MS Swaminathan: A life dedicated to science and society

MS Swaminathan passed away on September 28, 2023. (AFP/File)

In the passing away of Dr MS Swaminathan, India has lost a great champion of deploying science for the benefit of humanity. The Green Revolution has remained firmly etched in the memories of Indians since the 1960s and is the most remarkable achievement of science and technology that has touched the life of every Indian.

MSS was a pioneering scientist, science manager and administrator, policymaker, planner, science communicator, sustainability advocate, parliamentarian and social activist. It is rare for an individual to wear so many hats gracefully and justify them.

When India Needed A Revolution

It may have become fashionable in the twenty-first century for some people to deride the Green Revolution and blame it for the environmental ills that we see today. But generations of Indians who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s know how critical it was for India to gain self-sufficiency in foodgrain production – a task in which MSS played a critical role.

The Green Revolution was not just about importing a few high-yielding varieties, growing them in India or about the ‘chemicalisation’ of soil, but it was about initiating a fundamental shift in every aspect of Indian agriculture – from breeding to technology dissemination.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, several field trials were conducted to see if increased fertiliser use resulted in higher wheat and rice production. However, it emerged that the Indian varieties then in use were simply not capable of absorbing more nutrients from the soil. The yields could be improved only with changes in the morphological architecture of the varieties. The Mexican dwarf wheat varieties, brought by Normal Borlaug, did just that.

The Mexican variety provided some breathing time, which MSS and the group of plant breeders with him used to develop a set of outstanding wheat strains – Hira, Moti, Shera, Lal Bahadur, UP301, Sharbati Sonora and Pusa Lerma. From five hectares under the imported Mexican variety in 1964, the area grown under dwarf wheat varieties selected or bred in India rose to five million hectares in 1971. This was nothing short of a revolution and the greatest success of Indian science till then.

Pioneering Scientist, Administrator, Policymaker

All the developmental work took place at the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) and MSS was in the thick of it all between 1954 to 1972 - as cytogeneticist, plant breeder and then Director of IARI.

After this, he led the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) as its Director General and then became the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture – in effect leading the Green Revolution through its full cycle. This period saw a metamorphosis of Indian agriculture which went beyond rice and wheat, and in tandem with changes in the dairy sector which ushered in the White Revolution.

MSS was born in the family of a surgeon in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. After his schooling in his home town, he moved to Trivandrum for his undergraduate studies in Zoology at University College.

The 1940s was a period of great stress with events like the Second World War and the Bengal Famine. The images of people dying for lack of food deeply moved him, and perhaps made MSS pursue a career in agriculture at the Agricultural College and Research Institute (now Tamil Nadu Agriculture University) at Coimbatore. By the time he finished his studies, India was a free nation. MSS came to Delhi for his associateship in genetics and plant breeding at IARI.

Like many young people of his age, he also aspired for a career in the government and appeared for the UPSC examination. Few would know that MSS was selected for the Indian Police Service (IPS). He, however, declined the offer and instead decided to pursue a PhD in genetics at Cambridge University. MSS returned to India in 1953 after a brief research stint in America and took up a research position at the Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack.

His Unfinished Agenda: Evergreen Revolution

In recent decades, MSS devoted his time to addressing some of the problems facing Indian agriculture resulting from declining public investment in the post-liberalisation period as well as issues of food access, nutrition security and climate change.

He believed that the vision of a hunger-free India could be achieved only through what he called an Evergreen Revolution – an increase in productivity without associated ecological fallout.

This could be achieved by focusing more on boosting the productivity and profitability of small holdings in rainfed areas, improving soil health, adequate institutional credit and crop insurance, access to water, remunerative process, overhauling research and extension services and boosting farmers’ income. This was MSS’s unfinished agenda.

Dinesh C Sharma is a science journalist and author based in New Delhi. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.