Himachal Pradesh is known as the “Apple State of India.” Himachal, along with Kashmir and Uttarakhand, are the biggest apple-producing regions of India and have made the country the world’s fifth-highest producer of the fruit after China, the USA, Turkey and Poland. However, anyone who loves the sweet and crunchy apple must thank an American man named Samuel Stokes, for it was he who introduced apple cultivation in Himachal Pradesh.
Samuel Evans Stokes Jr (who later changed his name to Satyananda Stokes because he fell in love with Indian culture) was an American who was born in Philadelphia. He came to India as a young man in 1904 and became a great admirer of Indian traditions. A few years later, this led him to change his name to Satyananda Stokes.
In 1912, Samuel married a local Christian girl named Agnes, purchased a chunk of farmland near his wife’s village in Kotgarh in Himachal and settled there. Over the next few years, Agnes and Samuel had seven children. Today, the picturesque region of Kotgarh is known as the “Apple Bowl” of the state.
In Kotgarh, Stokes applied himself to improving the farmland he had purchased and was able to access information from books, magazines and research papers that were not available to the other villagers. He identified a new strain of apples developed by the Stark brothers of Louisiana, United States, as being suitable for the environment of the Shimla Hills and began cultivating them on his farm in Kotgarh in 1916.
The resulting bumper crops, coupled with Stokes’ access to European settlers who ran the export business in Delhi, encouraged the other farmers to do as he was doing. Over the next few decades, he purchased more land and devoted it to growing apple cultivars, which the villagers would use to seed their farms. These efforts invigorated the local economy.
Originated in central Asia
Apples are said to have originated in the central Asian region. The wild ancestor of modern day apples used to grow in the mountains of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and western China. The fruit is thought to have been domesticated about 4,000 to10,000 years ago in the Tian Shan mountains, which spans China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Travelers and traders then took apples with them along the Silk Road to Europe, where it became very popular among the rich noblemen and their families.
During the Mughal period, the fruits used to be imported to India from regions beyond our northern border. However, today, apple farming in India is a vital component of the country’s horticulture sector and a key source of livelihood for farmers in the hill states.
It was Stokes who first realised that the cool climate of the hills and fertile soil could make apples the backbone of the region’s rural economy. In Himachal Pradesh, apples transformed the state’s agricultural profile after their large-scale introduction. Nowadays, farmers are also adopting drip irrigation, anti-hail nets and scientific pruning techniques to cope with erratic weather patterns and rising input costs.
Took part in the freedom struggle
Stokes was involved in more than just farming and horticulture. He had a strong sense of social justice and later became active in India’s freedom struggle. He had the rare honour of being the only American citizen to become a member of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC).
Along with Lala Lajpat Rai, he represented Punjab. He was the only non-Indian to sign the Congress manifesto in 1921, calling upon Indians to quit government service. He was jailed for sedition and for promoting hatred against the British government in 1921, becoming the only American to be a political prisoner of Great Britain during the Indian freedom struggle.
Unfortunately, he did not live to see his dream of a free India. He died on 14 May, 1946, after an extended illness.
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