M.S. Randhawa was India's Deputy Commissioner on Independence night. What he built in the decades after — refugee systems, Green Revolution architecture, Chandigarh's character — is the story India forgot to tell.
Rashmeet Kaur Chawla
When Jawaharlal Nehru stepped forward on the night of August 14, 1947, to address a new nation and make what would go down in history as the "Tryst with Destiny" speech, there was one man whose job it was to ensure that such an event went without a hitch. M.S. Randhawa had been made Deputy Commissioner of Delhi, and his task on the evening in question was to coordinate the entire affair. He was as close to history as it was possible to get.
But then, over the following few weeks, he watched as all that history turned into tragedy.
Partition came and took everything with it people’s lives, their livelihoods, their future and their very identities. For millions, their world turned upside down because someone had decided to draw an arbitrary line on a map. In those dire circumstances, most bureaucrats waited around for instructions; M.S. Randhawa rolled up his sleeves and started working.
It is that dichotomy, the difference between those who wait and those who act that forms the entirety of M.S. Randhawa’s story. A story India should have heard more times than it has.
Randhawa joined the Indian Civil Service in 1934 and remained in charge of several districts in the province of Uttar Pradesh till 1945, when he was appointed the Secretary of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. These years marked the period of laying foundations, gaining strength as an administrator, learning more about the Indian agricultural sector and witnessing a crumbling colonial system under the impact of the coming Independence.
With floods of refugees arriving in Delhi, Randhawa displayed great administrative abilities, making sure that riots do not occur. One of his greatest acts and greatest precisely because he was a Sikh himself was to ban the use of the kirpan and several other sharp items such as trishuls and gandasas. It required Randhawa to bear much personal and religious pressure, but he did it nonetheless for order was necessary in order not to turn despair into bloodshed.
In 1949, he became the Additional Director General of Rehabilitation, followed by becoming Director - General of Rehabilitation of Punjab. This was not a token position. This was the most challenging administrative exercise undertaken by independent India, one of uprooting millions of people, distributing lands which belonged to the people who left, making a life from scratch on either side of a traumatically divided border.
By framing a scientific land distribution process called "Murabbabandi," not only did he manage to rehabilitate the refugees but also set the stage for the introduction of tractors and modern farming methods in Punjab at a future date. This was an emergency response, but the beginning of the agricultural revolution.
A Civil Servant, A Botanist, A Builder - In One Person.
Born on February 2, 1909, Mohinder Singh Randhawa hailed from the Jat Sikh community of Zira, in the district of Ferozepur, Punjab. His background was agricultural, linked with the soil and the slow pace of village life in Punjab. But since early days, he had a trait of his own, a curiosity that knew no boundaries and that would not let him confine himself to a single discipline.
He obtained an M.Sc. (Hons.) in Botany in 1930 from the highly reputed Government College, Lahore. When other students pursued science as a career, Randhawa viewed it as a perspective- a way to look at things more clearly - whether he was observing algae under a microscope or making efforts to distribute land in the refugee camps.
The Indian Civil Services were referred to as the "Steel Frame of India" in the 1930s. Admission into the civil services was the dream of every young man who aimed for success, yet entry was extremely hard. Randhawa became part of the civil service in 1934 by passing the ICS exam. He worked as a member of the UP cadre, spending his subsequent years touring Saharanpur, Fyzabad, Almora, Allahabad, Agra, and Rai Bareli.
It is not his career alone that sets him apart from others. What made him unique was the way he approached things. While touring areas on official business, he took along with him a microscope and collected algae samples in empty ink bottles. He drew pictures of trees. He noted down folk songs from the villages. He studied miniature paintings from the Pahari people. He was an ICS officer living a life most civil servants do not care about – one which would later revolutionize the whole region.
In addition to the professional challenges, the magnitude of the task was also personally and morally challenging. Randhawa was a Sikh bureaucrat who had to take hard decisions during periods of religious violence. Randhawa was also a scientist but did not have the resources that scientists needed. Randhawa could be described as a man of culture operating in an uncultured system. Three particular challenges stand out.
First, there is the sheer human scale of the events. The work done by Randhawa documented the process of relocation of about 500,000 Sikh and Hindu peasants after being displaced by violence in West Pakistan. Randhawa had to figure out ways of allocating land and implementing irrigation plans to resuscitate the dying agricultural sector. He had to do all these without much help since none existed before.
