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Dr Kharak Singh (His Saga of Professional Achievements)
Dr (Ms)* & Dr Trilochan Singh**
Sardar Saudagar Singh, father of Dr Kharak Singh, had
a great craving for learning. He managed to learn Gurmukhi
alphabet and mastered Gurbani through self-study. The
lack of opportunity of education in his childhood motivated
him so much that he resolved to provide education to his
next generation. Once the project started, he literally
voluntarily dug the foundation of the school building
from 12 to 5 pm daily for over 1 year.
After marriage, he joined gurdwara freedom struggle and
came in association of Baba Kharak Singh, the hero of
the movement who recovered the keys of the Golden Temple
snatched by the British. Impressed by the hero’s
personality, scholarship, intellect and leadership qualities,
he named his third son as Kharak Singh. Dr Kharak Singh
fulfilled the aspirations of his father and came up to
his expectations in his life and works.
Dr Kharak Singh performed brilliantly at school (Guru
Tegh Bahadur Khalsa School, Baba Bakala) from the very
beginning and started standing first in every school examination.
Emboldened thus, he cherished the ambition to top the
school in final university examination in Matriculation.
He achieved his ambition by securing 668 out of 750 in
1938, and his name was placed on the Board of Honour of
the school.
During his graduation studies too, he maintained his earlier
meritorious record of achievements. His prizes in the
form of books in every prize distribution function averaged
between 10 to 12, and the total came up to 120 books.
The Builder
From1942 to 1947, he was a Research Assistant in Punjab
Agricultural College and Research Institute at Lyallpur
(now Faislabad, Pakistan). In August 1948, the Punjab
Government appointed him as a Lecturer in the Government
Agricultural College, Ludhiana. After partition of the
country, the venue of the College had shifted from Lyallpur
to Amritsar, and it was camping as refugee at Khalsa College.
The latter having a spacious building easily accommodated
the former with minor adjustments in the timetable. There
was, however, difficulty on account of hostel facility,
as the Khalsa College was serving as a Refugee Camp for
a large number of refugees who migrated to India. The
students, feeling the pinch of difficulty of hostel accommodation,
went on strike. Consequently, the College was shifted
to Malwa High School building to Ludhiana. Here, the idea
was mooted for providing the College with its own building
at some suitable place.
To decide upon the suitable place, lobbying started for
permanently shifting the College to Hissar. A lot of correspondence
in the press took place for building public opinion ‘for’
and ‘against’ shifting the venue from Ludhiana
to Hissar. He participated actively in the debate for
retaining the College at Ludhiana; the public opinion,
finally, shifted in this favor. Giani Kartar Singh, the
then Agriculture Minister personally visited Dr Kharak
Singh in his house at Model Town, Ludhiana and suggested
to submit a comprehensive proposal describing the plus
points in favor of retaining the College at Ludhiana.
He wanted the comparative data regarding the availability
of land of up to 700 acres, as he, with his proverbial
foresight, had conceived the idea to develop the College
into a University at a later stage.
He prepared the report along with S Bishan Singh Samundri
and submitted it to Giani ji, who, through proper channel,
got it approved by the Punjab Government Cabinet. Consequently,
the land was acquired and construction of the necessary
buildings started. Thus, Dr Kharak Singh’s efforts
came to a logical conclusion and the Government College
of Agriculture was permanently established at Ludhiana,
with a scope of development into a University.
In 1958, when Sardar Partap Singh Kairon became the Chief
Minister of Punjab, Professor Bishan Singh Samundri and
Dr Kharak Singh pursued the idea of developing the College
into University, as conceived by Giani Kartar Singh.
Sardar Partap Singh Kairon took personal interest in it
and took up the proposal in right earnest and requested
the US Govt to depute experts for advising in the matter.
Consequently, Prof Cray and Dr Capner were deputed, who
prepared a blueprint of the University.
The Academician
As a scholar, he had an urge to gain knowledge as well
as improve his qualification. As a Lecturer in the College
of Agriculture, Ludhiana, he passed his M Sc examination
with a research thesis on cabbage in 1951. Subsequently,
he completed his second M Sc on 25th August 1961 and by
3rd October, the same year, also cleared both the oral
and written examinations for the Ph D degree from Ohio
State University, USA, setting a record unbeaten to date.
During his stay at the University, his personality and
aptitude impressed his fellow students and faculty alike
(one of his certificate to this effect reproduced at the
end). For the dissertation, he did the fieldwork in India
under two experts, one expert from Punjab, Dr S S Johl
and one from the United States, Dr Charles V Moore on
the ‘Expected Shifts in Cropping Pattern of the
Punjab Resulting from the Introduction of High yielding
Varieties of Crops.’
The Organizer
In late fifties and early sixties in the field assignments
during his service, he focused on improvement of seed
of wheat, which was suffering from diseases of Smut and
Rust (kungi) resulting in huge loss of wheat production.
Dr Kharak Singh involved the farmers for undertaking the
process of treatment of wheat seeds, by personally visiting
the villages and supervising the actual processing campaign.
Thus, he achieved improvement in the quality of wheat,
resulting in an increase in its yield. He also assisted
the farmers by conducting similarly dedicated campaigns
to get rid of rats and pohli (a weed) from their fields.
His sincere approach earned him immense respect and admiration
from the farmers, which could be witnessed as they flooded
the railway station with garlands to see him off, the
day he was to leave for higher studies to America in August
1960.
In 1965, when he was in the Directorate of Agriculture,
he became instrumental in procuring high yielding variety
of wheat seed (Mexican Hybrid) and got it multiplied in
the farms of the Government and the Universities. He arranged
its distribution to the farmers at mass scale through
kisan melas and other distribution centers of the Government.
This effort of Dr Kharak Singh made the Green Revolution
a grand success in Punjab by the middle of 1966.
The Manager
In between his assignments with the FAO, he worked as
Managing Director, State Farms Corporation of India, covering
numerous State Farms spread all over the country. He streamlined
the working of the Farms of the Corporation, and made
them proficient and profitable. He removed defects in
the working of the Farms.
The Adviser
In view of his praiseworthy academic record, and research
and development contributions in Punjab, the FAO, Rome,
requisitioned his services to work as FAO adviser in various
developing countries in Africa and the Middle East. In
all these countries, his expert advice helped in improving
agricultural operations, like cropping patters and water
management.
The Religious Zealot
At Ludhiana, in 1950-51, he founded Singh Sabha, Ludhiana,
with like-minded people, prominent among who were Dr Gurbax
Singh, a popular medical practitioner, and Sardar Sajjan
Singh, nephew of Sant Randhir Singh Narangwal. They established
a gurdwara in a rented B-type house in Ludhiana. The Singh
Sabha soon developed the ambition to establish a gurdwara
in a spacious building of its own in Model Town. To realize
this ambition, serious efforts were made to collect necessary
funds and find a suitable piece of land for the building.
He took the missionary work of Singh Sabha and gurdwara
establishment with great zeal and dedicated all his time
for this, working late hours. Ultimately, Sant Randhir
Singh and a team of five piaras laid the foundation stone
of the gurdwara.
As Dr Kharak Singh had a religious bent of mind all along,
he, after retirement, shifted his interest to the study
and propagation of Sikhism. Rather, when he felt there
was enough pension to take care of his old age needs,
he took premature retirement to dedicate the rest of his
lifetime to the cause of the Guru. Thus culminated this
saga of his achievements in propagation and extension
of the knowledge of agriculture in the world.
