Ambassador Deepak Vohra’s lecture at IILM Kashmir: The Journey Resumes
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As part of the Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing Career Course at IILM, a lecture of Ambassador Deepak Vohra, currently the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of India, was organised for the students to apprise them about the Kashmir issue that has been dominating the news and people’s thoughts since August 2019 when the special status granted to Kashmir in the Indian Constitution was revoked. Ambassador Deepak Vohra, an Indian diplomat, served as Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. He was the Ambassador of India to Poland and is now Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of India, Lesotho and Guinea-Bissau. In 2012 he was Advisor to the Government of South Sudan. During his service in the Indian Foreign Service, he served in France, Tunisia, United States, Chad, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, Spain, Armenia, Sudan and Poland. In 1995 he was Deputy High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur. Prior to his role in Diplomacy, he was a news reader in Doordarshan and an officer on special duty to the Technology Advisor to the Prime Minister of India. Ambassador Vohra has also worked with Sulabh International and has been a part of United Nations assignments in Africa. An Alumnus of
St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, St. Columba’s School, National Defence College (India) and University of Paris, Ambassador Deepak Vohra has a special interest in the Kashmir issue and he inaugurated The Apati War Memorial at Kargil. Lecture of Ambassador Deepak Vohra Ambassador Vohra began his lecture with the history of India during the British rule and explained the importance of Kashmir due to its geographical location. He took the students on a historical journey of India during the British rule through a series of rare pictures of that era bringing out the stark inequality between the lives of the British who ruled and the Indians who were the subjugated lot and exposed the sheer unfairness and greed of the British. Ambassador Vohra touched upon India’s freedom movement and explained in great detail how and why India was partitioned. He also spoke about the role of the various leaders such as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Mr Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Governor Mountbatten in the partition of India. He explained to the students the difficulties faced by people during partition of India and how people were forced to migrate to either India or Pakistan leaving behind everything that was familiar. He
Ambassador Deepak Vohra interacting with the students
