India, May 1 -- Punjab's agricultural crisis is no longer a distant warning. It is present, visible in sinking water tables, exhausted soils, rising debt, polluted air, and in the quiet departure of a generation that no longer sees a future in farming. The state that powered India's Green Revolution now stands at a dangerous turning point - trapped by the very model that made it indispensable.

With barely 1.5% of India's geographical area, Punjab built its identity on feeding a nation. That success, however, concealed a structural catastrophe, decades in the making.

The wheat-paddy cycle, occupying over 80% of the cropped area, has hardened into a monoculture from which farmers, markets and governments have all struggled to escape. At i...