Mohinder Singh Randhawa

Mohinder Singh Randhawa or M. S. Randhawa was a Punjabi civil servant, botanist, historian, art and culture promoter and prominent writer. He played major roles in the establishment of agricultural research in India, the Green Revolution in India, resettling Punjabis uprooted by Partition, establishing the city of Chandigarh and documenting the arts of Punjab, the history of agriculture in India. A biographer, Gulzar Singh Sandhu, gave him the sobriquet Punjab da Chhewan Dariya, the sixth river of Punjab.

Randhawa joined the Indian Civil Service in 1934, then served in various capacities at Saharanpur, Fyzabad, Almora, Allahabad, Agra, and Rai Barelli until 1945, when he became secretary of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for a year. He was associated with the ICAR through its initial years and made huge contributions to this pioneering organisation which was responsible for the Green Revolution in India.

In 1946, he was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of Delhi, when India was on the eve of independence. In 1947 he was in charge of the entire function where Jawaharlal Nehru delivered his famous Tryst with destiny speech. As Deputy Commissioner, he helped persons uprooted by the Partition of India resettle, and then in 1949 he was sent as the Additional Director-General (Rehabilitation) and subsequently made the Director-General (Rehabilitation), Punjab. Dr. Randhawa then went to Ambala Division in the Punjab as the Commissioner. He was brought back to the task of rehabilitating people in 1953 as the Development Commissioner and Commissioner Rehabilitation and Custodian, Evacuee Property, Punjab. During this time he was in charge of allotting land to those who had left behind lands in Pakistan and allotting land to them in Indian Punjab.