Secondly, there was opposition from the bureaucracy and other institutions. As the refugee situation kept growing, Randhawa had to overcome opposition from the bureaucrats. In such a system where the bureaucracy moves slowly, Randhawa needed courage, vision, and dedication. He was always at odds with people who ran the show.
Thirdly, invisibility was key to Randhawa’s efforts. Randhawa was never one who wanted to be in the limelight. Randhawa was no politician, and thus, he did not make grand speeches. Instead, Randhawa’s grandsons remember growing up with little of him due to his devotion to research and administration, with his evenings and holidays spent in scholarly pursuits. The vision he had for the future would not allow any space for self-promotion. That kind of dedication in itself can be tough in a performance-driven world.
However, the transition occurred in 1955. At this time, Randhawa was made the Vice-President of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. It was at this point that he started seeing the bigger picture from beyond managing crises.
It included setting up Punjab Agricultural University, Bhakra Dam, road system, and electricity in Punjab villages. This was not simply advice from any bureaucrat. He had the vision of creating the blueprint for a modern Punjab, and he worked towards it using his characteristic quiet persistence.
He worked alongside Norman Borlaug and M.S. Swaminathan to persuade farmers to use high-yield Mexican wheat varieties that would fit well with the Punjab environment and the new technology as well as chemical fertilizers. Thus, he became one of the architects behind the Green Revolution, which was to save the starving India.
Thereafter, came Chandigarh. The city's framework was designed by Le Corbusier. However, the spirit of Chandigarh, which consisted of tree-lined streets, rose gardens, places for arts and culture, belonged to Randhawa. As the first Chief Commissioner of Chandigarh from 1966 to 1968, he created the Zakir Husain Rose Garden, planted flowering trees on the roadside in the city, and formed the Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, Sangeet Natak Akademi, and Sahitya Akademi.
He even recognized the genius of Nek Chand's Rock Garden that had been kept a secret from the world until then, fashioned out of tiles thrown away as waste.
Nation builders picked one of two roads. They were scientists or administrators, artists or policymakers. But Randhawa rejected both the roads laid out before him and created his own trail through all of them at once. Through the course of his entire life, he kept working with algae, with his microscope at hand during tours, conducting independent research on algae found in the Himalayas and Indo-Gangetic Plains. The man who was dealing with the consequences of Partition was also making new discoveries in botany within the very same year.
In another breath, while he was busy with modernizing India, he went village to village collecting songs from Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh that were in the process of being washed away by the storms of modernity, compiling them into books so they would remain forever in the annals of Indian history.
He was bestowed with the honorific name "Punjab da Chhewan Dariya," meaning the sixth river of Punjab. This honor is unique in its own way. The river does not decide whose land needs water. It keeps flowing and rejuvenates whatever comes its way.
The legacy left by Randhawa for future generations to ponder upon is not an easy one:
Are you building anything substantial, or do you merely occupy the space?
Are you safeguarding what really matters, or do you simply chase after what stands out?
People devote their whole life to gaining relevance; Randhawa devoted his whole life to creating it.
M.S. Randhawa died on 3 March 1986 in his farm-house near Chandigarh. He leaves behind an institute, landscape, research, books, and an entire civilization's worth of quiet legacy built over decades. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award but awards were never early in coming to him, if at all.
The lesson that can be learned from M.S. Randhawa's life story is not very complex, but it can be extremely uncomfortable for a generation conditioned to expect immediate results from any investment.
He did not seek out from the situation what it offered him; he sought out how he could serve the situation. When he was confronted by a situation that was a disaster, he came up with a method of allocating lands. When the country was staring at the possibility of famine, he became the sower of revolution. When a new city was coming up without a soul, he planted trees and established museums. He never waited for anyone's clearance or approval. He never waited for just the right moment.
To the youth of today who are torn apart in too many directions at once, with more curiosity than specialization, and more breadth than description, the story of Randhawa is permission granted.
The world will always demand that you choose one path. Your complexity is not a weakness but a source of power in the right hands. With one hand holding the microscope and the other grasping the vision, this is what Randhawa has left behind. The only question now remains: which generation has the courage to take it up?
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