| Satyananda Stokes | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 16, 1882 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Died | May 14, 1946 (aged 63) Simla Hills, Himachal Pradesh |
| Occupation | Farmer |
| Spouse | Agnes Stokes |
| Children | Prem Stokes, Satyavati Stokes, Lal Chand Stokes, Savitri Stokes |
| Parents | Samuel Evans Stokes II, Florence Spencer |
Satyananda Stokes (16 August 1882 - 14 May 1946) was an American who moved to India and adopted it as his own country. [1]Stokes' given name was Samuel Evans Stokes, Jr., and belonging to a prominent family and was the son of a successful businessman who pioneered elevators in America he came to India in 1904 to work at a leper colony in the Simla Hills run by Dr Marcus Carleton at Subathu at the age of twenty-two. A true iconoclast, he did this against his parents' wishes. He had not completed his education, nor acquired any real-world skill and rejected the chance to run the Stokes and Parish Machine Company set up by his father. As a deeply religious Quaker, he became sort of a Christian sannyasi until meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury and forming an order of Franciscan Friars and dedicated his early years living in poverty and aiding the diseased and dying. However, his membership in this wandering brotherhood of monks lasted only two years.
He married a local Rajput Christian woman, Agnes in 1912, and gave up his life of poverty. After the personal tragedy of losing his son Tara to amoebic dysentery, he moved closer to Hinduism and a few years later in 1932 he converted to Hinduism taking the name "Satyanand" and changed his wife's name to "Priya Devi"[2]. He transformed the economy of Himachal Pradesh in 1916 by introducing the now world famous ‘Shimla Apple’ or the American Delicious variety of apple, a new strain developed by the Stark brothers of Louisiana, USA in the Simla Hills of Himachal Pradesh near the Himalayas. Thousands of farmers began copying him and orchards sprang up all over the state, reinvigorating the economy.
Stokes had always had a strong sense of social justice and later became active in India's freedom struggle for independence from Great Britain. [3]Stokes had the rare honour of being the only American to become a member of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) of the Indian National Congress. 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 promoting hatred against the British government in 1921, becoming the only American to become a political prisoner of Great Britain in the freedom struggle. On Stokes’ arrest, Mahatma Gandhi wrote: “That he (Stokes) should feel with and like an Indian, share his sorrows and throw himself into the struggle, has proved too much for the government. To leave him free to criticise the government was intolerable, so his white skin has proved no protection for him…”
He died on 14 May 1946 after an extended illness shortly before India's Independence.
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