Dr. Khem Singh Gill

Dr.Khem Singh Gill

TIRE­LESS AGRI­CUL­TURAL LEG­END, PADMA BHUSHAN AWARDEE AND FOR­MER VICE-CHAN­CEL­LOR OF PUN­JAB AGRI­CUL­TURAL UNI­VER­SITY, DR KHEM SINGH GILL died on 17th September 2019 at the ripe age of 89 years. De­parted yet not dis­heart­ened, ever in­spir­ing, and vi­brat­ing in the hearts of thou­sands of peo­ple in Pun­jab.

Born on 1 Sep­tem­ber 1930 in vil­lage Kaleke, Moga, Pun­jab in the fam­ily of Sar­dar Lakha Singh and Sar­darni Tej Kaur, this ed­u­ca­tion­ist trans­formed the world of agri­cul­ture learn­ing in In­dia and es­pe­cially in the Pun­jab.Married to Surjit Kaur Gill he had 3 Children- Dr. Baljit Singh Gill, Dr. Davinder Kaur Saran, Ranjit Singh "KUKI" Gill.

Liv­ing up to the ideal of be­ing a Saint-Sol­dier as man­dated by the Gu­rus, he was an out­stand­ing agri­cul­tural sci­en­tist. His com­mend­able re­search on wheat is to­day feed­ing mil­lions across the globe.

The farm­ers of Pun­jab ad­mire Dr Khem Singh Gill for his ex­per­tise as an agri­cul­tural sci­en­tist and for his hum­ble and tire­less Sewa. His vol­un­teerism for the cause of up­lift­ing rural ed­u­ca­tion was ex­em­plary. He touched thou­sands of lives and en­riched them with his reckon how many lives have been touched and en­riched by his per­se­ver­ance and Mi­das touch.

True to his name – Khem, which in Pun­jabi means hap­pi­ness, bliss, one al­ways found him cheer­ful and for­ward-think­ing. He in­vari­ably greeted every­one with a beam­ing smile. An agri­cul­tural sci­en­tist of in­ter­na­tional re­pute, he dressed mod­estly don­ning a white tur­ban and sup­port­ing a white flow­ing beard. One could eas­ily take him as a saint.

Though none of his an­ces­tors, ei­ther on the pa­ter­nal side or on the ma­ter­nal side had ever gone to school, Khem Singh stood first in his mid­dle school ex­am­i­na­tion. Sar­dar Sar­wan Singh, Head­mas­ter, Bhupin­dra High School, Moga, paid ten ru­pees from his pocket for his col­lege ad­mis­sion. It was he who men­tored him to join Khalsa Col­lege, Am­rit­sar for pur­su­ing higher stud­ies in agri­cul­tural sci­ences. This snow­balled into a huge con­tri­bu­tion for the Green Rev­o­lu­tion in In­dia.

Dr Gill joined Pun­jab Agri­cul­tural Uni­ver­sity in 1962. He was se­lected for the Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion fel­low­ship for pur­su­ing a doc­tor­ate de­gree from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side Cam­pus. He was the only Sikh stu­dent with un­shorn hair and tur­ban at the Cam­pus and al­ways got re­spect from every­one.

A ded­i­cated Plant Breeder, Dr Gill de­vel­oped more than 30 va­ri­eties of dif­fer­ent field crops. These in­clude 17 im­proved va­ri­eties of wheat, five high-yield­ing hy­brids and com­pos­ites of pearl mil­let, three va­ri­eties of lin­seed, two of sesame, one of bar­ley and two of clus­ter bean. Of these, nine va­ri­eties of wheat and five of pearl mil­let were re­leased at the na­tional level. Most of these va­ri­eties were re­sis­tant to dis­eases like yel­low rust, brown rust, Kar­nal bunt, er­got, etc.

As the team leader of Wheat Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme, Dr Khem Singh Gill did stu­pen­dous work on the de­vel­op­ment and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of im­proved cul­ti­vars of wheat, which rev­o­lu­tion­ized wheat pro­duc­tion. He joined as Vice-Chan­cel­lor of the Pun­jab Agri­cul­tural Uni­ver­sity in 1990 and played a key role in strength­en­ing re­search fa­cil­i­ties at the Re­gional Re­search Sta­tions of the Uni­ver­sity.

‘Shabash-Shabash’ -Well done, were his favourite buzz words to en­cour­age his fel­low sci­en­tists. Any­one who showed him re­sults, he in­vari­ably pat­ted with a ‘Shabash’. Ac­cord­ing to his ju­niors, this used to be so in­spir­ing that one would go back to work with an in­vig­o­rated spirit.

Dr Gill was a Fel­low of Third World Acad­emy of Sci­ences, Italy; In­dian So­ci­ety of Agri­cul­tural Sci­ences; In­dian Na­tional Sci­ence Acad­emy; and so many other or­gan­i­sa­tions of in­ter­na­tional re­pute. He was dec­o­rated with sev­eral awards in­clud­ing Padma Bhushan by the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia (1993), Rafi Ah­mad Kid­wai Memo­r­ial Prize in 1976, Na­tional Pro­fes­sor of Em­i­nence (ICAR), Fel­low, In­dian Na­tional Sci­ence Acad­emy, Team Re­search Award by ICAR, etc.

Dr Gill founded the Crop Im­prove­ment So­ci­ety of In­dia. He was also the Pres­i­dent, In­dian So­ci­ety of Ge­net­ics and Plant Breed­ing and Vice Pres­i­dent of In­dian So­ci­ety of Ge­net­ics.

A widely trav­elled, no­ble soul with a mul­ti­far­i­ous per­sona, Dr Gill clad in his ubiq­ui­tous white tur­ban, white kurta-py­jama, was, in fact, a Saint-Solider-Sci­en­tist. Through the Akal Acad­e­mies un­der the Kalgid­har Trust, Baru Sahib he started a value-based qual­ity ed­u­ca­tion in rural ar­eas of north­ern In­dia un­der the spir­i­tual lead­er­ship of Baba Iqbal Singh.

The Pun­jab Agri­cul­tural Uni­ver­sity has pub­lished a bi­og­ra­phy of Dr Gill un­der the name ‘Path of a Leg­end,” which is deeply in­spir­ing.

What more can I say, “There lived a man; Whose ra­di­ance lighted many lamps; A robe of glory; Thy be­nign coun­te­nance left a mag­netic charm; Thy dis­cov­er­ies cre­ated a land­mark; Long live thy glory!”

Source:- theworldsikhnews

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