Ecology and Environmentalism
Ecology is the science which studies the relationships between organisms, their environments and humans. Concepts of ecology had been building throughout the 19th Century, but it was not until they combined with Darwinian natural selection throughout the 20th Century that the theories became a robust field of Western science. As with humanism, the gradual European movement away from a strict religious doctrine enabled scientists to challenge the notion of a divine right of humans to use the natural world as economic resources.
In 1955, the Wenner-Gren Foundation organised the landmark conference “Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth” in Chicago. This conference brought together geologists, botanists, geographers, historians and anthropologists to discuss various pressing issues of humanity’s impact on ecology and the environment. While being represented by experts from across America and Europe, the only Asian speaker was Janaki Ammal. She was also the only woman.
Janaki Ammal’s paper was titled “Introduction to the Subsistence Economy of India”, and explored the relationship between the geographical distribution of Indian plants and the agricultural practices of tribes situated in those regions. This built upon the subject which would shape the remainder of her career: ethnobotany, the study of the correlation between botany and culture.
After independence, Nehru launched the “Grow More Food Campaign”, in an effort to secure India’s agricultural self-sufficiency from external nations, while still recovering from the devastation of the Bengal famine of 1943. There was a race to cultivate India to grow food crop, which resulted in heightened deforestation of important forest land. Janaki Ammal wrote to Darlington in 1950,
“In the name of “Grow More Food” campaign – they are destroying valuable forests in Assam – I went 37 miles from Shillong in search of the only tree of Magnolia griffithii in that part of Assam and found it had been burnt down – It is terrible to see so much done in India without any scientific principle behind it. I find myself losing my temper with ministries and food commissioners – the Govt. of India wants me to stay on – very handsome salary is being offered – that does not tempt me – I hate to be a public figure and I do not like congress men – Nehru is the only exception.”
From the 1950s onwards, the world was going through an agricultural revolution, brought about by the new technological advances, such as mechanised cultivation, chemical fertilisers and high-yielding varieties of crops, as had been spearheaded two decades earlier at institutions like the Sugarcane Breeding Station in Coimbatore under T.S. Venkataraman. Norman Borlaug, the “Father of the Green Revolution”, made efforts to popularise these new sciences throughout Mexico, setting up research stations and running a campaign of education for Mexican farmers. Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan, a plant geneticist was early to acknowledge the effects of Borlaug’s practices, in particular the high yields of Mexican dwarf wheat. Swaminathan had witnessed the Bengal Famine in 1943, and had devoted his career to minimising the possibilities of famine in India in the future. He invited Borlaug to tour India, and Borlaug sent Mexican dwarf wheat seeds for use in Indian agriculture.
In 1976, a new hydroelectric project began over the Kunthipuza River in Kerala, which would result in the flooding vast areas of forest land. In response to this, protests broke out among the local people of the region, further championed by environmentalists across India, beginning the “Save Silent Valley” campaign. The protests drew global attention to the environmental threat, on a scale not previously seen and became a collaborative platform for environmentalism, drawing together scientists from all fields together with activists. Janaki Ammal contributed to the protest and wrote papers highlighting the unique and diverse botany of the region. The activist poet Sugathakumari wrote the poem “Ode to a Tree” as an anthem for the protest. M.S. Swaminathan, who was now working for the Department of Agriculture, proposed that the region be converted into a nature reserve. In 1982, an interdisciplinary committee, which included physicist M.G.K. Menon and ecologist Madhav Gadgil, was called together to submit a report on the likely damage this project would bring. Finally, in 1983, after reading the report, the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi cancelled the project. The following year, the Silent Valley was declared a national park.
