When M. S. Swaminathan died at the age of 98 on September 28, 2023, he was mourned in India and internationally. Tributes to MSS poured in from international organizations and scientists connected with the life sciences, biotechnology, agriculture, food security, and rural development, from scholars of eminence, and from many public figures. There was, however, a remarkable aspect to the outpouring of grief on the death of MSS. Unusually for a global scholar and scientist, MSS was mourned across rural India by hundreds of thousands of people, most of them men and women farmers.