Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
System of Rice or root Intensification (SRI)
Global development
Saturday 16 February 2013 16.00 EST
India's rice revolution
In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages?
I am going to try this on my farms. Fortunately I am scheduled to visit my farms in May 2013 for the purpose of fresh demarcation which has never been done from the times we were allotted lands after the partition. Let us see what happens and how much piece of land I am able to reclaim from my neighbors which my men and I presume have been encroaching upon year after year.
As I will be there, I would like to discus the possibility of adopting System of Root Intensification (SRI) System on my farms. We may like to check on Punjab Agrricultural University Ludhiana about their reaction in adopting such a system in Punjab. The report seems to be encouraging barring more labor intensive, it will save in water irrigation eventually helping in raising of sub soil water level which is goind down to dangerous levels. Although the Punjab Government has promulgated legislations not to sow Rice nurseries before May 10 and transplanting before June 10.
Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually managed. But every stalk he cut on his paddy field near the bank of the Sakri river seemed to weigh heavier than usual, every grain of rice was bigger and when his crop was weighed on the old village scales, even Kumar was shocked.
This was not six or even 10 or 20 tonnes. Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record and with rice the staple food of more than half the world's population of seven billion, big news.
It beat not just the 19.4 tonnes achieved by the "father of rice", the Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, but the World Bank-funded scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and anything achieved by the biggest European and American seed and GM companies. And it was not just Sumant Kumar. Krishna, Nitish, Sanjay and Bijay, his friends and rivals in Darveshpura, all recorded over 17 tonnes, and many others in the villages around claimed to have more than doubled their usual yields.
The villagers, at the mercy of erratic weather and used to going without food in bad years, celebrated. But the Bihar state agricultural universities didn't believe them at first, while India's leading rice scientists muttered about freak results. The Nalanda farmers were accused of cheating. Only when the state's head of agriculture, a rice farmer himself, came to the village with his own men and personally verified Sumant's crop, was the record confirmed.
A tool used to harvest rice. Photograph: Chiara Goia
The rhythm of Nalanda village life was shattered. Here bullocks still pull ploughs as they have always done, their dung is still dried on the walls of houses and used to cook food. Electricity has still not reached most people. Sumant became a local hero, mentioned in the Indian parliament and asked to attend conferences. The state's chief minister came to Darveshpura to congratulate him, and the village was rewarded with electric power, a bank and a new concrete bridge.
That might have been the end of the story had Sumant's friend Nitish not smashed the world record for growing potatoes six months later. Shortly after Ravindra Kumar, a small farmer from a nearby Bihari village, broke the Indian record for growing wheat. Darveshpura became known as India's "miracle village", Nalanda became famous and teams of scientists, development groups, farmers, civil servants and politicians all descended to discover its secret.
When I meet the young farmers, all in their early 30s, they still seem slightly dazed by their fame. They've become unlikely heroes in a state where nearly half the families live below the Indian poverty line and 93% of the 100 million population depend on growing rice and potatoes. Nitish Kumar speaks quietly of his success and says he is determined to improve on the record. "In previous years, farming has not been very profitable," he says. "Now I realise that it can be. My whole life has changed. I can send my children to school and spend more on health. My income has increased a lot."
What happened in Darveshpura has divided scientists and is exciting governments and development experts. Tests on the soil show it is particularly rich in silicon but the reason for the "super yields" is entirely down to a method of growing crops called System of Rice (or root) Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world's 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them.
People work on a rice field in Bihar. Photograph: Chiara Goia
Instead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings in clumps of three or four in waterlogged fields, as rice farmers around the world traditionally do, the Darveshpura farmers carefully nurture only half as many seeds, and then transplant the young plants into fields, one by one, when much younger. Additionally, they space them at 25cm intervals in a grid pattern, keep the soil much drier and carefully weed around the plants to allow air to their roots. The premise that "less is more" was taught by Rajiv Kumar, a young Bihar state government extension worker who had been trained in turn by Anil Verma of a small Indian NGO called Pran (Preservation and
Proliferation of Rural Resources and Nature), which has introduced the SRI method to hundreds of villages in the past three years.
