Norman Borlaug - 100s of millions of saved lives ...

[jayakris]

I was so so glad that our Prime Minsiter chose to highlight the name of an American whom many have probably not heard of. He happens to be, in my mind one of the greatest Americans of this century - Mr. Singh said in his speech to the US congress -

It was an American, Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, who developed high yielding varieties of wheat in Mexico which were then adapted to Indian conditions in the Agricultural Universities you helped establish ... This was the start of the Green Revolution in India that lifted countless millions above poverty.

It is one of the greatest injustices done in India that Indians do not have a clue about which person and which country was behind saving 10s of millions from famine and death in India in the late 60s. Yes, our agriculture minister C.Subramaniam and our PM Lal Bahdur Shastri had a huge role to play in making the quick decision to get Norman Borlaug's research on high-yield dry-area wheats in Mexico and start the green revolution with a bunch of plane loads of wheat seeds from the US for Punjab (which Indira Gandhi claimed was all because of Nehru's dams and canals, which was utter BS) .... But Prof.Borlaug's tireless work on high-yield grains is what saved millions from famine in India (he even moved with his family to India in late 60s because he was dedicated to the cause of saving lives).

There were those who thought India could not feed even 400 million people, but now, we have a food surplus even with a billion. In 3 years in the late 60s, we increased our food production to about 2.5 time or something (with Indira Gandhi taking all credit for it). And Dr.Borlaug was himself in India then, if I am not mistaken.

Yes, he is an aggie (a Professor at the Texas A&M university -- one of the very few out there that I respect, as a longhorn ), but he should be known much more, both in the US and India.

Dr.Borlaug, some say, saved a Billion lives this century with his work in India, Pakistan, China and Africa. He was a tireless worker and he personally went to all these places to oversee the application of his research.

It is also true that at around the same time in the late 60s, the USA was sending one ship loaded with food every 10 minutes from the port of San Francisco to India to save India from a famine. Another chapter of history that Indians forgot (or hardly even ever knew).

Those who hold the view of USA as a country that never helps anybody, should take a look at what the country did to save India from the biggest catastrophe in human history, which many predicted was just 5 years away in 1965. There are some funny stories of US legislators having trouble pronouncing the name of the Indian aghricultural minister ("Sub-Raman-Iam") who was in direct communication with many in the US -- the congress argued adnauseum about why US was helping India, but they were unable to vote against supporting food and agricultural research help to India, partly driven by humanitarian thoughts and partly because of pressure from the US farmers lobby. In the end the US spent a lot of money on that program (PL-80?) helping India.

Jay

PS: By the way, had Lal Bahadur Shastri lived longer, we would have liberalized our economy a whole 15-20 years earlier by early 70s, much before Nixon went to China - and we would not be in the hole that Indira placed us in 15-20 years. Times of India later published an article that they were ready to print with the "inside scoop" on the blueprint for economic liberalization that LBS was about to release, which apparently never made it to press as LBS was killed in a Tashkent air accident... A very curious story.

[PKBasu]

I fully agree with your praise for Norman Borlaug, but disagree with your interpretation of Shastri's hidden genius. While a romantic case can be made for the small-town man making it big, Shastri unfortunately was completely out of his depth as Prime Minister, and concentrated enormous power in the Prime Minister's Office (which he created, thereby beginning the subversion of cabinet government that Indira Gandhi took to extremes with the Emergency). Shastri's PMO of course was run by LK Jha, who was the power behind the throne. I still find it mind-boggling that our second PM was a man who had never stepped outside the country and had never held any ministry of much more importance than Railways before becoming PM (he had never held any of the key cabinet posts of finance, foreign affairs or defence).
The blueprint for economic liberalisation was Jha's creation, and one that was actually largely implemented in the early years of Indira Gandhi's first administration (1966-69, including the big loss of states and Lok Sabha seats in the 1967 election). She began with a huge devaluation of the rupee and an aggressive program of export-promotion after 1967 under Finance Minister Morarji Desai (who had, in 1958, been responsible for India's first FDI-promoting initiatives in his first stint as FM in the wake of independent India's first balance of payments crisis). Subramaniam implemented the Green Revolution policies (which actually meant an overthrow of Nehru's land-reform based agricultural policy) mainly under Indira Gandhi, who actively overturned her dad's approach (of attempting balanced agricultural development across the country through land-reform and idealistic agricultural extension officers) and instead focused on getting the HYV seeds, credit and irrigation to the most productive districts in the country (which, in practice, meant Punjab, Haryana, western UP -- those parts of the country that were not devastated by more than 100 years of British rule).
It was only after 1969 that Indira Gandhi turned totally Luddite in her economic policies -- nationalising banks, introducing FERA (1973) and the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (MRTP) Act. That was the paraphernalia of stagnation that Indira saddled the country with between 1970 and 1980. Fortunately, Desai's finance minister HM Patel reintroduced more orthodox policies, and Mrs. Gandhi took an IMF loan (US$5bn) in 1981 which put India back onto the reform path. But the 1969-77 period introduced such severe distortions into our polity and economy that we are still attempting to shake off all of the baggage.

