How Green is Green Revolution? Part I

Word green in old English means ‘to grow’. Color green has always been associated with prosperity, sustainability, hope, and nature. Color of many national flags has an inseparable green. At least a million web addresses have term green in their domain names. So much so, thoughts, sometimes are called green.
In India, for a considerable time and even now, term green has been seldom used without a ‘red-word'- called revolution. Together these two terms account for a Nobel Prize, one World Food Prize, two Prime Ministers, one agricultural minister, one leading research institution and two agricultural universities, two and a half states, countless flourishing fertilizer and pesticide companies. Nation’s empty stomachs are sated by the silos of food-grains entirely filled by the waves of green-revolution. There’s a new fourth version of iPhone on the shelf. Time goes by and after 50 or so odd and even years, India has unofficially launched green-revolution II.
We took 50 years to realize that Green Revolution I (sometimes it is fancy to add numeric adjectives in the rear, Tendulkar 10, Ronaldo 9, Jordan 23, and so on) also means just two and half states out of 29, hunger alleviation for just half of the nation, more than 200,000 farmer suicides, no one looking at more than half of nation’s land which is non-irrigated, high levels of toxicity in the ground water and poor land condition in two and half states, and recent plan to plant reverse osmosis units in entire Punjab! Scores of poor farmers falling into a Urea-DAP-SSP-Endosulfan-Thaili Wala Beej-Diesel-Debt-Poor production-Suicide trap, millions of families fleeing to cities for non-agricultural jobs, 40% of total farmers not willing to go for crop-cultivation and recent government projection that says 6-15% of country’s population will depend on agriculture are the subsidiary products of enchanted slogan ‘green-revolution’.

Surprisingly, green-revolution statistics didn’t correspond to the average increase in income of more than half of nation’s farmers. There’s employment guarantee in rural India. Revenue from fertilisers and pesticides when combined with the subsidy given to the owner companies will no doubt overwhelm the total income from farm of all the farmers in India. And it would almost be ten times the income of poor small and marginal farmers. There’s an extension system for agricultural information to be disseminated in villages. Total employees of government departments, organizations, government schemes, and central or state committees on ‘sustainable agriculture’, in my opinion, would outnumber poor farmers who understand ‘sustainable agriculture’ let alone envisioning it.

Yet, a dialog has to be made between this large ‘producer’ force and our ‘political; government/s. Sometimes,

I wonder, do we even need a dialog with a blind and deaf government which has to appoint a committee for every single thing in the country- child-labor, female foeticide, honor-killing, rapes, communal and regional unrest in all four corners and center of the nation, and fraud in a not-so-sportsmanlike games event?

I am home-sick!

Intellectual anomaly ridden with a false promise, not the fabricated one, but the unintended one; when mom used to be off home for the social protests of various sorts and promise to bring whatever you would ask and all you would get is a packet of maggi noodles and a sister equally anxious to eat it raw rather than frying it over a newly bought non-sticky frying pan, which Chachi would call fry-baan and would use to fry fraas-beans! An elder brother who was also a big brother, would probably sneak out a chance to beat the heck out of you over the dimmest mistakes in the mechanics problem from Nootan’s Physics; however, occasionally allowing you to read from his prized possession of 197 Raj comics- ranging from Dhruva to Nagraj to Doga. Dad would come home, often smelling of what he said- ‘I just had good time with friends’, would put his right hand in the shirt-pocket and I would grab all those toffees and sometimes fruits, like the best thing in the world. STD calls of a brother who people said you have to become like one day, but you only are just a look-alike not the think-alike person. You try to imitate his style of writing, his sense of dressing and gawp at his INR 600 Bata shoes as if trying to find your own image, only end up being his farthest close friends.

Looking back at those wondrous years or months or days, uneasiness crawls all the way into your brain, like little moths fiddling around your ear-flying over the lamppost under which you are working.
Mom’s protest suddenly became so political that they get on you nerve and sometimes you almost hate them. Dad’s ‘friend’ smell now comes from you whenever three or more of your friends meet in a Delhi or an Ahmedabad or a Chandigarh or even a Kota! Sister’s anxiety of eating that maggi packet raw turned into a marriage after which you find time hardly to talk to her for more than five minutes. The big brother shares the best of his times with you whenever you go to his place, you eat everything that comes into your mind like you would read every of his comics that would come to your hands! STD calls of other brother has turned into ISD ones and the image of his Bata shoes finds no mention in your thoughts now. Chachi call the beans outside her garden, French beans and fries them on a non-sticky frying pan!

Anomaly in the mirror- times elapsed and images changed, intellectually!

One World

It’s a weird world at certain dimensional specification of time and space. Haiti has no world at a time when we were discussing National Film Awards. Obama was trying to rebuff special interest group and we were contesting a controversial field hockey election, on which lies nothing but an ego.

A good friend once said, there should be integration of the works of people in different stratum of society. Revolutions should be for integration. Like many bearded journalists in this world, he went unheard. The term ‘integration’ has remained but a jargon for most of us. I tried integrating my efforts with the efforts of others in the sector and found it making wonders. What someone thinks or does is what I do or think and the world suddenly gets one more identity; and it is more important. It is not that person’s identity, nor is it my identity- it is that integrated identity. I desist use of word ‘we’ there. A shallow thought would belie the would-be-possible state of mind behind that refrain, so a deeper thought generated.

Ordinary people often quote ‘this is personal and that is professional’. Smart people often say ‘this is personal, professional, and social’. But extraordinary people say it is but spiritual. It is about the moment irrespective of sense it generates; be it planning for next round of official dialogues or writing your innate fears on your diary. It is not about the form of prayer you make, but it is about the prayer you make. It is about the spirit of your prayer, your bathroom secrets, and your work ethics. And unless we seek an integration of our professional, personal, social and spiritual cycles of breaths and blinks, ‘we’ won’t come into being.

I don’t say should, I say must. Let us integrate our own actions throughout the day and night. Let us all refine our actions to fit as one whole. It must be a big world and one world, where everything affects the elections of hockey board and everyone lends a hand to Haitian people to that ‘integrated self’. Where Obama is the award and films are but mirrors for us. My actions towards this should speak louder than these few words and my fears should not subdue my zeal.

Let us all accept our fears and integrate!