later career[]

Ambassador to Nepal[]

In 1990, Sinha was appointed India's Ambassador to Nepal when autocratic rule prevailed in that country and bilateral relations with India had hit their nadir in the wake of the trade and transit impasse of 1989. During his tenure in Nepal, democracy was restored in Nepal and India-Nepal relations improved. The Prime Minister of India stated that Sinha had played a major role in this development. The Prime Minister of Nepal wrote, "General Sinha was as much India's Ambassador to Nepal as Nepal's Ambassador to India".^[10]

Governor of Assam[]

In 1997, Gen Sinha was appointed Governor of Assam at a time when the insurgency in that State was at its peak. He crafted a three-prong strategy of unified command, economic development, and psychological initiatives. Heavy attrition was inflicted on the militants through coordinated and intensified military operations breaking the back of the militants. He was instrumental in installing one lakh shallow tube wells in Brahmaputra valley turning Assam from a rice deficit State to a rice surplus State.^[11] His psychological initiatives had a large emotional impact.^[12]

Journalist Shri D N Bezboruah, former Editor of The Sentinel and President of The Editors' Guild of India, wrote^[where?]that Sinha was "a Governor who far outshone all his predecessors in not being just a titular Head of State, but a Governor who served the State brilliantly with a deep commitment to its people for six glorious and eventful years. He sought to rebuild the psychological alienation that crept in between Assam and the Indian heartland." When he departed from Assam in 2003, the insurgency was virtually over in the State.

Governor of Jammu and Kashmir[]

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On 4 June 2003, General Sinha became the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. In 2003, when he took over as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, the insurgency continued to be at its peak in the State. On average, ten people were killed every day and the annual arrival of tourists in the Valley was a mere 28,000. Tourism is the mainstay of the economy in the Valley. On taking over as Governor, he had announced that he would attempt to promote the spirit of amity amongst all communities in the State and cordial feelings towards the rest of the country that he had seen in October 1947 when he had come to Kashmir for the first time.

Improved security brought down the daily rate of killing from ten to one. With an improved security situation, tourist arrivals to the Valley increased from 28,000 a year to 6 lakhs by 2008, when he relinquished the appointment of Governor. Like the one lakh shallow tube wells project in Assam, he was instrumental^{[according to whom?]} in starting 1000 micro hydel projects on the mountains in the state. The idea was to place a turbine on a water mill and generate 3 to 5 KW of electricity providing about 30 light points in a village.

He encouraged civic action with efforts to revive Kashmir's liberal Islamic traditions. He inaugurated seminars and conferences on Kashmiriyat at Srinagar, with scholars from Pakistan and several Central Asian states.

His term as governor to Kashmir ended on 25 June 2008.

Books[]

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Sinha has written for national newspapers, and is the author of nine books including one on the Jammu and Kashmir Operation of 1947–48 (Operation Rescue) and his autobiography, A Soldier Recalls. His other books are of Matters Military, Pataliputra, Veer Kuer Singh, A Governor's Musings, Reminiscences and Reflections and Changing India, Guarding India's Integrity: A Pro-Active Governor Speaks. The latter covers at length, his tenures as Governor of Assam and of Jammu and Kashmir, and has a foreword by Dr. A P J Kalam. His last book Raj to Swaraj was finished just a few days before his death.

Death[]

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He died on 17 November 2016 at the age of 91 years leaving behind his wife Premini Sinha, three daughters, Meenakshi, Mrinalini, and Manisha, and a son, Yashvardhan.

References[]