[BSharma]

Thanks Jay for your editorial comments also.

which apparently never made it to press as LBS was killed in a Tashkent air accident... A very curious story.

A miss-print or an inside scoop? Curious to know the full story.

[PKBasu]

Yes, please fill us in on that. The official line of course was that Lal Bahadur Shastri had a heart attack the night after he had signed away all the gains from the 1965 war to Ayub Khan (although nobody said there was any line of causation there...). As far as I know, the trip to Tashkent was Shastri's first trip outside India (I know for a fact that he had never left India before becoming PM).
The PL-480 program was indeed a great act of liberalism on the US' part. But LBJ was even more a Texas redneck than Dubya, and he treated Indira and the rest of her delegation with such condescension (probably without meaning to) that she became determined to never be dependent on the US again. Self-sufficiency in food was Indira's only real economic achievement (undone by the ills of bank nationalisation, FERA, MRTP, ULCA, etc. -- and the banning of corporate donations to political parties -- which created the black economy and the breakdown of ethical norms that is India's bane today).
Incidentally if you go to the University of Pennsylvania or Univ of Chicago Library today, you'll find almost every book published in India (including "exam notes" booklets for the IAS or Univ exams) between 1970 and 1995 (as far as I know from direct experience) and possibly until today. This is one of the ways in which the the US embassy uses the rupees that it accumulated in the 1960s (in payment by India for the PL-480 foodgrain shipments).

[PKBasu]

Did anyone watch/hear PM Singh's speech to the US Congress today (I didn't, as I was at a scintillating concert given by the Indian naval symphony orchestra here in Singapore). I'd also be interested to know if real Senators and Congressmen were in the audience (apart from Hilary Clinton and Bill Frist, who were there).

The PM's speech was typically workmanlike and touched all the important issues in a professorial manner. But he is an incredibly poor speaker, and you can see immediately why he will never win an election (and why Dubya or Bubba will rarely lose one). His delivery is lifeless, there is no soaring rhetoric or humour in any of his speeches. I was hoping that his speech-writers would inject a bit of humour into his speech, but it singularly lacked any spark whatsoever.

[arjun2761]

That's not a surprise. Almost all the Indian speakers that I have heard in the US (including a plethora of industry honchos, political leaders, and entertainment figures) in the US are very poor speakers (and only semi-presentable) and are almost always outshone by their US counterparts or even moderators. The only Indian speaker (among the ones I've heard) that spoke with passion (although with limited eloquence) was Mukesh Ambani at an Asia Society dinner in DC last year where I thought he held his own against Sen. Clinton who was the other featured speaker.

[BSharma]

Many Indian politicians give very passionate speeches in their regional languages in front of their local audiences. Put them in front of the US audience and ask them to speak in English, and they feel uneasy and out of their elements.

Many older Indian businessmen or CEOs do not give speeches in front of large audiences and are not comfortable doing so. The younger people like Mukesh Ambani, PKB, etc can hold their own against the best of the US/UK/Canada/other country based speakers. Good practice makes perfect.

[jayakris]

Thanks Jay for your editorial comments also.

which apparently never made it to press as LBS was killed in a Tashkent air accident... A very curious story.

A miss-print or an inside scoop? Curious to know the full story.

No scoop .. I have no idea why I said air accident - very strange that I would type that absent-mindedly.. Air accident?? ... It was heart attack, officially .. Actually he was "found dead" .. There were suspicions of poisoning etc, but I don't think there was any big investigation or anything. I do remember reading somewhere about the official doctor with the Indian delegation (who pronounced him dead due to heart attack) himself disappearing or being murdered soon after? [have any of you heard that - or am I dreaming up something?]

Jay

[jayakris]

Here is a Kuldip Nayar article in the rediff that talks about what happened in Tashkent. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/jul/14spec.htm
He was there with PTI and was close to Shastri. Didn't know that Kosygin was in the room before everybody else!

Jay

[BSharma]

Didn't know that Kosygin was in the room before everybody else!

Kosygin's presence in PM Shastri's room was widely published in the Indian press when this unfortunate event occurred, and perhaps was one of the basis of the conspiracy theory.

Shastriji was under tremendous pressure not to give up some territory gained by India, and I wonder what his mental state was after giving up those pieces of land during the negotiations. It is quite likely that his death was due to "heart attack" or some other illness but in the absence of an autopsy, several theories for the cause of death will persist.

[nkoth]

Wow, interesting posts here -- your collective knowledge and insight into India's recent past is astounding. I feel like a history student reading your posts! Keep it coming!

I did watch Singh's speech to the Congress yesterday -- as you have all stated, his delivery was lifeless, and the speech was incredibly dry and devoid of humor. That aside, though, he did manage to convey the points he wanted to on issues of nuclear power, etc. And by starting with the issue of terrorism, he quickly showed how Indian and US strategic goals are not that different in the world today. Overall, though, the speech badly needed some editing, and Singh badly needs public speaking tips....

