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'For far too long, people in J&K have felt the government doesn't exist for them.'
'My first priority is to make them feel that not only does it exist, it is there to work for them,' the J&K LG tells Aditi Phadnis.
There's little at Jammu and Kashmir House on Delhi's upscale Prithviraj Road that points to Kashmir.
No carved walnut wood furniture, no shikaras (not even dinky tabletop replicas), no framed pictures of Sheikh Abdullah, glaring down fiercely at guests.... Just a few vaguely Kashmiri-looking carpets, rather the worse for wear, some pictures of generic 'scenery' and a few plastic vases with some rust-brown fronds (also plastic) making a brave attempt to pass off as chinar leaves in the autumn.
The decor is utilitarian, almost boring.
There is security, but it is unobtrusive.
Manoj Sinha, the new lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir -- the second in the space of a year since the state became a Union Territory -- does not believe in excessive security.
At J&K House, there's no gunman guarding his door, no frisking of visitors and no passing through metal detectors.
But this is Delhi.
In Srinagar, his security would be non-negotiable.
Sinha belongs to Ghazipur in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the playground of armed mafiosi -- and he had no gunmen there, either.
Did he know he was going to be sent on such an important assignment? No, he says, as he settles down for a chat.
He doesn't know the backstory: When Jagat Prakash Nadda became Bharatiya Janata Party president, Sinha's name was considered for an organisational position.
But Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi scratched his name out and told party leaders that he wanted to talk to Sinha first, suggesting he could be deployed in a different role.
Sinha first came to know Modi in 1992 when Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, then BJP president, organised the Ekta Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and hoisted the Tricolour at Srinagar's Lal Chowk (Modi was chief organiser of the yatra).
In the 2014 Modi government, he served first as minister of state for railways and then got independent charge of communications and IT.
His work came in for praise from late BJP leader Arun Jaitley.
His predecessor, G C Murmu, was appropriate for the transition in J&K after Article 370 was abolished.
But now you need someone who isn't a newbie in politics -- and Sinha certainly isn't.
He has come up through the rough and tumble of student politics in Banaras Hindu University, where he studied engineering at IIT BHU.
His role model then was Communist Party of India's Sarju Pandey, one of eastern UP's tallest leaders known to be both fearless and humane -- the two qualities Sinha admired him most for.
In his new job, he says, he is ready to listen to and speak with everyone -- within reason.
"For far too long, people in J&K have felt the government doesn't exist for them. My first priority is to make them feel that not only does it exist, it is there to work for them."
Sinha believes what worked in violence-ridden, underdeveloped Ghazipur must surely work in J&K as well.
With him as MP and minister, Ghazipur got a new railway station, a four-laned highway with connectivity to both Lucknow and Varanasi, and an airport.
He may have lost the 2019 election but won many over in the constituency.
He is testing this in J&K.
All the bureaucrats in the state, he says, are back at work, pandemic notwithstanding.
People are coming to government offices for domicile certificates, caste certificates and other paperwork.
"I want to ensure people get a say in what they want. I am not one to make grand announcements," he says.
So, the district planning boards are going to be recast (they were dissolved in 2019) and panchayat elections will be held as soon as feasible.
"I am arranging to send groups of panchayat heads to other parts of India to gather best practices in local government," he says.
"There might be initial clamour for boycott of panchayat elections, but I expect extensive participation; people know this will have an impact on development."
Sinha hasn't been in J&K long, but knows about the history of the region's neglect, having studied it in some detail before going there.
When asked what struck him most about it, he thinks and answers softly: "Projects were started 20, 25 years ago and are still not complete."
This is as close as you can get him to say that the State has let the people of J&K down.
We are so engrossed in talking that the food goes tepid.
It is a wonderful vegetarian spread: Haq greens tempered in mustard oil, small brinjals in a tangy curry, the ubiquitous dum aalu, and a concession, clearly, to Sinha's own weakness: UP-style arhar dal.
He jokes that he was used to lauki, torai, bhanta, the trio of vegetables from the gourd family, and purple eggplant, and was thrown at the amount of paneer used in J&K.
The dal bridges the culinary divide.
What about Kashmiri Pandits? Sinha is impassive.
He says he has assured them security if they want to return to the Valley: "All over the region, there are beautiful temples, thousands of years old, lying in ruins. If my ancestors had built those structures, I would have grabbed at the chance to rebuild them. I have made an offer to some wealthy KPs: 'Come back and reclaim your heritage.' I'm sure they will respond positively."
Sinha is bewildered at the wasteful, needless and feudal move of the Durbar (secretariat and government offices) to Srinagar in summer and to Jammu in the winter.
All the documents are laden in trucks, and then convoys trundle down to Jammu and months later, up to Srinagar.
"In this day of digitisation, do you really need to do this?"
He flags with enthusiasm all the things he wants to do: Offer sport to engage young people (Suresh Raina has been roped in to start cricket academies across the state), build better hospitals, craft a new industrial policy, revive local craft, open an examination centre for entrance to institutions like Aligarh Muslim University...
But will he last long enough in the state to achieve a fraction of this? Who knows? Murmu didn't.
And then the real problem is doing business with the rest of India, especially when the National Investigation Agency pounces on your partner even if your business is perfectly legitimate and backed with all the paperwork.
"The NIA is a very professional entity. It knows whose business is legitimate and whose is just a cover," he says quietly.
We end with dessert: Phirni, fragrant with saffron and cardamom.
But UP rears its sweet head again: There's creamy rabri in little earthenware bowls.
Suddenly, there's an interruption: A small boy bounds in and greets Sinha with a pronounced American twang and a hug.
His grandson is down from Seattle for a holiday.
Sinha's face softens, and the room is suffused with love.
He shoos the boy off to dinner.
For that brief moment, Sinha is a grandfather, nothing else.
The purity of that emotional connection visible on his face is what the people of Jammu and Kashmir have been missing.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
