Jaunti, where seed of Green Revolution was sown, remembers agriculture icon
In 1965, the Jawahar Jounti Seed Cooperative Society was set up and the farmers who were a part of it sold wheat seeds.
3 min read
The seed processing centre is now a Delhi government dispensary. Express Far from Chennai, where M S Swaminathan passed away on Thursday, Northwest Delhi’s Jaunti village remembers the agricultural scientist for having brought the ‘Green Revolution’ to it first.
High-yielding varieties of wheat were first planted in 1964 on around 70 acres in the village, which lies close to the national capital’s border with Haryana. “He was a gentle, hardworking man, who did good for us and for the world,” said Hukum Singh Chhikara, who was among the farmers on whose land the wheat was first sown. On Thursday, he had not heard yet of Swaminathan’s death.
Rammehar Singh, 93, whose father Chaudhary Bhoop Singh, was also among the first farmers from Jaunti to have the high-yielding variety sown in his field, said, “Gehun se bhar diya desh ko. And he chose our village to begin with. Farmers from other places would come here to buy seeds, and a lot was sold at that time.”
In 1965, the Jawahar Jounti Seed Cooperative Society was set up and the farmers who were a part of it sold wheat seeds.
Swaminathan having got Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to the village in 1967 to inaugurate a seed-processing centre of the cooperative society is also a matter of pride, said Master Radh Singh, 73. “He would visit the village almost every year,” said Singh. The seed-processing centre is now a Delhi government dispensary, a fading board marking its history.
For Om Prakash Chhikara, the grandson of Chaudhary Bhoop Singh, Swaminathan felt like family. “He has given a lot to the village. With the new varieties, the yield shot up and so did prosperity,” said Om Prakash, a retired school teacher whose family owns 16 acres of land.
Arya Kuldeep, 60, who owns around 14 acres of land, said, “Our village is known because of Dr Swaminathan. The ‘Green Revolution’ began here and his work is still a matter of discussion among those of my generation and those who are older.”
In the years since, much has changed. Amarjeet Chhikara, 52, the son of Khazan Singh who was also among the first farmers to have the wheat grown on his land, said, “A canal used to bring water to irrigate the fields then and the area was very fertile. The canal has stopped bringing water, and groundwater levels here are low. People here are now moving towards jobs, taking the focus away from agriculture. Since the administration doesn’t focus much on agriculture, we don’t get much in terms of subsidies or implements.”
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