M. S. Swaminathan


Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan is an Indian geneticist and administrator, known for his role in India's Green Revolution, a program under which high-yield varieties of wheat and rice were planted. Swaminathan has been called the "Father of Green Revolution in India" for his role in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in India. He is the founder of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation. His stated vision is to rid the world of hunger and poverty. Swaminathan is an advocate of moving India to sustainable development, especially using environmentally sustainable agriculture, sustainable food security and the preservation of biodiversity, which he calls an "evergreen revolution."
From 1972 to 1979 he was director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He was Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture from 1979 to 1980. He served as Director General of the International Rice Research Institute and became president of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in 1988.
In 1999, he was one of 3 Indians on Time's list of the 20 most influential Asian people of the 20th century.

Early life and education

M. S. Swaminathan was born in Kumbakonam, Tamilnadu on 7 August 1925. He was the second son of surgeon Dr. M.K. Sambasivan and Parvati Thangammal Sambasivan. Swaminathan learned from his father, "that the word 'impossible' exists mainly in our minds and that given the requisite will and effort, great tasks can be accomplished." M.K. Sambasivam, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, took the lead in Kumbakonam in "burning his foreign clothes," a symbolic act in support of the Swadeshi movement: which emphasized the use of Indian rather than foreign-made clothes, and hand-loomed rather than mill-spun cloth. The political purpose of the swadeshi movement was to free India from dependence on imports and to protect the village industry. His father led in opening the temples to Dalits, part of the temple entry movement of the Indian independence movement in Tamil Nadu, and in eradicating filariasis in Kumbakonam, an area long infected with the dreaded disease. The sense of service to one's fellow man was thus ingrained in him early.
After his father's death when he was 11, young Swaminathan was looked after by his uncle, M. K. Narayanaswami, a radiologist. He attended the local high school and later the Catholic Little Flower High School in Kumbakonam, from which he matriculated at age 15. Coming from a family of doctors, he naturally took admission in a medical school. But, when he witnessed the Great Bengal famine of 1943, he decided to devote his life to getting rid of hunger from India. He was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi while he took this decision. He simply switched from the medical field to the agricultural field. He then went on to finish his undergraduate degree in Biology at Maharaja's College in Trivandrum, Kerala. He studied there from 1940–44 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology.
M.S. Swaminathan is married to Mina Swaminathan, whom he met in 1951 while they were both studying at Cambridge. They live in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Their three daughters are Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief scientist of World Health Organization, Dr. Madhura Swaminathan, who is a Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore and Nitya Swaminathan, a Senior Lecturer in Gender Analysis and Development at the University of East Anglia. Swaminathan and Mina have 5 grandchildren, Anandi, Shreya, Kalyani, Akshay, and Madhav.

Early career

Swaminathan then decided to pursue a career in agricultural sciences. He enrolled in Madras Agricultural College where he graduated as valedictorian with another Bachelor of Science degree, this time in Agricultural Science. He explained this career decision thus: "My motivation started with the great Bengal famine of 1943 when I was a student at the University of Kerala. There was an acute rice shortage, and in Bengal, about 3 million people died from starvation. All of our young people, myself included, were involved in the freedom struggle, which Gandhi had intensified, and I decided I should take to agricultural research to help farmers produce more."
In 1947, the year of Indian independence he moved to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi as a post-graduate student in genetics and plant breeding. He obtained a post-graduate degree with high distinction in Cytogenetics in 1949. He wrote the Union Public Service Commission exam and qualified for the Indian Police Service.
He chose to accept the UNESCO Fellowship to continue his IARI research on potato genetics at the Wageningen Agricultural University, Institute of Genetics in the Netherlands. Here he succeeded in standardizing procedures for transferring genes from a wide range of wild species of Solanum to the cultivated potato, Solanum tuberosum. In 1950, he moved to study at the Plant Breeding Institute of the University of Cambridge School of Agriculture. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1952, for his thesis, "Species Differentiation, and the Nature of Polyploidy in certain species of the genus Solanum – section Tuberarium." His work presented a new concept of the species relationships within the tuber-bearing Solanum. His Cambridge college, Fitzwilliam, made him an Honorary Fellow in 2014.
Swaminathan then accepted a post-doctoral research associateship at the University of Wisconsin, Department of Genetics to help set up a USDA potato research station. Despite his strong personal and professional satisfaction with the research work in Wisconsin, he declined the offer of a full-time faculty position, returning to India in early 1954.