While the "green revolution" that averted Indian famine in the 1970s relied on improved crop varieties, expensive pesticides and chemical fertilisers, SRI appears to offer a long-term, sustainable future for no extra cost. With more than one in seven of the global population going hungry and demand for rice expected to outstrip supply within 20 years, it appears to offer real hope. Even a 30% increase in the yields of the world's small farmers would go a long way to alleviating poverty.
"Farmers use less seeds, less water and less chemicals but they get more without having to invest more. This is revolutionary," said Dr Surendra Chaurassa from Bihar's agriculture ministry. "I did not believe it to start with, but now I think it can potentially change the way everyone farms. I would want every state to promote it. If we get 30-40% increase in yields, that is more than enough to recommend it."
The results in Bihar have exceeded Chaurassa's hopes. Sudama Mahto, an agriculture officer in Nalanda, says a small investment in training a few hundred people to teach SRI methods has resulted in a 45% increase in the region's yields. Veerapandi Arumugam, the former agriculture minister of Tamil Nadu state, hailed the system as "revolutionising" farming.
SRI's origins go back to the 1980s in Madagascar where Henri de Laulanie, a French Jesuit priest and agronomist, observed how villagers grew rice in the uplands. He developed the method but it was an American, professor Norman Uphoff, director of the International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development at Cornell University, who was largely responsible for spreading the word about De Laulanie's work.
Given $15m by an anonymous billionaire to research sustainable development, Uphoff went to Madagascar in 1983 and saw the success of SRI for himself: farmers whose previous yields averaged two tonnes per hectare were harvesting eight tonnes. In 1997 he started to actively promote SRI in Asia, where more than 600 million people are malnourished.
"It is a set of ideas, the absolute opposite to the first green revolution [of the 60s] which said that you had to change the genes and the soil nutrients to improve yields. That came at a tremendous ecological cost," says Uphoff. "Agriculture in the 21st century must be practised differently. Land and water resources are becoming scarcer, of poorer quality, or less reliable. Climatic conditions are in many places more adverse. SRI offers millions of disadvantaged households far better opportunities. Nobody is benefiting from this except the farmers; there are no patents, royalties or licensing fees."
Rice seeds. Photograph: Chiara Goia
For 40 years now, says Uphoff, science has been obsessed with improving seeds and using artificial fertilisers: "It's been genes, genes, genes. There has never been talk of managing crops. Corporations say 'we will breed you a better plant' and breeders work hard to get 5-10% increase in yields. We have tried to make agriculture an industrial enterprise and have forgotten its biological roots."
Not everyone agrees. Some scientists complain there is not enough peer-reviewed evidence around SRI and that it is impossible to get such returns. "SRI is a set of management practices and nothing else, many of which have been known for a long time and are best recommended practice," says Achim Dobermann, deputy director for research at the International Rice Research Institute. "Scientifically speaking I don't believe there is any miracle. When people independently have evaluated SRI principles then the result has usually been quite different from what has been reported on farm evaluations conducted by NGOs and others who are promoting it. Most scientists have had difficulty replicating the observations."
Dominic Glover, a British researcher working with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has spent years analysing the introduction of GM crops in developing countries. He is now following how SRI is being adopted in India and believes there has been a "turf war".
"There are experts in their fields defending their knowledge," he says. "But in many areas, growers have tried SRI methods and abandoned them. People are unwilling to investigate this. SRI is good for small farmers who rely on their own families for labour, but not necessarily for larger operations. Rather than any magical theory, it is good husbandry, skill and attention which results in the super yields. Clearly in certain circumstances, it is an efficient resource for farmers. But it is labour intensive and nobody has come up with the technology to transplant single seedlings yet."
But some larger farmers in Bihar say it is not labour intensive and can actually reduce time spent in fields. "When a farmer does SRI the first time, yes it is more labour intensive," says Santosh Kumar, who grows 15 hectares of rice and vegetables in Nalanda. "Then it gets easier and new innovations are taking place now."
