Kotgarh (Shimla):

At 74, Dr Vijay Kumar Stokes needs no introduction in Himachal’s apple kingdom,   in IITs and Hindu Banaras University in India and in many top institutes in the USA.  He is the grandson of the legendary Satyanand Stokes, an American in khadi, who is known as the apple messiah in Himachal Pradesh.

The royal delicious seedling apples plants  he imported from America in 1916 and subsequently thereafter, planted in his Badu Bagh orchard in Thanedhar  in Shimla district, grew into a first apple kingdom of Kotgarh. Today the apple farmers by dint of their won hard work and inspiration from the apple messiah,   have ushered the apple farming into an economy worth Rs 5000 crore that, in turn, has brought about a historic prosperity in Himachal.

Stepping into the benevolent shoes of his grandfather Dr Stokes  one fine morning of Saturday came out from his ancestral house called Harmony Hall perched atop Thanedhar village and announced what no one has done before : “I am  donating 50 bighas of my orchard land to people of Kotgarh and expect they will set up some institute here that become a centre of excellence for posterity  in  the memory of his grand father”.

In an exhaustive talk with a channel at his ancestral house yesterday, Dr Stokes said he wishes this orchard becomes an epicenter  of new ideas for developing a “knowledge based” economy for the better future not only of Kotgarh  but also for the entire Himachal Pradesh. He would like some tieup with  Dr YS Parmar university of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni so that new ideas keep on flowing in here  to give shape to a new knowledge- based economy, he said.

Dr Stokes said he would invite local Pradhan and panchayat representatives and locals to give shape to his idea in due course of time.  The Kotgarh  apples are losing sheen and new knowledge based economy needs to  be taken a shape  for the future of posterity, he said.   

His grandfather Satyanand Stokes not only sowed the seeds of apple cultivation  in the hills of Himachal but he also  fought for freedom of India. He was directly in touch with the Father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi,  who  corresponded with each other, Dr Stokes said in interview now viral on social media.  He was jailed by the colonial  British for his anti-British activities. 

 Satayanand Stokes was a missionary from Philadelphia then named as Samuel Evans Stokes Jr, who had come to preach Christianity in the hills of Himachal in 1905. He was influenced so much by pahari culture he married a local woman, Agnes Stokes in 1912  and embraced Hinduism in 1934 and was rechristened as Satyanand Stokes. He settled in Kotgarh and turned this poor pahari hamlet into a new prosperous village  after he made it  his new Karmabhumi. He died in 1946 , a year before India got Independence.  

 Despite his immense contribution in development and freedom  Satyanand Stokes remained an unsung and unrecognized hero as   the state government cared not even two hoots to give him his due place in history of Himachal Pradesh. Not even a single institute is named after him.  Also, Vidya Stokes, 93, is the first women leader in Himachal who also belongs to the Stokes family who remained Vidhan Sabha Speaker and power and horticulture minister in the Congress governments over the years  

First there came apple revolution. It has waned away now. “The farmers are not growing apples they are growing potatoes. The quality apple that we produce in Badu Bagh fetches Rs 120 kg in market, but common grower gets on an average  Rs 45 a kg,  observed Dr Stokes, an IIT engineer, who majored in mechanical engineering and went to the US  to join teaching at the institute, where he reached superannuation a few years ago.

After he came back from the US, Dr Stokes was pained to observe how the apple economy was going downhill due to a lack of innovation and introduction of new root stokes cultivars and apple  varieties that have  changed the apple economy in the US, Europe and other apple producing countries in the world.  

“It will be a knowledge-based economy and ideas that hold future for the nation”, said Dr Stokes urging the growers to increase their knowledge pool and apply it in their orchards and in their day today life to produce apples that can increase their economy.

To lead by his personal example, Dr Stokes completely brought down the old seedling apple trees in his orchard  that his grandfather had raised on the 269 bigha apple estate in Thanedhar. He uprooted  and replenished the soil and planted the latest varieties of apple, which are now a hit among top end consumers in the markets in Mumbai and Bangalore and other cities.

His Badu Bagh that he inherited from his grandfather has become an epicenter  of new ideas and new dwarfed and root stocks apple varieties.  He has set up his own weather station and an irrigation system to manage his modern apple farm on scientific lines to educate and inspire local farmers by using latest knowledge available in apple farming in the world.

With a mantra of “think globally, act locally”, Dr Stokes has got a profound knowledge of music and art and literature of the hills that he has pursued with a passion to protect, promote and preserve Pahari culture, which is under threat from the foreign influences.

I met Dr Stokes twice in the past at his ancestral harmony hall, a simple sylvan Pahari house retreat made of stones and timber.  Dr Stokes lives with his wife who also hails from the Singha family  of nearby Mangsu village. Singhas are also one of the oldest orchardists in Himachal Pradesh,  whose present scion is Rakesh Singha, a popular CPM  legislator from Theog.  Dr Stokes has two married daughters settled in the USA.

Dr Stokes would have lived a better quality life back in the USA. But he chose otherwise and came back to Kotgarh  with a mission to work and promote scientific temper among local farmers to modernise the apple economy to keep pace with the changing world.

Unfazed by a tide of time of palatial brick and mortar tin-roofed houses that you see everywhere rapping the mountain scape in Himachal, Dr Stokes has instead shunned the use of chemical paint and has not donned up its comfy wooden interiors that emit a real beauty of Pahari architecture.  

Dr Stokes has upgraded the grading house of his grandfather and has set up the modern labour huts with all facilities to take care of what he calls the backbone of his farm. “The labour staff is a main support of the farm and you should take care of them like your own children”, he said  

(Kuldeep Chauhan  is Editor and Administrator,  HimbuMail, voice of Himalayan people)