Maj. Gen. Yash Mor

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Maj. General Mor at HQ Leh sub-area

Major General Yashpal Singh Mor, SM is a third generation Army officer. Born and brought up in village Baas in Hisar district of rural Haryana. He has done his schooling from Rashtriya Military School, Bangalore. In school he was an active member of the debating, dramatics and sports teams. He passed out from the prestigious Indian Military Academy, Dehradun in Jun 1985 and was commissioned in 1 Guards - one of the oldest Infantry Battalions of the Indian Army. The officer excelled at all sports including Boxing, Basketball and played Handball up to National level. He represented the country in the United Nations as a Peace Keeper in Mozambique in 1993 to 1994. He is a Graduate from Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and also Command and General Staff College, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He won the 'Gen Osmani trophy' for the Best Dissertation on the course. He has an MSc in Defence & Strategic Studies from Madras University and Masters in Defence Studies from National University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. In addition, the officer has an M Phil and PhD from Osmania University, Hyderabad. He has Ph.D. in Nuclear Strategy and Doctrine. He is an alumnus of the NESA Centre, Washington DC. He has represented India in the UN Peacekeeping Force in Mozambique and at the Command and Staff Course in Bangladesh. He is a motivational speaker and is known in the Indian Army for Unconventional Small Team operations in the Kashmir Valley. Post superannuation he is the CEO of Save the Himalayan Foundation and a fulltime author.

His service

He served as an Indian Army official from 1985/6 to 2020. During his career, he served about 8 years in Jammu and Kashmir and one of his memorable stints was in the valley in the early 2000s. In 2002, he decided to fast for a day during Ramzan in 2002 in Kashmir. He ended up fasting for five days and believes that his gesture of solidarity with fellow citizens played its part in strengthening inter-faith harmony. He has unshakeable faith in the citizens of the country and is confident that they will overcome any sectarian threats.
“I am an eternal optimist. We are not weak people who can be swayed against the country’s syncretic culture. I think most people have seen through the attempts to divide citizens for vested interests. If only social media could be better-regulated everybody would be much safer,” he told Awaz-the Voice.
Fasting during Ramzan wasn’t his only show of empathy. In December 2001, when he was the commander of a Rashtriya Rifles unit that was engaged in counter-terror operations in Anantnag district, the soldiers found a militant who was recovering in a villager’s house from a bullet injury on his leg. In the normal course, the militant who was from Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and had trained in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, would have rotted in jail. But General Mor who was then a Colonel saw an opportunity to rehabilitate the militant. Under his leadership, the army ensured that the case against him for terror activities was dropped. He was then put on training was soon selected to join the army.
“Maybe, he was destined to become a soldier. I am glad I was part of the process of this man turning into a soldier from a militant. And for me, empathy has always been part of my leadership,” General Mor said. He has kept in touch with the man whose life he changed forever. He hasn’t let retirement send him into oblivion. Instead, he is leveraging retirement to play a second innings in his life with matters close to his heart.
General Mor served in Poonch and Jammu as well and was General Officer Commanding (GOC) in Ladakh in 2018-19. He is also deeply involved in environmental protection in his capacity as the CEO of Save the Himalaya Foundation. “When I was posted in Ladakh, I also worked with environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk. I was also associated with the WWF in their quest to conserve the brown bear and the black-necked crane. Bhikkshu Sanghasena, a Buddhist monk who had established the Save the Himalaya Foundation, insisted that I work with them after my retirement. That’s how I joined the Foundation but I work pro bono,” General Mor said.
He commanded 1 Guards and an independent armoured brigade. He has been the directing staff (instructor) at Staff College, Wellington. He also served in the prestigious Strategic Planning Group in the Directorate General of Perspective Planning in the Army HQ. He was specially chosen to be the first general officer commanding (GOC) of the important administrative headquarters in Ladakh. Before superannuating on September 20, 2020, he was the chief of staff of a corps in the desert sector.
He is awarded with Sena Medal for his excellent service and for counter terrorism-conflicts in J&K.

Retirement

Post-retirement, he had been busy as an author, motivational speaker, editor, and environmentalist before the Covid pandemic set him on a new and rewarding path.
“I had been writing articles and taking part in talk shows and was involved in editing the Indian Military Yearbook when I went down with Covid in May this year and spent 14 days in isolation. It was during that period when I contemplated what to do with my life and decided to launch a YouTube channel to mentor young people,” — General Mor.

The channel became a hit and exceeded all his expectations as he saw himself turning into a life coach and emerge as a social media top gun. “I launched the channel in May this year. And within two months, it had more than 50 thousand subscribers,” he said. And he is thrilled by the response he gets from the younger generation who flock to his channel. “It is so heartening and satisfactory to hear young people tell me that the channel has positively changed their thinking. Some say that they been very inspired with my talks and now look at things with a new perspective instead of relying on dubious WhatsApp forwards,” General Mor said. He also has 32 thousand followers on Instagram and 10 thousand on Telegram. At the educational technology company Unacademy, he is a top educator inspiring and motivating over a lakh young defense aspirants across the nation.
The General is also a fitness fanatic and loves cycling. He rides almost every and weekend are sacrosanct for cycling.
“I love cycling because it is nirvana on wheels,” the General signed off.

Reference - Awaz the voice.

Podcast by Raj Shamani

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