In its early days, SRI was dismissed or vilified by donors and scientists but in the past few years it has gained credibility. Uphoff estimates there are now 4-5 million farmers using SRI worldwide, with governments in China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam promoting it.
Sumant, Nitish and as many as 100,000 other SRI farmers in Bihar are now preparing their next rice crop. It's back-breaking work transplanting the young rice shoots from the nursery beds to the paddy fields but buoyed by recognition and results, their confidence and optimism in the future is sky high.
Last month Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz visited Nalanda district and recognised the potential of this kind of organic farming, telling the villagers they were "better than scientists". "It was amazing to see their success in organic farming," said Stiglitz, who called for more research. "Agriculture scientists from across the world should visit and learn and be inspired by them."
A man winnows rice in Satgharwa village. Photograph: Chiara Goia
Bihar, from being India's poorest state, is now at the centre of what is being called a "new green grassroots revolution" with farming villages, research groups and NGOs all beginning to experiment with different crops using SRI. The state will invest $50m in SRI next year but western governments and foundations are holding back, preferring to invest in hi-tech research. The agronomist Anil Verma does not understand why: "The farmers know SRI works, but help is needed to train them. We know it works differently in different soils but the principles are solid," he says. "The biggest problem we have is that people want to do it but we do not have enough trainers.
"If any scientist or a company came up with a technology that almost guaranteed a 50% increase in yields at no extra cost they would get a Nobel prize. But when young Biharian farmers do that they get nothing. I only want to see the poor farmers have enough to eat."
Sumant Kumar
Saturday 16 February 2013 16.00 EST
India's rice revolution
In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages?
I am going to try this on my farms. Fortunately I am scheduled to visit my farms in May 2013 for the purpose of fresh demarcation which has never been done from the times we were allotted lands after the partition. Let us see what happens and how much piece of land I am able to reclaim from my neighbors which my men and I presume have been encroaching upon year after year.
As I will be there, I would like to discus the possibility of adopting System of Root Intensification (SRI) System on my farms. We may like to check on Punjab Agrricultural University Ludhiana about their reaction in adopting such a system in Punjab. The report seems to be encouraging barring more labor intensive, it will save in water irrigation eventually helping in raising of sub soil water level which is goind down to dangerous levels. Although the Punjab Government has promulgated legislations not to sow Rice nurseries before May 10 and transplanting before June 10.
Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually managed. But every stalk he cut on his paddy field near the bank of the Sakri river seemed to weigh heavier than usual, every grain of rice was bigger and when his crop was weighed on the old village scales, even Kumar was shocked.
This was not six or even 10 or 20 tonnes. Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record and with rice the staple food of more than half the world's population of seven billion, big news.
It beat not just the 19.4 tonnes achieved by the "father of rice", the Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, but the World Bank-funded scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and anything achieved by the biggest European and American seed and GM companies. And it was not just Sumant Kumar. Krishna, Nitish, Sanjay and Bijay, his friends and rivals in Darveshpura, all recorded over 17 tonnes, and many others in the villages around claimed to have more than doubled their usual yields.
The villagers, at the mercy of erratic weather and used to going without food in bad years, celebrated. But the Bihar state agricultural universities didn't believe them at first, while India's leading rice scientists muttered about freak results. The Nalanda farmers were accused of cheating. Only when the state's head of agriculture, a rice farmer himself, came to the village with his own men and personally verified Sumant's crop, was the record confirmed.
A tool used to harvest rice. Photograph: Chiara Goia
The rhythm of Nalanda village life was shattered. Here bullocks still pull ploughs as they have always done, their dung is still dried on the walls of houses and used to cook food. Electricity has still not reached most people. Sumant became a local hero, mentioned in the Indian parliament and asked to attend conferences. The state's chief minister came to Darveshpura to congratulate him, and the village was rewarded with electric power, a bank and a new concrete bridge.
That might have been the end of the story had Sumant's friend Nitish not smashed the world record for growing potatoes six months later. Shortly after Ravindra Kumar, a small farmer from a nearby Bihari village, broke the Indian record for growing wheat. Darveshpura became known as India's "miracle village", Nalanda became famous and teams of scientists, development groups, farmers, civil servants and politicians all descended to discover its secret.
