Science at the political table

'The Man who Fed India' is a diligent record of India's most impactful agriculture scientist, M.S. Swaminathan

- Sayantan Bera

How important is it for visionary scientists and administrators to have the ear of their political masters? In the history of post-independent India, two events which played out over several years provide an answer.

Verghese Kurien, a dairy engineer who crafted the white revolution from Gujarat and made India the largest producer of milk, could do so because he was able to sway policy in favour of cooperative dairy farmers. Kurien had unbridled access to successive prime ministers and could get what he needed promptly, bypassing the maze of bureaucracy.

In his autobiography, I Too Had a Dream (2005), Kurien recalls an incident from 1970: Jagjivan Ram, the minister of agriculture and irrigation, wanted Kurien’s help to set up a private dairy in his constituency of Sasaram in Bihar. But Kurien said his job entailed creating cooperative dairies, not a private venture. “I will not do it,” he told the minister curtly.

Kurien soon realised he had committed a grave error. He was warned by well-wishers that the minister was a skilled politician and “when he cut your throat you would not even realise it till your head rolled down.” As expected, the minister directed that Kurien be removed as the chairman of Indian Dairy Corporation. Kurien had only one option left. He wrote to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and sought a meeting with her. On hearing his plea, Indira Gandhi instructed the agriculture minister: “Don’t touch Kurien, leave him alone.” “Although I was in a small town (Anand in Gujarat), I always had access to all our Prime Ministers,” Kurien wrote.