Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (MS Swaminathan) is considered as the ‘Father of Green Revolution’ in India because of his significant contribution to the development of agriculture in India. He is a plant geneticist and focused on high-yielding variety of wheat when there was acute shortage of food grains in the country. MS Swaminathan is a brilliant scientist, administrator, social worker, philosopher, and has been awarded many national and international awards including Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, The Albert Einstein World Award and World Food Prize. In 2012 he received Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration. Let’s take a look on this great scientist’s career.
Childhood and education
MS Swaminathan was born on 7 August 1925 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. He was the second son of MK Sambasivan and Parvathi Thangammal. He did his early schooling a Native High School and later at Little Flower High school in Kumbakonam.
Transition from zoology to agriculture: When he was young, his father Dr. MK Sambasivan, a famous doctor and a follower of Gandhi passed away. His mother and his relatives felt that he should pursue medicine to run his father’s hospital. While doing Bachelor’s degree in Zoology (Maharajas College), he developed a liking for genetics.
The Great Bengali Famine (1942-1943) resulted in death of more than three million people from starvation and malnutrition in Bengal. The famine deeply moved Swaminathan.
He had an opinion that India’s agriculture yield was low when compared with the other countries. Then he thought of doing something good to improve agricultural productivity in the country.
Motivated to end hunger in his homeland: He felt the best way to serve his country is to study plant genetics to develop new varieties of crops and breeds. He joined Coimbatore Agricultural College to gain rooting in agriculture. His family did not like this decision.
After getting a second bachelor’s degree in agricultural science, he moved to Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) to do post graduate degree in cytogenetics. During his post-graduation at IARI, one of his family well-wishers made him write Civil Service Examination saying that there was no good future for agricultural research. Only one month was left for him to prepare for the exam, but he cleared the examination.
Two choices to choose from: One, he got an offer to join Indian Police Service to join for training in Mount Abu and the other is he got a fellowship in United Nations Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), the Netherlands. But he was clear that he wanted choose agriculture to produce enough grain to feed the people of his country.
From Netherlands, he went to School of Agriculture at Cambridge University where he earned PhD in two years. At that time, he got an opportunity to work as a Research Associate in genetics for University of Wisconsin to set up a potato research department. They were impressed with his work and offered a regular position of professorship. But he declined the offer to serve his nation and returned to India.
Return to India: He joined a temporary position at Central Rice Research Institute where he did research on rice. Then he went to IARI Institute and started working on wheat. He cross-bred wheat of Japan and Mexico. Later, in order to make them suitable to Indian climate, he developed the Indifoi variety, and produced a high-yielding wheat variety. As a result, India could produce 131 million tons of food grains in 1978-79. It established India as one of the largest agricultural producers in the world. This is what is popularly known as Green Revolution.
Learning from Dr. MS Swaminathan’s career
- MS Swaminathan learnt from his father – the word impossible does not exist in the minds of people who are determined to decided to work for their goals. Great things can be achieved with will and effort. This philosophy guided him to all his career. Thus, he made the Green Revolution successful, and transformed India from a food grain-deficient nation to one with enough food to feed all people.
- MS Swaminathan got many opportunities in his life such as IPS, professorship in Wisconsin University and so on. But his goal was to improve the agricultural productivity in India to prevent famines from occurring. He achieved it.
Lesson from MS Swaminathan’s career to today’s youth is that with ceaseless passion, determination and commitment, they can archive the goal in their career.