When I meet the young farmers, all in their early 30s, they still seem slightly dazed by their fame. They've become unlikely heroes in a state where nearly half the families live below the Indian poverty line and 93% of the 100 million population depend on growing rice and potatoes. Nitish Kumar speaks quietly of his success and says he is determined to improve on the record. "In previous years, farming has not been very profitable," he says. "Now I realise that it can be. My whole life has changed. I can send my children to school and spend more on health. My income has increased a lot."
What happened in Darveshpura has divided scientists and is exciting governments and development experts. Tests on the soil show it is particularly rich in silicon but the reason for the "super yields" is entirely down to a method of growing crops called System of Rice (or root) Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world's 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them.
People work on a rice field in Bihar. Photograph: Chiara Goia
Instead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings in clumps of three or four in waterlogged fields, as rice farmers around the world traditionally do, the Darveshpura farmers carefully nurture only half as many seeds, and then transplant the young plants into fields, one by one, when much younger. Additionally, they space them at 25cm intervals in a grid pattern, keep the soil much drier and carefully weed around the plants to allow air to their roots. The premise that "less is more" was taught by Rajiv Kumar, a young Bihar state government extension worker who had been trained in turn by Anil Verma of a small Indian NGO called Pran (Preservation and
Proliferation of Rural Resources and Nature), which has introduced the SRI method to hundreds of villages in the past three years.
While the "green revolution" that averted Indian famine in the 1970s relied on improved crop varieties, expensive pesticides and chemical fertilisers, SRI appears to offer a long-term, sustainable future for no extra cost. With more than one in seven of the global population going hungry and demand for rice expected to outstrip supply within 20 years, it appears to offer real hope. Even a 30% increase in the yields of the world's small farmers would go a long way to alleviating poverty.
"Farmers use less seeds, less water and less chemicals but they get more without having to invest more. This is revolutionary," said Dr Surendra Chaurassa from Bihar's agriculture ministry. "I did not believe it to start with, but now I think it can potentially change the way everyone farms. I would want every state to promote it. If we get 30-40% increase in yields, that is more than enough to recommend it."
The results in Bihar have exceeded Chaurassa's hopes. Sudama Mahto, an agriculture officer in Nalanda, says a small investment in training a few hundred people to teach SRI methods has resulted in a 45% increase in the region's yields. Veerapandi Arumugam, the former agriculture minister of Tamil Nadu state, hailed the system as "revolutionising" farming.
SRI's origins go back to the 1980s in Madagascar where Henri de Laulanie, a French Jesuit priest and agronomist, observed how villagers grew rice in the uplands. He developed the method but it was an American, professor Norman Uphoff, director of the International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development at Cornell University, who was largely responsible for spreading the word about De Laulanie's work.
Given $15m by an anonymous billionaire to research sustainable development, Uphoff went to Madagascar in 1983 and saw the success of SRI for himself: farmers whose previous yields averaged two tonnes per hectare were harvesting eight tonnes. In 1997 he started to actively promote SRI in Asia, where more than 600 million people are malnourished.
"It is a set of ideas, the absolute opposite to the first green revolution [of the 60s] which said that you had to change the genes and the soil nutrients to improve yields. That came at a tremendous ecological cost," says Uphoff. "Agriculture in the 21st century must be practised differently. Land and water resources are becoming scarcer, of poorer quality, or less reliable. Climatic conditions are in many places more adverse. SRI offers millions of disadvantaged households far better opportunities. Nobody is benefiting from this except the farmers; there are no patents, royalties or licensing fees."
Rice seeds. Photograph: Chiara Goia
For 40 years now, says Uphoff, science has been obsessed with improving seeds and using artificial fertilisers: "It's been genes, genes, genes. There has never been talk of managing crops. Corporations say 'we will breed you a better plant' and breeders work hard to get 5-10% increase in yields. We have tried to make agriculture an industrial enterprise and have forgotten its biological roots."
