Story of two revolutions: India's green and white revolution that altered history

Not all revolutions come in red. They come in shades of green, and white too. In India, the Green Revolution began in the north while the White Revolution was birthed in Gujarat. Both revolutions were born out of scarcity.

Bye-bye famines
India’s Green Revolution came in the backdrop of famines and low agricultural productivity. In the 1960s, geneticist M S Swaminathan convinced the govt that the high-yielding dwarf wheat that US scientist Norman Borlaug had introduced in Mexico was the answer to India’s food shortage.And from 1968, what happened was indeed revolutionary.
Production shot up in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. High-yielding variety of seeds of varying strains, mechanised farm tools, irrigation facilities, pesticides and fertilisers were used. By 1970, Punjab was producing 70% of India’s foodgrain and the region came to be known as the “food bowl of India”.
Milkman’s magic
Anand in Gujarat, the birthplace of Amul, is replete with stories of a livid Vallabhbhai Patel planning a resistance against Polson, a private dairy company, fleecing farmers by buying milk cheap and selling it at a premium in then Bombay.
It was around that time, in 1948, that a young Verghese Kurien reached Anand to work at a dairy farm there. And, as Patel built a robust co-operative movement to unite farmers, Kurien worked on increasing production.
In about two decades, Operation Flood, or the White Revolution, was launched. Amul took on the likes of Nestle and it transformed India from a milk deficient nation to the world’s largest milk producer, surpassing the US in 1998. It now contributes 25% of the world's total milk output, with a massive milk grid linking producers throughout India to consumers in over 700 towns and cities.