Miraculously, the Doon Basmati has not disappeared even though the Doon Valley has set its back on it. And the credit for reviving it, making it commercially viable, and an exportable giant, goes to the post-1947 Partition Punjabi entrepreneurship.
By Alok Sinha
In history, the first mention of “Basmati rice” is traced back to the eighteenth century Waris Shah rendition of legendary lovers’ tale called “Heer Ranjha”. But how it found residence in North Indian culinary and commercial spaces is largely due to its little-known Afghan connection.
More than two centuries back, the East India Company had established itself in most parts of India, indeed spanning all corners.
Farther to the North-West, it was drawing the Durand Line, imperiously as also arbitrarily. The colonial power could not subdue Afghanistan, leave alone conquer it.
But the remnants of a defiant line of Afghan royalty had been exiled to the Doon Valley. A happy compromise, as it kept the feudal remnants out of mischief in the rugged Afghan terrain, and also kept them kind of bound down, detained, if not formally imprisoned, inside the Doon Valley. This compromise was indeed mutually contentful, as the Doon Valley’s humidity was curtailed by the high mountains all around, quite like back home in Afghanistan.
Binding the tough Afghan feudals in the Doon Valley was safe for the colonialist future plans. It also kept the alien guests climatically happy, the thought of escaping or crossing southward the ( now called) Rajaji forests to rule the Saharanpur/Jagadhri plains never entered the detained Afghan minds.
But to keep their detained feudal guests (and their myriad courtiers and followers) happy in their own culinary likes, the Company Bahadur let them import into the Doon Valley the rare scented, aromatic “Basmati” rice strain from Afghanistan.
Thus was born the now famous Doon Basmati, famous now because of its name, though not grown in any major way in the Doon Valley. This is because the local Rispana river on both sides of which was grown the Doon Basmati has, inevitably and unavoidably, given way to the urbanising expanse from the second half of the twentieth century.
Miraculously, the Doon Basmati has not disappeared even though the Doon Valley has set its back on it. And the credit for reviving it, making it commercially viable, and an exportable giant, goes to the post-1947 Partition Punjabi entrepreneurship.
Like the Afghans of the nineteenth century, some of the Punjab Partition refugees in the twentieth century moved to Dehra Dun. Those who prospered bought farmland around the pristine litchi-growing Dehra Dun and grew the local rice. It was sleek, pearly white, and aromatic (like the fairies they dreamt of). It became the party cuisine choice of rich Punjabis who otherwise had nothing but contempt for the self, common rice of UP, Bihar and Bengal.
This is how the commercially important Doon Basmati came into being. The demand Doon Basmati grew and grew. The Punjabi refugee farmer settled in Doon Valley needed more land, but with somewhat similar climatic traits, to expand its cultivation. Those parts of Punjab south of what is now Himachal Pradesh was where it now began to be grown, in vast quantities.
Cleverly, and naturally, though grown in Punjab, it was patented and marketed as Doon Basmati. As its international demand also grew, research in the USA led to its hybrid cousin, almost look-alike, but now called the Texamati, as Basmati had already been patented by the Punjab rice-millers. Even Pakistan-Punjab started growing, and exporting, similar varieties, calling their produce “Basmati”.
So the legend grew that this Basmati, which had travelled from Afghanistan to the Doon Valley in the 19th century, and thereafter to Punjab in the latter half of the 20th century, sought to protect itself by calling it unique to the Indus Valley GI tag!
But life in its dull predictable ways has to come across and get over sudden twists and turns!
In India, some Punjabi rice millers centred around the Tarn Taran area of Amritsar started growing this Basmati in Madhya Pradesh, and set up rice mills to boot. It spread so well that MP farmers started petitioning Food and Agriculture Ministries to allow them to use the “Basmati” tag. Commerce Ministry supported the MP initiative, naturally, as it would boost Indian agri exports. That was more than 10 years back, but the Punjab Basmati lobby has held on to stave off the MP competition.
The twist in the tale is that the MP CM who had backed the MP farmers to get the Basmati tag, is now the powerful Agriculture Minister at the Centre. Would he be able to cow down the Punjabi Basmati trade to bestow the all-important GI tag on the MP variety too?
That would surely help the Basmati farmers outside Punjab. That would also boost our Agri exports.
In sum, this would give justice hitherto deprived to the Basmati farmers outside Punjab. Also, the stakes are very high from a national viewpoint. India produces more than ten million tonnes of Basmati Rice. Two-thirds of it is exported. This makes India its largest producer and exporter. But the Texamati variety, as well as what is increasingly grown in Thailand and Laos is snapping at the Indian heels.
Alok Sinha is a former Additional Secretary Agriculture, Government of India, and retired CMD of the gargantuan Food Corporation of India. He has spent more than half his IAS career in various rural sectors.
As a Founder of VillageNama, he can be contacted at:
[email protected]
alok.sinha@ VillageNama.com
Image: Hippopx