Not everyone agrees. Some scientists complain there is not enough peer-reviewed evidence around SRI and that it is impossible to get such returns. "SRI is a set of management practices and nothing else, many of which have been known for a long time and are best recommended practice," says Achim Dobermann, deputy director for research at the International Rice Research Institute. "Scientifically speaking I don't believe there is any miracle. When people independently have evaluated SRI principles then the result has usually been quite different from what has been reported on farm evaluations conducted by NGOs and others who are promoting it. Most scientists have had difficulty replicating the observations."
Dominic Glover, a British researcher working with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has spent years analysing the introduction of GM crops in developing countries. He is now following how SRI is being adopted in India and believes there has been a "turf war".
"There are experts in their fields defending their knowledge," he says. "But in many areas, growers have tried SRI methods and abandoned them. People are unwilling to investigate this. SRI is good for small farmers who rely on their own families for labour, but not necessarily for larger operations. Rather than any magical theory, it is good husbandry, skill and attention which results in the super yields. Clearly in certain circumstances, it is an efficient resource for farmers. But it is labour intensive and nobody has come up with the technology to transplant single seedlings yet."
But some larger farmers in Bihar say it is not labour intensive and can actually reduce time spent in fields. "When a farmer does SRI the first time, yes it is more labour intensive," says Santosh Kumar, who grows 15 hectares of rice and vegetables in Nalanda. "Then it gets easier and new innovations are taking place now."
In its early days, SRI was dismissed or vilified by donors and scientists but in the past few years it has gained credibility. Uphoff estimates there are now 4-5 million farmers using SRI worldwide, with governments in China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam promoting it.
Sumant, Nitish and as many as 100,000 other SRI farmers in Bihar are now preparing their next rice crop. It's back-breaking work transplanting the young rice shoots from the nursery beds to the paddy fields but buoyed by recognition and results, their confidence and optimism in the future is sky high.
Last month Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz visited Nalanda district and recognised the potential of this kind of organic farming, telling the villagers they were "better than scientists". "It was amazing to see their success in organic farming," said Stiglitz, who called for more research. "Agriculture scientists from across the world should visit and learn and be inspired by them."
A man winnows rice in Satgharwa village. Photograph: Chiara Goia
Bihar, from being India's poorest state, is now at the centre of what is being called a "new green grassroots revolution" with farming villages, research groups and NGOs all beginning to experiment with different crops using SRI. The state will invest $50m in SRI next year but western governments and foundations are holding back, preferring to invest in hi-tech research. The agronomist Anil Verma does not understand why: "The farmers know SRI works, but help is needed to train them. We know it works differently in different soils but the principles are solid," he says. "The biggest problem we have is that people want to do it but we do not have enough trainers.
"If any scientist or a company came up with a technology that almost guaranteed a 50% increase in yields at no extra cost they would get a Nobel prize. But when young Biharian farmers do that they get nothing. I only want to see the poor farmers have enough to eat."
Sumant Kumar
Friday, February 22, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Cameron's visit to Golden Temple.
The year 1919 is significantly important to me personally, as my Dad Mr Vasdev Singh was born. A new Chapter started for our family. He rose to build up a strong team and inculcated vegetarianism among us and guided all his kids and grand kids to what values we have today.
Jalianwala episode was conceived as a seed of Freedom of the country, while my Dads existence made us all a Model citizens of a modern and young India.
Jalianwala episode was conceived as a seed of Freedom of the country, while my Dads existence made us all a Model citizens of a modern and young India.
'We must never forget what happened here': David Cameron goes barefoot as he pays respects at Golden Temple of Amritsar where British soldiers shot dead hundreds of protesting Indians in 1919
- British riflemen gunned down 379 peaceful protesters in Indian city
- Mr Cameron is the first sitting PM to visit the Golden Temple at Amritsar
- But he stopped short of a full apology and did not use the word 'sorry'
- PM is keen to build new relationship with India based on trade
By TIM SHIPMAN and HUGO GYE
David Cameron today expressed remorse for the 1919 Amritsar massacre, denouncing the killing as 'deeply shameful' as he visited the scene of the worst single atrocity of the British Empire.
