Srinivas Kumar Sinha

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 were raised to a high level of cordiality. The Prime Minister of India stated that Sinha had played a major role in this happy development. The Prime Minister of Nepal wrote, "General Sinha was as much India's Ambassador to Nepal as Nepal's Ambassador to India".[11]

In 1997, Gen Sinha was appointed Governor of Assam at a time when 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 co-ordinated 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.[12] His psychological initiatives had a large emotional content.[13] Such an approach was tried out for the first time and it yielded rich dividends.[14] His 42-page printed report to the President on illegal migration from Bangladesh addressed the root cause of insurgency in the State. This report was serialised and published in full in all newspapers of the State. His recommendation on scrapping the Illegal Migration Detection By Tribunal (IMDT) Act, which facilitated illegal migration and applied only to Assam and not to other states, took the people of Assam by storm. Although controversial in some circles at the time, the Supreme Court struck down the IMDT ACT quoting extensively from his report. He started being referred to as "our man in Raj Bhavan". His attempts to make the people of Assam proud of their past and the rest of India proud of Assam, touched the emotional chords of the people. He projected the three icons of Assam, Shankardev, Lachit Borphukan and the great statesman Gopinath Bordoloi as national heroes. Documentaries on their lives were prepared and shown on Doordarshan. At the initiative of Assam's top heritage scholar, pioneer economist and litterateur Principal Bhabananda Deka and columnist, storywriter, novelist Arnab Jan Deka, the Indian Army's chief General V P Malik instituted the Lachit Barphukan Award and the installation of a statue of Lachit at the National Defence Academy, Pune. This was announced on 24 April 1999 at an all-India level national seminar and lecture programme held in New Delhi by Guwahati-based research organisation Assam Foundation-India founded by Principal Deka and his associates, the Delhi programme by General Malik with endorsement from VP Krishna Kant, Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and governor Sinha publicly thanked General Malik for deciding to institute the award in memory of the Assamese General. Within a year a gold medal had been instituted in his name at the National Defence Acaqdemy for the cadet with best officer-like qualities. India's leading dailies like Hindustan Times, The Assam Tribune, The Hindu extensively reported about this Delhi event on the next day's editions on 25 April 1999.[15][16][17] A detailed report quoting newspapers like Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Assam Tribune about General Malik's announcement about institution of Lachit Barphukan Award and statue at National Defence Academy on 24 April 1999 was reprinted by top Assamese literary journal 'Prantik' in its issue dated 1 September 2016.[18] Senior journalist, Shri D N Bezboruah, former Editor of The Sentinel and President of The Editors' Guild of India, wrote about him, "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 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 insurgency was virtually over in the State and he was popularly referred to as "a true son of the soil of Assam."

On 4 June 2003, General Sinha became Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.His movement after a very successful tenure from Assam to Jammu and Kashmir received much publicity in the media. In 2003, when he took over as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, insurgency continued to be at its peak in the State. On an average ten people were being killed every day and the annual arrival of tourists in the Valley was a mere 28,000. Tourism is the mainstay of the economy of 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 hadseen in October 1947 when he had come to Kashmir for the first time. At a time when the entire subcontinent was in the throes of Partition Holocaust, complete amity amongst the people had reigned in Srinagar. He recalled the slogan he had heard at that time, 'HamalewarHoshiyar, Hum Kashmiri Hindu, Muslim, Sikh Taiyar', as also Mahatma Gandhi’s acknowledgement of the solace the Valley provided at a time when communal frenzy had taken over much of India. He realised that the three-prong strategy of unity of command, economic development and psychological initiatives that had worked so well in Assam, could also succeed in Jammu and Kashmir with suitable modifications. The Army had a large presence in the state and they were naturally very cooperative with him. All the senior Commanders had known him and had worked with him while he was in the Army. This was a great asset to him in getting things done even when the civil administration was initially not very co-operative. The improvements in the security situation brought down the daily rate of killing from ten to one. With 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. The second prong of economic development was taken care of by a massive aid package from the Government of India. Like the one lakh shallow tube wells project in Assam, he was instrumental in starting a 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. The third prong was psychological initiatives. The Army was already involved in Operation Sadhbahvna, a massive and innovative civic action programme; he stepped up such initiatives 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. The highlight of these initiatives was a Sufi Music Programme on the banks of the Dal lake in 2008 with the popular "Junoon" band from Pakistan. Although separatists had requested Pakistan not to send the band, and called for a boycott of the performance, the show was very well attended. The leader of the band, Salman Ali, in his opening remarks said that he had come from Pakistan to launch a music jihad for peace. The leading English daily of Pakistan, Dawn, reported aptly on the concert in its 28 May 2008 issue under the title "Breaking Barriers". "Music knew no boundaries", it wrote, "The People of Kashmir expressed their anger against religious militants and their violence". These successes did not go down well with separatists. Just before his departure from Kashmir on 25 June 2008, the separatists succeeded in spreading false information about the State Government’s decision to lease land for putting up temporary facilities for pilgrims to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board, of which the Governor is the Chairman. After his departure, the Kashmir Valley became embroiled in a massive agitation based largely on rumors and false propaganda, which was followed by counter-agitations in Jammu. The psychological initiatives to win over the Kashmiri people by promoting their old and valued traditions of Kashmiriyat was derailed by an uncalled communal frenzy on all sides.