Green Revolution Success

The bright spot on the economic scene was the success of the new agricultural strategy. The Green Revolution, the seeds of which had been sown in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s tenure, bore fruit and benefited the government of Indira Gandhi. The

new dwarf varieties of wheat that the Punjab and Haryana farmers adopted led to bumper harvests. The new varieties of rice, groundnut and cotton too did well. Production of wheat, especially, grew sensationally. There were shortcomings in the strategy: huge regional variations, large areas unaffected by the ‘revolution’ still depending on the erratic monsoons, growth in the disparity of farmers’ income and what was to be seen much later – the damage to the environment overuse of chemical fertilisers and wastage of water. But at the time, the feeling was that endemic food shortage had ended.