Writing in a memorial book for the victims of the massacre, he said: 'We must never forget what happened here.'
Mr Cameron, the first sitting Prime Minister ever to visit Amritsar, went far further than the Queen, who visited in 1997, in voicing regret for the slaughter in which 379 people were officially said to have died but which Indians believe claimed 1,000 lives.
However, he did not fully apologise or use the word 'sorry' during his visit to the garden at Jallianwala Bagh, where the killings took place.
Scroll down for video
Visit: David Cameron with Punjabi officials during a visit to the Golden Temple at Amritsar this morning
Spectacular: The Prime Minister donned a blue bandana and saffron scarf for his visit to the site
Greeting: Mr Cameron meets Indian pilgrims during his historic tour of the Golden Temple
Barefoot: The Prime Minister removed his shoes to tour the temple along with local dignitaries
Respect: It is usually forbidden to enter a Sikh temple while wearing shoes - even if you are the Prime Minister
Before visiting the massacre site, the Prime Minister toured the city's Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion, barefoot and wearing a blue bandana.
He went to the temple kitchens which feed thousands of pilgrims every day, and tried his hand at flipping chapatis.
When he moved on to the gardens, he laid a wreath on the memorial and wrote in the condolence book: 'This was a deeply shameful event in British history, one that Winston Churchill rightly described at the time as 'monstrous'.
'We must never forget what happened here, and in remembering we must ensure that the United Kingdom stands up for the right of peaceful protest around the world.'
Commemoration: The Prime Minister lays a wreath at the memorial to the victims of the Amritsar massacre
Remorse: But Mr Cameron stopped short of apologising for Britain's role in the killings
Message: Mr Cameron sat down to write a note in the temple's visitors' book
'Deeply shameful': The Prime Minister wrote a heartfelt message in the book of condolences
I'm sorry: Prime Minister David Cameron takes a seat to sign a book of condolence apologising for the atrocity
The massacre, dramatically recreated in the film Gandhi, is seen as the low point of the Raj and one of the reasons Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent protest movement gathered support for independence.
Mr Cameron was shown around the memorial site by descendants of some of those who came under fire from troops under British command in 1919.
They pointed out a wall covered in bullet holes from the shooting, and the Martyrs' Well where many of the victims died while seeking shelter from the gunfire.
Speaking after the visit, the memorial's secretary Sukumar Mukherjee, whose grandfather survived the shootings, was asked if Mr Cameron's words made up for his lack of a formal apology.
'He has come here, he has paid his tribute here,' he replied. 'It is more than an apology.'
From India with love: Prime Minister David Cameron visits the Amar Singh Chawal Wala rice company which supplies food stores in London
Getting stuck in: Mr Cameron helped make chapattis at the temple kitchen where meals are made for pilgrims
Treat: Mr Cameron is given a meal by a worker at the temple, the holiest site for Sikhs
Cleansing: Mr Cameron and his hosts walk through a purifying water bath on the threshold of the temple
Tourist: The Prime Minister, surrounded by a crowd of locals, sees the sights of the Golden Temple
Asked why he decided not to apologise, Mr Cameron said: 'In my view we are dealing with something here that happened a good 40 years before I was born, and we are dealing with something that... the British government rightly condemned at the time.
'I don't think the right thing is to reach back into history and to seek out things that we should apologise for. I think the right thing to do is to acknowledge what happened, to recall what happened, to show respect and understanding for what happened.
He added: 'I am proud to be the first British Prime Minister to visit the Golden Temple and see what an extraordinary place it is - very moving, very serene, very spiritual.'
Holy: The Golden Temple receives millions of pilgrims and other visitors each year
Ornate: The Golden Temple is one of India's top tourist destinations owing to its extravagant decoration
Friendly: Mr Cameron is hoping to build better relations between the UK and India on his visit to the country
Spectacular: Mr Cameron's visit to Amritsar came at the end of his three-day tour of India
The Queen and Prince Philip visited the scene in 1997, where the Queen issued a carefully calibrated statement referring to ‘moments of sadness and moments of gladness’ in Britain’s relationship with India.
