SCIENCE ICON

 

 

 

WHAT Dr. M.S. Swaminathan meant to India and Indians is something that cannot be captured in a few words. So immense was his contribution to Indian science and India’s food security. As the nation mourns his loss at the ripe age of 98 years, all that needs to be done is to bow our heads in grief -- of his passing away -- and gratitude -- for his tremendous contribution to modern India’s sense of security. Going by the size of his contribution, it can be said safely that Dr. M.S. Swaminathan lived much longer than his chronological years. Only once in a long, long time is such a soul born. The story of how Dr. Swaminathan -- ‘Swami Sir’ to his close associates -- changed a starving India into a food-surplus State is all too well known everywhere. But what is important is to understand the importance of that particular moment in history when the country faced starvation of unheard-before proportions. What stood the country in good stead then was an unshakable faith of India’s collective leadership in science, in technology’s ability to change bad days into good days. So, in other words, the story of Dr. Swaminathan’s contribution is the story of how that faith in science was put to the best possible use to bring solace to a starving nation. For all that work, the nation will always remain grateful to him. But that chapter is still only a small part of the larger story that is rarely told to the succeeding generations.

 

That is the story of how Dr. Swaminathan led the country’s foray into science and its usage through technology through countless initiatives that took the country to next level of development and the next and the next and still the next ...! Through the Operational Research Project of the Integrated Rural Development Programme, through the development of various approaches of using science for national purpose, through advising the Government on how science can be harnessed to extract the best from the environment without hurting its core, through helping India become an integral part of international community of science, Dr. Swaminathan led the country from the front and by example. His work as the Director of International Rice Research Programme at Manila in Philippines can be cited as an unparalleled contribution to Indian role in global scientific endeavour. He also helped the country to design advancement of science education in institutions of higher learning. He also was on the forefront of the Indian science congress movement all his life because he believed that he had to work to usher the succeeding generations of Indian people into the new era of science. That such a man is no more, is a matter of immense national grieving. Another most important aspect of Dr. Swaminathan’s life was the time in which he was born and grew up. Those were the times of intense struggle for Independence and every Indian was fired by one single thought -- of throwing out the alien rulers.

 

In pursuance of that vision, everybody worked in his or her field of choice to make the country strong in whatever manner. In those times, when he was all poised to become a medical doctor, the young Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan chose study of agricultural science as his patriotic contribution to India, his trigger being the widespread hunger in the lower layers of the larger Indian society. Of course, he was not alone in that pursuit at that time. A wave of young people rose from the ground to take up science as pursuit of life. Those people joined different branches of science and subsequently led the country in science dealing with challenges in space, atomic energy, oceanography, forestry, defence ...! They created institutions whose lasting value the country can never forget. The biggest challenge before that band of men and women was to ingrain science into Indian thought-process. They fought dogma as well as political apathy and social indifference but did not give up their chosen paths. There are not many from that generation living now. But each of them is still making signal contributions to the cause of science, technology and innovation -- in the process adding fantastic value to the happiness-quotient of the larger Indian society. Dr. Swaminathan was an integral part of that fantastic revolution. Without making much fuss about the task at hand, he kept doing his part doggedly.

 

He was often faced with rather harsh questions about things going wrong in India science. He would only smile in response and say most humbly that science was a tool of social change that takes its own time to come about. Saying thus, he expressed his immense faith in the goodness of the Indian society and the utilitarian value of science. That mental framework was probably the product of the generation to which Dr. Swaminathan belonged. Immense faith in one’s mission, unshakable confidence in the mission’s utility, and a steadfast belief that eventually things would fall in their respective right places were the core attributes of that generation. Dr. M.S. Swaminathan was one very visible symbol of those people. Dr. Swaminathan was a soft-spoken person, never given to using harsh words even in moments of worst provocation. That won him plaudits from everybody around him as well as all the national leaders with whom he worked closely for decades on end. That softness, however, concealed within a firm belief in his own method of doing things scientifically correctly. He had aged, no doubt. But until the end, his energies were intact. And the secret was, by his own description, in his faith in god-given mission.