by: Geetanjali Singh
In this book Vandana Shiva, a leading Indian ecologist argues that our alie nation from nature and perception of nature solely as a source of raw material and profit is the cause of the polarization of human society.
It is time, Shiva says, to recon sider the relevance of Western models of development, such as the Green Revolution, for the Third World. She uses India’s strife-torn Punjab state as a case study to show how the Green Revolution, once lauded as a harbinger of plenty, has only led to scarcity and violence. In her view, the Sikh separatist movement in the Punjab and the continuing violence there may appear to be of ethnic or religious inspiration, but these phenomena are in fact a consequence of the quick fix called the Green Revolution.
The underlying assumption of the Green Revolution a capital intensive method of growing a high yield variety of grain quickly Shiva points out, was that commercialization of agriculture was possible and desirable for all. As a result, markets, not people, became the focal point. It led to a concentration on only two crops rice and wheat. High yield seeds required more chemical fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation. Thus the Green Revolution not only depleted the earth but by encouraging monoculture snuffed out of existence a host of crops and legumes that provided variety in the diet of peasants, fodder for animals and fertilizer for the earth, Some of these arguments are well known. But Shiva lays some of India’s Serious social and political problems at the door of the Green Revolution, She says that the search for material prosperity through a centrally controlled monoculture tends to exclude autonomy, tolerance and diversity, The Indian Government’s control over the inputs from fertilizer to water required by the Green Revolution has only exacerbated tension between the states and the center, t¢ In the Punjab the problem is further aggravated by the fact that the ruling Akali party is seen as the voice of the Sikhs, Agricultural policy decisions made in New Delhi regarding the allocation of water or fertilizer subsidies are not only politicized but also communalized. The Sikhs see the attempt to deprive them of their fair share as the result of religious prejudice. According to Shiva, the question is one of the center run by a Hindu majority party trying to wipe out or level off a minority community.
In her passionately urged and well documented book Shiva tends to be repetitive. By denouncing the Green Revolution as a political and technological fiasco, she minimizes other important factors behind the fractious situation in Punjab.
On a border level Shiva raises valid questions about the Green Revolution but does not offer practical solutions. How would a government functioning in a world dominated by the market step aside and yet manage to feed its growing population with a time honored but low yielding method of, farming? How does a government meet the needs of a people trapped in subsistence farming and an autarchic economy? Gandhi’s spinning wheel might have been a pointed symbol that fired the imagination of the Indian masses against the British colonizers, but is it an effective way of clothing a huge population?
(Courtesy: Far Eastern Economic Review)
Geetanjali Singh is a freelance writer based in Hong Kong.
Article extracted from this publication >>July 2, 1993