But the Duke of Edinburgh sparked controversy when he dismissed Indian claims that the number of fatalities was actually around 1,000 as ‘vastly exaggerated’.
On April 13, 1919, local Army commander Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered around 50 riflemen to open fire on a group of up to 20,000 people when they met in defiance of a ban on public meetings.
In the ten-minute bloodbath 1,650 rounds were fired before their ammunition was exhausted. Official Government of India figures estimated the fatalities at 379, with another 1,500 wounded.
Remorse: Mr Cameron was the first sitting prime minister ever to visit Amritsar
Gunned: The Amritsar massacre, in which British soldiers gunned down at least 379 peaceful protesters in 1919, as depicted in the 1982 film Gandhi
Sparked movement: The massacre is seen as the low point of the Raj and one of the reasons Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent protest movement gathered support
ATROCITY THAT PROVED TO BE THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR RAJ
The Amritsar massacre is considered one of the low points in the history of the Empire - and it also helped to end British rule in India.
Tens of thousands of Indians gathered in a square near the city's iconic Golden Temple on April 13, 1919 and started protesting against the power of the Raj.
The protest was part of the growing independence movement, with strikes and demonstrations sweeping the country in the preceding months.
It was this revolutionary background which made Bridgadier-General Reginald Dyer nervous about the protest, and which motivated his decision to order dozens of soldiers to open fire on the demonstrators.
The troops, most of whom were themselves Indian, fired indiscriminately and without warning, killing hundreds - the official death toll was 379, but Indians claim that around 1,000 protesters died.
Dyer had intended to suppress calls for independence, but instead the massacre ended up boosting them as previously pacific Indians rallied to the cause after hearing of the horrific slaughter.
Reactions in Britain were mixed, but many - including Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for War - were revolted by the killing.
One man particularly inspired by the news was Mahatma Gandhi, who soon began a campaign of non-violence protest which would eventually lead to the country's independence in 1947.
Aides say Mr Cameron believes it was a ‘deeply shameful’ event in Britain’s past but stress that he is keen to concentrate on the future, building a new relationship based on trade.
The prime minister also hopes to drum up support for the Tory Party from the 800,000-strong Sikh community, whose votes are key in North and West London and the East Midlands.
Ahead of his visit to Amritsar, Mr Cameron said: ‘So many British people can trace their roots to this part of northern India. Punjabis make an extraordinary contribution to British life.
‘Sikhism is one of the key faiths not just of India, but of Britain now too.
'And I cannot wait to see the Golden Temple in Amritsar, which I believe is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary places of worship in the world.
'And yes, there are ties of history too – both the good and the bad. In Amritsar, I want to take the opportunity to pay my respects at Jallianwala Bagh.
‘This visit to Punjab is what my visit to India is all about – strengthening and deepening the ties between our two countries.’
Officials said that unlike the apologies Mr Cameron has issued for the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland and the Hillsborough tragedy, the British state has already admitted it was at fault after Amritsar.
Winston Churchill branded the events in Amritsar ‘monstrous’, while former prime minister Herbert Asquith called it ‘one of the worst outrages in the whole of our history’.
Downing Street is keen to avoid the ridicule that Tony Blair attracted by apologising for the sins of previous generations, including the Irish potato famine and the slave trade.
Success: Mr Cameron, pictured playing cricket in Mumbai yesterday, said 'Punjabis make an extraordinary contribution to British life' ahead of his visit
Mr Cameron’s great-grandfather voted to reject calls to cut the pension of the Secretary of State for India after the Amritsar massacre.
Sir William Arthur Mount, a Tory MP, was present in Parliament in July 1920 when the Commons debated whether to dock £100 from the pension of Edwin Montagu.
Sir William was the grandfather of Mr Cameron’s mother, Mary.
VIDEO PM in bandana visits revered Sikh shrine in northern India
VIDEO Cameron lays wreath at massacre spot as he is urged to apologise for killings
Royal visit: The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh pictured visiting Amritsar in 1997
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