A Tribute to Lt. General SK Sinha by Marshal Panda

By Marshal Panda (Sambalpur): It is said that old soldiers never die, they fade away. One of India’s grand old swords got eclipsed in the death of Lt.Gen SK Sinha, PVSM.

His father & grand father both headed the Bihar police Born in 1926 in Gaya, he graduated from Patna college in 1943. At 18, he was selected for an emergency commission and was commissioned in to the Jat Regt.

Sinha saw service in Burma & Indonesia. After the war he was posted to the Army HQ. in Delhi. Here he served with Sam Manekshaw (later Field Marshal) & Yahya Khan (later President of Pakistan) in the military operations directorate.After independence he was shifted to the  Gorkha Rifles.

He held command at every level from a platoon to a field army (Western Command).In 1983 Sinha became the Vice Chief of the Army but took premature retirement when he was superseded. He also contested the election and was defeated.

For a brief successful period, he was the High Commissioner in Nepal, where he was so liked that the King & Queen came to his residence. Later he became the Governor of Assam.He became “more Assamese than the Assamese.”and “a true son of the soil of Assam”. As J & K Governor he was so successful that he was hated by both the separatists and the politicians.

His Odisha connection is that he was a classmate of Prof.Dr. Shriram Chandra Dash in Patna.