MS Swaminathan, the freedom-fighter

🌾 Getting Independent India Independence From Hunger

Independence would mean little to a hungry nation. The highest of ideals are worthless if the most fundamental of a man’s physical needs are not met.

I grew up listening to stories of rotis made from the PL-480 wheat that India imported from the US. “The atta would be red. The rotis felt like leather”.

So why did our grandparents not buy some other variety of wheat?

Because the luxury of choice wasn’t available to them. India imported PL-480 because we were not growing enough wheat for all of us. It was a trade-off between eating leathery, chewy rotis or not eating any at all.

And this was the story of urban India. Rural India fared much worse.

India was an independent country but dependent on others to satiate the very hunger of its people.

As a young student, MS Swaminathan wished to contribute to independent India. Over the course of his life, he contributed to making the country independent of hunger.

The man who literally sowed the seeds of the Green Revolution, passed away today at his home in Chennai. He was 98.

The Green Revolution was not the result of a grand strategy but the eventual outcome of Swaminathan, and others like him, working quietly over many years to solve a seemingly boring problem—increasing the yield of a seed of grain.

A hungry person has no time for ideals. So goes for a hungry nation. By ushering in the Green Revolution, MS Swaminathan not only put food on India’s plate, he also delivered meaning to its independence.