What's common to scientist C V Seshadri,
activist  Medha Patkar and economist J C
Kumarappa? Like Gandhi, they say: Let's tie
Mad Rush up!
Science, and Affection,
for People
 There came a time in
Chetput Venkatasubban Seshadri's life as a research associate in the US when he could no
longer ignore a little voice piping inside his brain. He was doing experiments to find out
a way of making sure that aircraft wings always remained de-iced. He began to feel that
the work he was doing would in no way help people in India. What had the poor to do with
de-iced aircraft wings? And, for that matter, what had modern Western science to do with
them?
CVS returned to India. He taught first at IIT, Chennai. In 1965 he shifted to IIT,
Kanpur. During the 1970s and 1980s, as ecological crisis set in, CVS argued that the main
culprit was the idea that human beings had the power to control nature. It was an idea
basic to Western science. This idea — and its application as technology — had to
be questioned if the crisis was to be solved. "All this would be nice if it would
benefit our people more than we have or improve the resource base of the country to make
it sustainable". Why did our policy-makers, for example, think it was better to
convert molasses into alcohol for industrial use rather than into yeast that has food
value for humans and animals? Why were farmers urged to sell sugarcane to centralised
sugar mills instead of converting it to jaggery (which had superior nutrition value)? Why
couldn't science be first and foremost for the poor?
He left teaching and in 1977 set up the AMM Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre. Here,
scientists worked on putting science at the service of poor. Scientists experimented with
a wide variety of devices, like a mini bio-gas plant which could solve the problems of
farmers who had only one cow. The Centre developed a technique of making paper out of silk
cotton (this way, one needn't fell trees to make paper). They tried to develop
bio-fertilisers and ways to treat heavy metals in factory effluents.
Fundung |
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It was tough. For years he tried to get what were called Fish Aggregating Devices (a
FAD is a large 3-dimensional triangle made of waste plastic and things like tyres
submerged just below the water surface. It acted like a mock-reef: loads of fish would
gather under it) installed in shallow waters along the coast. These would help poor
fisherfolk raise a healthy catch without them having to fish in the open sea. It would
also keep trawlers away from shallow waters. The idea was presented to the Central
government, in whose offices it still lies buried in files!
At the first Congress on Traditional Sciences and Technologies of India, held in IIT
Mumbai in 1993, CVS spoke to a packed hall about the many ways in which people in India
had used natural resources wisely and scientifically. For him, attending such a Congress
meant that, slowly but surely, his message was coming home. "We need to make a larger
effort to get the commonality of our mind from people. Compassion and love grow from use.
Where did we lose the love and affection for people?"
"Koi nahi hatega — bandh nahi
banega"
Since 1989, this slogan — not one will move; the dam will not be
made — has echoed across India at different locations along the river Narmada in
Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, and even in Mumbai and Delhi. It is the slogan of the Narmada
Bachao Andolan (NBA), the Save Narmada Movement, led by Medha Patkar.
Medha grew up in a socialist family. After her college, Medha worked in the Mumbai
slums. She first went to Narmada valley as a researcher to try and make sure that the
people affected by the Sardar Sarovar Project — a mega-dam to be built across the
river Narmada in Gujarat — would get what the government had promised them as
compensation.
But within two years, she and her colleagues were convinced that people were getting a
lousy deal, and that the dam was a social and economic nightmare. Then began the showdown.
 1990. The
place: Ferukwa, a small town on the Gujarat-Madhya Pradesh border. In the last week of
this year, thousands of people affected by the dam set off from Badwani, MP, on a march to
the dam site. They were stopped at Ferukwa. Armed police refused to let them cross into
Gujarat. The marchers squatted by the roadside and refused to move. Medha Patkar and 5
others began a fast to draw attention to their demands. On the other side of the border,
the Gujarat chief minister's wife led a dharna of those who supported the dam.
For three weeks, the two sides shouted slogans at each other. As the fast crossed the
three-week mark, people began to panic. Medha Patkar's kidneys were on the verge of
collapse, it was rumoured. The central government was deluged with calls to review the
Project. Government refused; so did Medha. The crisis deepened. Eventually, supporters of
the NBA got hold of a team of eminent citizens to hold a review. The fast was called off.
The month-long protest had failed in its effort to get an official review. But the world
woke up to the NBA struggle for social and ecological justice.
So began a movement that is often described as a satyagraha: an act ofnon-violent
disobedience with truth on its side.
Out of a suit, into khadi
One day in 1929, a man came to meet Gandhi at the Sabarmati Ashram. Could
he show Gandhi his P hD thesis? It contained a different idea of economics. Gandhi read
the thesis and was amazed. Here was a man who thought exactly like him. Humans were not
merely wealth-producing animals. They were members of society with political, social,
moral and spiritual responsibilities. Gandhi immediately asked this man to join him in his
efforts to develop a new way of thinking and doing economics.
 So Joseph Cornellius Kumarappa, who once was an accountant running his own firm
in Mumbai and had just returned from the US, changed his suit for khadi. In 1934, after
Gandhi moved to Wardha and set up the All India Village Industries Association (AIVIA), he
found in Kumarappa a willing worker. Here, in the 1940s, Kumarappa worked as AIVIA
secretary.
In a book called Economy of Permanence: A Quest for Social Order Based on
Non-violence, Kumarappa sets down his ideas on economics. In nature, creatures
co-exist in such a way that each fulfilled its necessary role. "In this way, nature
enlists the co-operation of all its units, each working for itself and in the process
helping other units to get along their own too. When this works out harmoniously and
violence does not break the chain, we have an economy of permanence." In an economy
of permanence, everybody helped each other out. In contrast, there was the economy of
transience, in which everyone tried to do well only for him/herself. An economy of
transience was violent; it chewed up nature. Kumarappa's favourite example for this was
the way pesticides and chemical fertilisers were used to produce crops in ever increasing
amounts. Sure, the crops got produced, but after a while the soil got spoilt: no more lush
green fields. An economy of permanence, on the other hand, did not destroy nature.
Kumarappa died in 1961. For a long time, everyone forgot him. But today, as we talk of
sustainable development, there are those who realise that it means exactly what Kumarappa
had called an economy of permanence. They ask: can we learn, for our own good, from
Kumarappa all over again? |
A
Down To Earth Supplement
Literally and superficially, it means
"of your own country". Gandhi used it in the sense of "that which is of the
villages of India". It means exploring local ways of living and thinking, trying to
understand local traditions.
Literally, it means the cotton cloth which
Gandhi campaigned to make popular throughout his life. But in his writings, Gandhi also
speaks of a ‘Khadi mentality’. Used in this way, Khadi means something that
involves many different kinds of people, anything done on a co-operative basis.
Literally, it means "spinning
wheel", which you use to spin cotton. It was the only machine Gandhi liked; everybody
could use it, it was inexpensive, and it did not turn the user into its slave. Thus,
charkha was also the symbol of technology that was people-oriented.
Literally, it means civil disobedience.
For Gandhi, it was a form of non-violent agitation.
Then there are the bad ones. PE and PP are two such goondas.
Like goondas, they are not completely stable — when heated, or under light or
mechanical pressure, they break down and release dangerous chemicals. When burnt, they
release carbon monoxide which is really bad for your health.