Opinion | 6 Years Of Manoj Sinha: The Lieutenant Governor Who Turned Raj Bhawan Into Lok Bhawan

In a region where trust has always been the scarcest commodity, that may well be Manoj Sinha's most enduring legacy.

There is a simple way to judge whether an administrator has earned the confidence of the people. Don’t begin with government advertisements or official press releases. Stand outside his office for a day and watch who walks through its gates.

Over the last six years, I have done exactly that.

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Rarely has a day gone by without a dozen or more delegations waiting to meet Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha at Raj Bhawan—today better known as Lok Bhawan. Farmers from remote villages, families of terror victims, traders, students, ex-servicemen, teachers, panchayat representatives, religious leaders and ordinary citizens carrying files thicker than hope have continued to arrive, convinced that if there was one place where they would at least be heard, it was here.

That, perhaps more than anything else, defines Manoj Sinha’s tenure.

Jammu and Kashmir today has an elected government. Yet the flow of people to Lok Bhawan has remained uninterrupted.

Perhaps the answer lies in the queues themselves. People do not travel hundreds of kilometres, carrying little more than worn-out files and fragile hope, unless they believe someone inside will listen. In a region where trust in institutions has often been hard-won, that quiet faith of ordinary citizens is perhaps the strongest endorsement any public office can receive.

Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, there is no denying one reality: accessibility became one of the defining characteristics of his administration.

As Manoj Sinha completes six years as Lieutenant Governor—six of the seven years since Jammu and Kashmir became a Union Territory—it is perhaps the right time to evaluate his tenure not through political rhetoric but through the prism of governance.

When he assumed office in August 2020, Jammu and Kashmir stood at a critical juncture. The constitutional changes of August 2019 had fundamentally altered its political landscape. Terrorism remained a persistent challenge, development projects needed fresh momentum and, above all, there was a pressing need to restore confidence in institutions.

Before Manoj Sinha could settle into office, he found himself confronting an invisible enemy rather than a political........

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