Dr Mayank Chaturvedi
delhi: This morning feels different. A heavy silence hangs over the land of Bihar, and in the lakhs of homes across the country where lights once burned at night, there is a strange sense of emptiness today. On 30 October 2026, the sun set whose light lit countless lamps that continue to shine. Dr Ravindra Kishore Sinha (RK Sinha) merged with the five elements at the age of 75. He breathed his last at his residence in Delhi/Noida. He had been unwell for a long time, but while his body had grown weary, his willpower and his dreams had not.
He was a senior BJP leader from Bihar, a former Rajya Sabha member and the founder of the globally renowned security company Security and Intelligence Services (SIS). His passing marks the end of an entire golden chapter, one that made struggle its creed and placed the staff of livelihood in the hands of millions standing on the lowest rungs of the country. Looking at RK Sinha’s life, one realises that it was like a radiant sun that burns itself, melting in the furnace of hardship, so as to light countless lamps of hope in the lives of others. Now that he has gone towards the western horizon, it feels as though a great lamp has been extinguished.
The pride of journalism: his able and sensitive leadership of Hindusthan Samachar
Journalism was the strongest and most inspiring pillar of RK Sinha’s life. A man who took up the pen as an ordinary reporter in the 1970s went on to take charge of the country’s oldest multilingual news agency, Hindusthan Samachar, as its chairman. He did not merely give this prestigious national news agency commercial heights; he also honoured his resolve to keep it devoted to the national interest and national consciousness.
For him, journalism was not just writing news but understanding the pulse of the nation and giving it the right direction. When he was chairman of Hindusthan Samachar, his voice carried a distinct weight. He knew how powerful words could be. His pen never compromised, and this was why he was regarded as a guardian figure in the country’s intellectual and media circles. Now that he is no more, it feels as though the last link to that golden era of journalism has snapped.
The extraordinary journey of an ordinary boy
Ravindra Kishore Sinha was born on 22 September 1951 into a very ordinary family in Bahiyara village in Buxar (Bhojpur district), Bihar. Even as a child, he had a longing in his eyes to do something different. After his early schooling, he graduated in political science from Anugrah Narayan College in Patna. The early days were not easy.
The family’s financial condition and the economic circumstances of Bihar at the time were enough to push young people into a deep abyss of struggle, but the dreams in RK Sinha’s eyes could not be confined in any way. He knew that if paths do not make themselves, one must break them open with the hammer of one’s own willpower.
In the early days he began his career as a trainee reporter, on a monthly salary of just Rs 230. As an investigative journalist, he made a distinct name for himself in a very short time. During the India-Pakistan War of 1971, he reported courageously from the Khulna-Kushtia-Ishwardi sector as the only war correspondent there.
Going to the front and committing to paper, with his pen, the echo of gunfire and the valour of the Indian Army was an experience that changed his destiny completely. Deep patriotism and respect for soldiers took root in him at that time. He often said that the pain he saw in the eyes of soldiers returning from the battlefield kept him awake at night.
An “accidental” idea that changed the face of the country
During his journalism days, RK Sinha saw at close quarters the suffering of former soldiers who had fought for the country but, after retirement or injury, were forced to wander from door to door for a livelihood. Around the same time, the movement of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), the great hero of the Total Revolution, was gathering momentum in Bihar. RK Sinha was deeply connected with the student movement and JP’s ideas, as a result of which he eventually lost his journalism job as well.
It was during the JP movement that Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan, sensing the social concern hidden within Sinha, gave him an invaluable suggestion. JP said that something should be done to resettle these retired soldiers and paramilitary personnel, who had been ready to lay down their lives for the country, and to put their skills to proper use.
This suggestion of JP’s went straight to RK Sinha’s heart. He took it up like a mission. In the beginning, he started it not with any intention of building a business or corporate house, but wholly with a resolve to serve society. Looking back today, one sees how far that one piece of advice from JP travelled.
From just Rs 250 to the foundation of a Rs 12,000 crore global empire
In 1974, in a small rented room in Patna, with a team of just two people and a modest capital of only Rs 250, Dr RK Sinha founded Security and Intelligence Services (SIS). His own house at number 94, Patliputra Colony, Patna, served as his office for many years. The office ran in the two rooms downstairs, while he lived with his family upstairs. When the crowds at the office grew, the veranda of his house would turn into a meeting room. Imagine the simplicity, and the size of the dream.
