In the mid-1960s, India's 'green revolution' saw the embrace of more productive agricultural practices and high yielding variety seeds, bringing the country out of food scarcity. Although lauded as a success of the Cold War fight against hunger, the green revolution has also faced criticisms for causing ecological degradation and socio-economic inequality. This book contextualizes the 'green revolution' to show the contingencies and pitfalls of agrarian transformation. Prakash Kumar unpacks its contested history, tracing agricultural modernization in India from colonial-era crop development, to land and tenure reforms, community development, and the expansion of arable lands. He also examines the involvement of the colonial state, post-colonial elites, and American modernizers. Over time, all of these efforts came under the spell of technocracy, an unyielding belief in the power of technology to solve social and economic underdevelopment which, Kumar argues, best explains what caused the green revolution.

‘This is a compelling and thoughtful study of the agrarian modernisation in India. It dispels the idea of the Green Revolution as a unitary process and demonstrates how US-inspired global visions were reworked by local initiatives from below to shape the contours of the Green Revolution in different regions. Combining historical research with fieldwork, Kumar offers a nuanced and complex exploration of the reign of technocracy in India’s agrarian modernisation.’

Neeladri Bhattacharya - Visiting Professor, Ashoka University

‘While much ink has been spilled on India’s Green Revolution, Prakash Kumar has done the legwork to provide subtle new view. Deeply researched and broadly conceived, A History of India’s Green Revolution moves deftly between the local and the global to offer timely new lessons on agrarian reform. An essential read for those interested in rural India’s past, present, and future.’

David C. Engerman - Leitner International Interdisciplinary Professor, Yale University

‘In the ever-verdant fields of green revolution research, Prakash Kumar has sown important ideas. Through a historical tap-root reaching down a century he has chosen to expose the balance between agricultural policy as a conflictual terrain replete with unintended outcomes and the development of a powerful problem-solving agricultural technocracy. This persistent balancing act between political and technocratic forces and their yields and between Indian and foreign institutions tends policy to this day – and in fields far removed from agriculture. Prakash’s insight and his themes are as widely relevant as his adroit historian’s navigation of a minefield of competing theories and his conjuring of the detail of individual lives.’

Barbara Harriss-White - Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, Oxford University

‘Kumar’s history of the Green Revolution looks both backwards and sideways, insisting that both colonial genealogies and American influence shaped this storied episode of postcolonial Indian modernity. The book is a testament to what rigorous archival work across continents can reveal. A must read for anyone interested in modern Indian history.’

Projit Bihari Mukharji - Professor of History, Ashoka University