Dialectical Diffusion

Dialectical Diffusion The Rockefeller Foundation, Anil Gupta, and Interactions Between Formal Science and Indigenous Knowledge During India’s Green Revolution By Jason Glenn Dyck A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of History Joint Masters Program University of Manitoba/University of Winnipeg Winnipeg, Manitoba Copyright © January 2012 by Jason Dyck Table of Contents: LIST OF COPYRIGHTEDMATERIAL.....................................................................................................................I ABSTRACT………………………………………...…………………………………..........................................…....................II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………..………………………………...……...................................................III DEDICATION............................................................................................................................................................IV ABREVIATIONS........................................................................................................................................................V INTRODUCTION……………………………………...………………………..............................….……...............................1 CHAPTER ONE: Green Revolutionaries: Reductionist Science, Rockefeller Philanthropy, and Indian Agricultural Development......................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER TWO: Vanguard of the Revolution: The Rockefeller Foundation in India.....................46 CHAPTER THREE: Counter Revolution: Anil Gupta and the Development of the Socio-Ecological Paradigm ................................................................................................................................................................86 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................................127 BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................................................................................................132 APPENDICIES.......................................................................................................................................................151 I List of Permission Obtained for Copyrighted Material Permission Obtained from Tom Rosenbaum of the Rockefeller Archives, Tarrytown New York for: Appendix 1 – Initial Germplasm Data Sheet: “Data Sheet, ICAR Millet-Maize Collection Scheme, Pusa Institute-Botany Division, Delhi.” New Delhi Field Office, Box 74, Folder 485. Appendix 2 - Gilpatric Credit Attitudes Questionnaire: “Attitudes Questionnaire” New Delhi Field Office, Box 149, Folder 1087. Permission Obtained from Anil Gupta of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. Appendix 3 – BARI Questionnaire regarding risk management and women’s role: “BARI ORFD Questionnaire”, Joydepur: BARI, 1986. II Abstract Dominant narratives of the green revolution focus on the top-down dissemination of technology produced by global scientific networks into developing nations, but comparatively little scholarship has been produced regarding the forms of local knowledge which were transferred during the same process. This thesis will examine several important sites of interaction between formal scientific networks and indigenous knowledge with a focus on moments of historical transition in methodology. A main contention of this thesis is that this dissemination was not just a top-down flow of Western technology into Indian villages, but was rather a dialectical process by which class interest and reductionist science moulded the interaction between disparate knowledge systems. The focus will be an exposition of changes in research methodologies pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation‟s Indian Agriculture Program, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, and the founder of an indigenous knowledge database NGO, Anil Gupta. III Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the inspiration and support of a number of people. Thanks first of all my adviser Henry Heller who helped me settle on the subject of agriculture in the first place. Your support and allowance for creative freedom has made this an enjoyable process. Tina Chen played an instrumental role throughout the research and writing processes, and I have been grateful for her sustained effort. I am perhaps especially thankful for her proposal writing advice, without which I may have never procured the funding which helped this project come to life. A lot of initial issues were navigated successfully with the help of Ian Kerr. Thanks to Ian for showing me how to get the most from a limited time in an archive, as well as for giving me the chance to savour research abroad. Mark Gabbert and David Churchill provided constant leads for me to follow and I am grateful for their contributions. I would like to thank Ed Moulton for taking the time to share his research, as well as Carol Adams, Sandra Furgeson, and Sylvie Winslow for gracefully enduring my perpetual interruptions. I would like also to express my appreciation of help and professionalism of Tom Rosenbaum, head archivist in the Rockefeller Tarrytown Archives. I am especially grateful for the opportunity granted to me by Anil Gupta, who unreservedly shared his wealth of heart and knowledge with me. You have brought me to a place where I can more effectively translate my knowledge into action while embracing uncertainty. My sincere regards go out to the staff of the Honey Bee Network. Thank you. Also, thanks to Vandana Shiva whose scholarship and outrage at the claims to ownership of life through patents planted the first seed of this project in my head and whose organization allowed me to take my interest into the villages and fields of India. I must express my deep gratitude to my Mom and Dad. Their unwavering support of my far flung adventures gave me the stability I needed to always return to solid ground once again. I love you both. Finally, my partner Rebecca must be congratulated for enduring my late nights and long stays abroad with optimism and joy. You have been a divine blessing and a constant inspiration. Thank you. IV Dedicated to my parents, Glenn and Karen Dyck V Abbreviations CIMMYT – International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center CGIAR – Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research FF –Ford Foundation FRS –Farm Systems Research GR- Green Revolution IADP -Intensive Agricultural District Program IAP – Indian Agriculture Program IARI – Indian Agricultural Research Institute ICRISAT –International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics IIM - Indian Institute of Management IK –Indigenous Knowledge NABARD –National Bank for Agricultural Rural Development PRA – Participatory Rural Appraisal RF- Rockefeller Foundation SAT- Semi Arid Tropics SDC - Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SFDA - Small Farmers Development Agency UPAU – Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University WB – World Bank 1 Introduction: In 1879, Allan Ocatvian Hume published the first concise account of 19th century Indian agriculture in a report entitled “Agricultural Reform in India”.1 Grounded in an “immemorial religion of agriculture”2 he marvels at the wealth of agrarian knowledge found in the subcontinent’s villages. While Hume cautioned against overrating peasant knowledge, he noted that as far as their “non- scientific agriculture is concerned, there is little to teach them, and certainly very few European farmers could, fettered by the same conditions as our ryots3, produce better, if as good crops.”4 Over a hundred years after his observations a sea change of agricultural production swept the world, propelled by new agro- technologies. In South America and Southeast Asia this phenomenon of rural transformation culminated in the late 1960’s in a period referred to as the Green Revolution. Environmental activist and renowned author, Vandana Shiva, claims that this period of change decimated the wealth of indigenous knowledge found in India’s countryside leaving ecological devastation and “ignorant farmers” in its wake.5 Shiva vehemently critiques the scientific and agricultural policies which ensured that “the most hard working and... intelligent farmers were reduced to being fed as if their minds were empty minds and their soil being treated as if it was an empty container for poisons.”6 Her own political activism in agriculture was motivated by the violent changes she saw taking place in the Indian countryside as a result of the Green Revolution. In addition to the Bhopal pesticide disaster and agrarian unrest in Punjab, which she cites as the specific events demanding her involvement, she remarks that India’s present levels of rural indebtedness and unprecedented farmer suicide rate remain as the legacy of this revolution.7 Between the comments of Hume and Shiva stretches a unique period of history which saw nations engage in the project of agricultural development. This thesis draws its evidence from a distinctive period in this development known as the Green Revolution (GR), roughly ranging from 1 Alan Octavian Hume. Agricultural Reform in India. (London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1879), p.10. 2 Ibid., p.10. 3 Hindu term for peasant 4 Ibid., p.9. 5 Interview with Vandana Shiva, March 23, 2011. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 2 the mid 1960’s until the mid 1980’s, in order

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