In those days, there was no organised industry called “private security” in India. People depended for their safety only on the government police or on lathi-wielding watchmen. RK Sinha took it upon himself to give this scattered market an organised and professional form. In 1984, he opened the country’s first private security guard training institute, so that young people could be made disciplined and technically capable.
The company that began in a small room went on to make history over the coming decades. In 2008, SIS made the historic acquisition of the Australian security giant Chubb Security. It was the first major international acquisition by any Indian security company, and it turned SIS into a multinational corporate entity. Today SIS has an annual turnover of more than Rs 12,000 crore. With branches across India, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, the company is today the leader in private security management in the Asia-Pacific region. Behind it, the kitchens of lakhs of families stay lit.
The mainstay of lakhs of families’ kitchens: the messiah of employment
RK Sinha’s greatest achievement was not the money in his bank account or his company’s turnover, but the employment he created in a state where there was hardly a trace of industry. In a state like Bihar, from which lakhs of young people migrate every year in search of work, RK Sinha, through his policies, gave young people a dignified livelihood both in their own state and in different parts of the country.
Today the SIS Group has more than 2 lakh 80 thousand permanent employees. Even if one assumes a family of four behind each employee, RK Sinha directly and indirectly brought the light of prosperity into the lives of more than 10 lakh people. This is also why he came to be called the “messiah of employment” in Bihar. He often said in his interviews, “When I see the SIS uniform in a young man’s hands and self-respect on his face, I feel my life has been a success.” Now that he is gone, it feels as though someone of their own has departed for those lakhs of families.
The Chanakya of politics and a pillar of the BJP
Alongside scaling commercial heights, Dr RK Sinha’s political journey was also deeply inspiring. He was steeped in the ideas of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and had been active since the days of the Jana Sangh. In 1966, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya himself enrolled him as a member of the Jana Sangh. He later became one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Among the ideological strategists who strengthened the BJP in Bihar and carried it to the pinnacle of power, Sinha’s name comes first. During the Emergency (1975-77), he spoke out openly against dictatorship and also wrote an authentic book, Jan Andolan, based on his experiences of the JP movement. In view of his organisational ability and devotion to the country, the BJP made him a member of the Rajya Sabha from 2014 to 2020.
While in Parliament, he made several important policy suggestions on the country’s internal security, defence matters and youth skill development. He had also served as a security adviser to the Prime Minister and as an adviser to the Union Human Resource Development Minister. Even while in politics, he never compromised on probity and principles. That was why leaders of opposition parties respected him just as much. He regarded politics as a means of service rather than merely of power.
Guardian of education, philanthropy and culture
About RK Sinha’s essential personality, it must be said that he was a sensitive human being with a deep social consciousness. He believed that returning to society whatever it had given him was his supreme duty. With this aim, in 2001 he founded The Indian Public School (TIPS) in Dehradun, which is counted today among the country’s finest residential schools.
Beyond this, through the Avsar Trust he provided free education and coaching to meritorious students from poor and underprivileged backgrounds, so that they could succeed in the civil services and other competitive examinations. In the field of health, he had several hospitals and dispensaries opened in rural areas.
To promote organic farming and environmental conservation, he launched Aadya Organics, which played an important role in increasing farmers’ incomes. For these social, educational and journalistic services, he was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Mahatma Gandhi Central University in 2023. He believed that education and opportunity alone could bring real change.
The end of an era: the light will never fade
This morning of 30 October 2026 has been recorded as a sad date in the industrial and political history of Bihar and the country, the day this karmayogi merged with the five elements. Top politicians, industrialists and social workers across the country have expressed deep grief at his passing, but the true mourning is that of the lakhs of families whose lives still run on the light he gave.
RK Sinha’s life is living proof that, if your resolve is steely, a global empire can be built from a mere Rs 250. The dignity, identity and employment structure he gave the private security industry will live on forever. He was truly a sun who has himself now set, but the lakhs of lamps he lit (SIS’s security personnel, the country’s educated youth and the families who benefited from his philanthropy) will go on illuminating this society for ages to come.
As we remember him today, our eyes are moist, yet there is pride too that he came to this earth as a person who changed the fortunes of lakhs of people through his own struggle. The country will forever bow in respect to the revered Dr Ravindra Kishore Sinha for this great and glorious life journey. Your light will never fade. Respectful homage…