State policy, agricultural research and transformation of Indian agriculture with reference to basic

257 Pages·2017·1.73 MB·English

Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Dissertations
2012
State policy, agricultural research and
transformation of Indian agriculture with reference
to basic food-crops, 1947-75
Madhumita Saha
Iowa State University
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Recommended Citation
Saha, Madhumita, "State policy, agricultural research and transformation of Indian agriculture with reference to basic food-crops,
1947-75" (2012).Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 12450.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/12450
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State policy, agricultural research and transformation of
Indian agriculture with reference to basic food-crops, 1947-75

by
Madhumita Saha

A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Major: History of Technology and Science

Program of Study Committee:
Amy Bix, Major Professor
Charles Dobbs
James T. Andrews
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg
Douglas Karlen
Hamilton Cravens

Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
2012
ii

Table of Contents
List of Tables iii
List of Figures iv
List of Abbreviations v
Acknowledgements vii
Abstract ix
Preface xiii

Chapter 1: Science, Technology and the Making of ‘Modern’ India 1

Chapter 2: Looking Past the Green Revolution: Agricultural Research
and the Modernization of Indian Agriculture 47

Chapter 3: Hunger and Technical Rendering of the Food Question 89

Chapter 4: The New Technology: Promises, Problems and Prognosis 143

Coda: Where is the Cultivator in Indian Agricultural Research? 195

References cited 211
iii

List of Tables
Table 1.1Total National Expenditure on Research & Development 14
Table 1.2 Expenditure on Research & Development (Sector-wise breakup) 15
Table 2.1 Trends in Area and Production of Wheat & Rice in India, 1956-1989 52
Table 2.2 India: An Estimate of Food-grain and Fertilizer Requirements,
1952/53-1979/80 59

Table 3.1 Rice: Agricultural Production Area of India (May 1970) 138
Table 3.2 Wheat: Agricultural Production Area of India (May 1970) 139
Table 4.1 India: HYV Wheat 175
iv

List of Figures
Fig 2.1 Rice & Wheat: Agricultural Production Area of India c. 1970 46
Fig 2.2 Major Agricultural Resources Flows 54

Fig. 3.1 Food and Defense 124
Fig. 3.2 Prime Minister with a group of IARI scientists 136
Fig.4.1 Happy Farmers, Helpless Farmers 148
Fig 4.2 The ‘Normal’ and the ‘Dwarf’ varieties 153
Fig 4.3 Prime Minister at the Gamma Garden 189
Fig 4.4 A Group of Happy Politicians 193
Fig 5.1 A ‘Picture perfect’ Farm Family 201
v

List of Abbreviations
Agricultural Extension Officer (AEO)
Agro-Economic Research Center (AERC)
All India Congress Committee (AICC)
All India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project (AICRIP)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
Center for International Studies (CIS)
Central Maize and Wheat Research Institute (CIMMYT)
Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI)
Communist Party of India (CPI)
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
District Agricultural Officer (DAO)
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Five Year Plans (FYP)
High-yielding variety (HYV)
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)
Intensive Agriculture Development Program (IADP)
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
Indian National Congress (INC)
International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
National Academy of Science (NAS)
National Chemical Laboratory (NCL)
National Development Council (NDC)
National Education Commission (NEC)
vi

National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML)
National Planning Committee/Commission (NPC)
National Research Development Council (NRDC)
Rashtriya Swayamsevaksevak Sangha(RSS)
Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SACC)
State Agricultural University (SAU)
US (United States)
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
University Grant Commission (UGC)
vii

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank all the members of my Program of Study Committee at Iowa State
University for their incomparable support and the enthusiasm that they had shown in my work
for the last six years. I will forever be indebted to them for the trust they had placed on me. My
major professor, Dr. Amy Bix had been a constant source of inspiration. Her encouragement,
patience, and keen eyes for details had been crucial in writing down this piece of history.
Research on this thesis was made possible through two major grants: a Fulbright doctoral
fellowship for the year 2006-2007 and a Dissertation Writing Fellowship from Philadelphia
Center for History of Science for the year 2010-2011. The fellowships made possible for me to
work in some of the finest academic institutions in the USA, such as the Princeton University,
the University of Pennsylvania, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, the Rockefeller Foundation at Tarrytown in New York, the Truman
Presidential Library at Independence in Missouri, and the National Archive at Maryland. This
journey made possible through generous grants also brought me in contact with wonderful
people with vast erudition. I have learnt incredibly from them. Other than these two major grants,
I have consistently received NSF travel grant from Society for the History of Technology
(SHOT) and History of Science Society (HSS) that have allowed me to present my work to a
large number of international audience.
I must also express my thanks to large number of archivists and librarians in India who
have helped in so many ways in the development of my dissertation. Staff of the libraries of the
Indian Agricultural Research Institute, the Center for Policy Research, the Jawaharlal Nehru
viii

Memorial Museum and Library, the Parliament Library at New Delhi, the Central Rice Research
Institute in Cuttack, the Centre for International Programmes at Osmania University in
Hyderabad, the National Library and the Indian Science Congress Library at Kolkata had all
untiringly helped me in locating sources. Dr. Y.L. Nene of Agri-history society of Secunderabad
had helped me beyond his call of duty in supplying valuable articles on ‘traditional’ agriculture
as practiced in the Indian subcontinent.
Many of my friends and colleagues did me immense favor by reading through the work
and providing valuable advice. Among them I have to mention Dr. Gary Hausman of Princeton
University and Dr. Sigrid Schmalzer of University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Last but not the least, the contribution of all my family members, especially Dr. Bibudh
Lahiri, Mr. G.C Saha, Mrs.Kalyani Saha and Mr. Abhijit Saha, go beyond any expression of
customary gratitude on my part. This dissertation literally would not have been possible without
them.
Writing a dissertation builds up on the work and support of many. Thus, it is never
possible to provide a complete list of people to whom I am grateful. Whoever reads this
acknowledgement please consider this to be an incomplete task. A truly comprehensive list
would have been longer than the length of the dissertation, I am sure.
ix

Abstract
Looking through the prism of technoscientific research, the dissertation provides a
historical understanding of the process of agricultural modernization in India during the period
1947 to 1975. The narrative is set at the backdrop of the Cold War politics, India’s drive for
economic and social development, gradual capitalization and chemicalization of agriculture
worldwide and international exchanges of knowledge, skill and manpower. In a period marked
by close interaction between the political and technoscientific establishments, the dissertation
demonstrates how they helped to constitute each other. The cooperation between political and
technoscientific wings of the Indian state, the dissertation argues, stemmed largely from mutual
interests. The scientists as a professional community were eager to actively participate in the
economic development of the newly independent nation-state. In doing so they wanted to ensure
continuous government patronage, funding for their projects and access to international
collaborations. With very little research opportunity in the private sector, government funding
was crucial for the professional advancement of any scientists in India. Agricultural scientists,
therefore, tried with various amount of success to claim a good portion of budgetary allocations.
They would be particularly successful in doing so with the introduction of the green revolution
technology in the mid-1960s. On the other hand, the primary interests of the Indian government
in employing a large pool of scientists and engineers were to find fast and effective solutions to a
whole range of social, economic and political problems facing the new state. To the modernizers,
technoscientific approach looked increasingly more attractive when compared with immensely
more complex, expensive path of structural reforms.
The need for modernization is a defining characteristic of the new nation-state. But
though largely unanimous about modernization as a normative goal, historical actors rarely