Professional achievements

Swaminathan has worked worldwide in collaboration with colleagues and students on a wide range of problems in basic and applied plant breeding, agricultural research and development and the conservation of natural resources.
His professional career began in 1949:
Established the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.
On the occasion of the presentation of the First World Food Prize to Swaminathan in October 1987, Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote: "Dr. Swaminathan is a living legend. His contributions to Agricultural Science have made an indelible mark on food production in India and elsewhere in the developing world. By any standards, he will go into the annals of history as a world scientist of rare distinction."
Swaminathan has been described by the United Nations Environment Programme as "the Father of Economic Ecology."
He was one of three from India included in Time magazine's 1999 list of the "20 most influential Asian people of the 20th century," the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.
Swaminathan was the featured speaker at the 2006 Norman E. Borlaug International Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa on, 19 October 2006. He was sponsored by Humanities Iowa, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Swaminathan presented the "Third Annual Governor's Lecture" and spoke on "THE GREEN REVOLUTION REDUX: Can we replicate the single greatest period of food production in all human history?" about the cultural and social foundations of the Green Revolution in India and the role of historic leaders in India, such as Mahatma Gandhi, in inspiring the Green Revolution there by calling for the alleviation of widespread hunger. He talked about the links between Gandhi and the great Iowa scientist George Washington Carver.
Swaminathan is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Italian Academy of Sciences.

Publications

Dr Swaminathan is a prolific scientific researcher and writer. He published 46 single-author papers between 1950 and 1980. Out of 118 two author papers, he was first author of 80. Out of 63 three-author papers he was first author of 15. Out of 21 four-author papers he was first author of 9. In total he had 254 papers to his credit, 155 of which he was the single or first author. His scientific papers are in the fields of crop improvement, cytogenetics and genetics and phylogenetics. His most frequent publishers were Indian Journal of Genetics, Current Science, Nature and Radiation Botany. Some of the papers are listed below.
In addition he has written a few books on the general theme of his life's work, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture for alleviation of hunger.
Swaminathan's books include
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"Sustainable Agriculture: Towards Food Security"
  • Farmers’ Rights and Plant Genetic Resources: A dialogue.
  • Wheat Revolution: a Dialogue
Research reports'
He has published laboratory research results in several scientific journals and increasingly writes for a wider audience in environmental journals. Some of his publications are available online in abstract or full text.
A scientific paper in which Swaminathan and his team claimed to have produced a mutant breed of wheat by gamma irradiation of a Mexican variety resulting in Sharbati Sonora'' claimed to have a very high lysine content led to a major controversy. The case was discussed as a classic example of scientific misdemeanor and was claimed to be an error made by the laboratory assistant. The episode was also compounded by the suicide of an agricultural scientist. Recent workers have studied it as part of a systemic problem in Indian agriculture research.

Honours, awards and international recognition

Swaminathan has received several outstanding awards and prizes. These prizes include large sums of money, which has helped sustain and expand his work.
protection and management of the environment. Co – winner with Paul and Anne Ehrlich 1994, $200,000 prize.
  • The Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement "in recognition of life-long contributions to increasing biological productivity on an ecologically sustainable basis, and to promoting the conservation of biological diversity" 1991
  • Honda Prize, for achieving outstanding results in the field of ecotechnology, 1991
  • Padma Vibhushan 1989
  • World Food Prize for advancing human development through increased quantity, quality or accessibility of food, 1987
  • Golden Heart Presidential Award of the Philippines, conferred by president Corazon Aquino 1987
  • Albert Einstein World Award of Science as a recognition for his contributions to plant genetics and his influence on international agricultural development. 1986
  • Borlaug Award, given by Coromandel Fertilizers in profound appreciation of his catalytic role in providing deep insights and inspiring fellow scientists to set goals... for evolving a strategy for agriculture rooted in science, but tempered by a concern for ecology and human values 1979
  • Padma Bhushan 1972
  • Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership 1971
  • Padma Shri 1967
  • Foreign Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences
He holds more than 50 honorary Doctorate degrees from universities around the world.
National Awards

He has been honoured with several awards in India for his work to benefit the country.
International Awards

He has been honoured with recognition from several international organisations for spreading the benefits of his work to other countries.
Fellowships
from millions of his fellow human beings on this Earth. For that, we can all be thankful".