'Our freedom was born with hunger, we're still not free'

'Our freedom was born with hunger, we're still not free'
Saira Kurup, Aug 15, 2010, 03.31am IST
'Our freedom was born with hunger, we're still not free'


M S Swaminathan

On August 15, 1947, 22-year-old Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan famously headed for Auroville even as almost everyone else in Madras seemed to be bound for Marina Beach to celebrate the birth of a free India. Later, he would choose to study agriculture rather than medicine, rightly judging that plentiful food production had an important role to play in keeping a country independent. He went on to play a leading role in India's Green Revolution of the 1960s. In 1999, he was one of only three Indians to be on TIME magazine's list of the 20th century's 20 most influential Asians. The other two were Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi. Swaminathan, 85, was in the capital recently and spoke to Saira Kurup about India's many revolutions — those past and still to come.

It's 63 years since India became independent. But we are still fighting for freedom from hunger and poverty. Is this a battle we might never win?
Our freedom was born with hunger. It was born in the backdrop of the Bengal famine. If you read the newspapers dated August 15, 1947, one part was about freedom, the other was food shortage. This is why Jawaharlal Nehru said after Independence that everything else can wait but not agriculture.
The battle against hunger is a battle we have to win. It requires a fusion of political will, professional skill and people's participation. Our country is fortunate to have fairly good water resources, reasonably good rainfall, a hardworking farming population. We must bring about a marriage between brain and brawn in rural professions. We need a large number of educated young people to go into farming using science and new eco-technologies. We have all the necessary ingredients for progress. But the gap between scientific knowhow and field level do-how is large.

The green revolution was the product of four things: the first was technology. The genetic technology of the 1960s was transformational and changed people's understanding of wheat and rice yields. The second was services that took the technology to the field like extension services, credit and insurance; third was public policies of input-output pricing like the prices commission, and lastly, the farmers' enthusiasm. Today, unfortunately, the most important thing is missing — farmers' enthusiasm. A revolution cannot come from a government programme. A National Sample Survey study says 40% of the farmers want to leave farming. It's important to revive that enthusiasm.

There's no shortage of food in terms of production. Why are people going hungry then?
There are three parts to the problem. First, availability of food in the market, which is not bad; second, access to food or purchasing power. Under NREGA, a worker gets Rs 100 a day for 100 days i.e Rs 10,000 a year. If he has a family of five, it means Rs 2,000 a year per person. When dal is selling at Rs 80 to Rs 90 a kilo, how do they buy it? Third, is the absorption of food in the body, which means getting clean drinking water, sanitation. Otherwise, it means a leaky pot — a child would keep getting infections.

How do you view the green revolution now, when the widespread use of pesticides in Punjab is being linked to increase in cancer rates in some areas?
In 1966, I had said the green revolution should be an "evergreen revolution", which is enhancement of productivity in perpetuity without ecological harm. I had warned against overuse of pesticides and fertilizers and against converting the green revolution into a greed revolution.

What can be done to set things right?
There are two aspects of the green revolution — farm ecology and farm economy. But if farm ecology goes wrong, nothing else will go right. Soil quality must be taken care of, water quality must be ensured. We should also be ready for climate change. I call it a two-pronged strategy — get the best of a good monsoon or climate and second, minimize the adverse impact of unfavourable weather.

Why are you objecting to Bt brinjal?
I didn't oppose it. I supported Jairam Ramesh's moratorium. I chaired a committee in 2004 and recommended in a report the setting up of a regulatory authority, which would have its own testing facilities. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee has no such facility. I advocate safe and responsible use of biotechnology particularly in the case of human nutrition. Some long-term residual toxicity tests should be done. If you introduce some good-yielding hybrids, farmers will grow only those. So I said, "Use the moratorium to collect all the genetic material or germ plasm." We also need a literacy programme for the public.

You have been influenced by the philosophy of the Mahatma and Sri Aurobindo. In an age when technology is the new god, do you think there can be a meeting point for science and spirituality?
There can be no science without spirituality. It gives purpose to science. Vivekananda said, 'This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others.' That's my personal philosophy. My father was a doctor. He died when I was 10. My mother wanted me to go into medicine. But the papers were full of Bengal famine and I asked myself how I could serve my country better. I got calls from a medical college and an agricultural college. After I joined, the principal of the agricultural college asked me why I took up agriculture because the subject was not considered as important as medicine!

Do you have any unfulfilled dreams?
My only dream is a hunger-free India. Every fourth child here is born underweight. We are denying our own children opportunities for a fulfilled life. I wanted to see a hunger-free India in 2007 when we celebrated our 50th year of Independence. But it has not happened. That's why I accepted nomination to the Rajya Sabha because in a democratic country much depends on the political system. Fortunately, when I was Farmers' Commission chairman, we recommended a food guarantee Act. Now I am in the National Advisory Council and am working on the Right to Food Act. It's the last chance to make food a legal right. Gandhiji said in Noakhali in 1946 that the first and foremost duty of independent India is to see that no child, woman or man should go to bed hungry, because to the hungry, bread is god.


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