The newly appointed Governor of Jammu and Kashmir met with the members of the New England Indian community on Friday May 17th and shared his vision for the state. General Sinha has had an impressive career. After 40 years of service in the Indian Army, the General has been called to the service of the government whenever a tricky or difficult situation needs his attention. When India was accused of blockade in Nepal, the then Prime Minister V.P Singh sought his help to smooth relations. As the Ambassador to Nepal, Sinha won the admiration and respect of the Nepalese and was responsible for a U-turn in Indo-Nepal relations.

He is also responsible for bringing normalcy to Assam in his words “was burning in 1997”. He was appointed Governor of Assam to combat militancy in the state and also curb the influx of illegal immigration from neighboring Bangladesh. General Sinha observed that consistent years of neglect of Assam led to the twin phases of student movement and the insurgency, in which Assam wanted to separate from the union referring to India as a foreign country. General Sinha was responsible for finding the solution by a variety of means, primarily by bringing about an attitudinal change in the people. General Sinha had started his army career in Gauhati, Assam in the 1940s and had spent a total of 12 years in the state. By the end of his first five-year term, in an amazing turn around in attitudes, the residents of Assam were themselves apprehending the militants instead of the security forces.

Now he takes on the most challenging role of his career thus far – as Governor of the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir. The plight of the Kashmiri Pandits in the state is extremely pitiable. But this state is not new to the General. On Oct. 27, 1947, the then Major Sinha had exactly18 days to move 900 soldiers from Delhi to Srinagar before the snow would close all the passes. He successfully organized a massive airlift and controlled the communal riots. In 1949, he visited UN as Secretary of the Indian delegation to sign the cease-fire agreement.

There were a number of questions posed to General Sinha dealing with Article 370, peace in Kashmir, involvement of third party, war with Pakistan and status of Kashmir. He answered each and every one of them with sincerity. General Sinha is against Article 370 and believes that the demands of each of the five groups in Kashmir, Shite Muslims, Buddhists, Laddhakians, Kashmiri Pandits, etc. need to be addressed for any hope of peace. As far as involvement of a third party to mediate the process, he is strongly opposed to it as he feels Kashmir is India’s problem and India is a sovereign country. Besides that he feels the third parties are interested in their own goals and historically whenever we have tried this, we end up with more problems than we started with. According to General Sinha, India could have acted decisively in dealing with Pakistan in the early nineties but now that both countries are nuclear powers, some of the options are no longer feasible. Finally, General Sinha mentioned that more than 15,000 soldiers have been killed in Kashmir and as a fellow soldier he wants to make sure that their sacrifice do not go in vain.

Lokvani would like to extend its sincere appreciation to the organizers and especially Birendra and Geeta Sinha for coordinating the event, Neeta Khaund for introducing the speaker and Sahdev Passey for moderating the discussion. There were about 70 people in attendance, which met at Milan Restaurant in Shrewsbury, MA. Kalyan Ghosh, Satya Mitra, Sahdev Passey, Neelu Sharma, Anupam and Neelam Wali, Nachiketa Tiwari, Bikas Verma, Sanjay Kaul, Abhaya Asthana, Amar Kapur and Ramesh Kapur were among those who attended the event. General Sinha gives us hope that a return of peace to the Kashmir valley is a distinct possibility and we wish him the very best of luck in his endeavours.

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