-neil

[jayakris]

I fully agree with your praise for Norman Borlaug, but disagree with your interpretation of Shastri's hidden genius. While a romantic case can be made for the small-town man making it big, Shastri unfortunately was completely out of his depth as Prime Minister, and concentrated enormous power in the Prime Minister's Office (which he created, thereby beginning the subversion of cabinet government that Indira Gandhi took to extremes with the Emergency). Shastri's PMO of course was run by LK Jha, who was the power behind the throne.

In fact, I had always believed that Shastri himself was not the one behind the reform ideas that came about. The fact that he was not a British educated Fabian socialist, was why I thought some reasonable people (perhaps LK Jha whom you mention, if he was one such) could prevail upon him and make him move away from the disaster that Nehru had put in place.

The blueprint for economic liberalisation was Jha's creation, and one that was actually largely implemented in the early years of Indira Gandhi's first administration (1966-69, including the big loss of states and Lok Sabha seats in the 1967 election). She began with a huge devaluation of the rupee and an aggressive program of export-promotion after 1967 under Finance Minister Morarji Desai

This I was not aware of. I would defer to your opinion as an economist on this. The results were nowhere to be seen under Indira Gandhi though ... I had always thought that for various reasons, but mainly due to her own paranoia, she was reluctant to open up or liberalize anything. Perhaps she was less paranoid initially.

Subramaniam implemented the Green Revolution policies (which actually meant an overthrow of Nehru's land-reform based agricultural policy) mainly under Indira Gandhi, who actively overturned her dad's approach (of attempting balanced agricultural development across the country through land-reform and idealistic agricultural extension officers)

I had not looked at it that way. What you say makes sense, though I wonder if she ever actively decided to go back on land-reforms but was forced to, as Subramaniam had convinced her of the dire looming food-shortage problem which needed immediate attention.

It was only after 1969 that Indira Gandhi turned totally Luddite in her economic policies -- nationalising banks, introducing FERA (1973) and the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (MRTP) Act. That was the paraphernalia of stagnation that Indira saddled the country with between 1970 and 1980.

Again, you probably have the correrct view on this. I have always looked at Indira Gandhi as one who was paranoid to the core, and perhaps the Jan Sangh split, etc, was what caused her to turn to be more so, post 1970.

But the 1969-77 period introduced such severe distortions into our polity and economy that we are still attempting to shake off all of the baggage.

Isn't it possibly 1969-1984 actually? .. I do not remember the second coming of IG as a period that started the liberalization. I take it that you consider the big IMF loan in 1981 as the start of the changes. Rajeev Gandhi did set some things in motion, but like you say it took a very long time to shake off the baggage form the 70s. It is almost unbelievable that 10-12 years of bad decisions could cause so much damage for so long .. Then again, the baggage that was left before 1964 by Nehru had still not been taken care of, and the re-emergence of economic control in the 70s just made it much much worse - in effect killing the national spirit to such an extent that it has taken 25 years and we are still feeling the effects.

It has been my view that, productivity-wise, we lost a whole generation or two of Indians, due to Nehru and Indira Gandhi, even if I agree with you that there were periods when IG did some right things.

Thanks for your comments PKB. I knew you would respond and I would learn a thing or two from that ...

Jay

[jayakris]

The PL-480 program was indeed a great act of liberalism on the US' part. But LBJ was even more a Texas redneck than Dubya, and he treated Indira and the rest of her delegation with such condescension (probably without meaning to) that she became determined to never be dependent on the US again. Self-sufficiency in food was Indira's only real economic achievement (undone by the ills of bank nationalisation, FERA, MRTP, ULCA, etc. -- and the banning of corporate donations to political parties -- which created the black economy and the breakdown of ethical norms that is India's bane today).

Isn't it also true that LBJ's condescension towards India goes back to how Nehru had looked towards the US? .. As the "uncultured place" of some war-mongers without a history unlike the European cultures/history he respected more. On the other hand, one can also argue that he had no disdain towards the US but was just frustrated at his inability to convey what India was to the US. The lack of understanding of India's religious pluralism by several Americans in the 50s caused them to gravitate towards a more "monolithic" Pakistan and Nehru had trouble getting through to the US leaders, but the cold relations made many in the US including LBJ look suspiciously if not condescendingly towards India. After all, Nehru talked of the moral equivalency between the US and the USSR and that just did not sit well in the US (in retrospect, we probably can understand why US would feel that upset about Nehru's view, but at that time Indians did not understand it). Anyway, it was going to be a tough visit for Indira Gandhi, and the USA's tendency to do the right thing but not in the right way and not talking the right things, was well in display then too. The PL-480 was a great act of help from the USA, but they got nothing out of it, the way the Americans behaved - and Indira went even more to the Soviet side. It is all a sad part of our history.

Jay

[PKBasu]

Much of what you say about Nehru is true. He actually had a decent working relationship with Truman, although no real warmth. (The Missouri man probably found him too pompous or stuck-up; but if Truman could put up with the obnoxious Churchill, Nehru should have been a piece of cake by comparison). Had FDR lived a bit longer, India-US relations would surely have got off to a much better start.
I don't think we realise today that independence, when it arrived, wasn't really "Sampoorna Swaraj"; the British were still a major power, and their business interests in India stayed largely intact for the first decade or so. Had FDR lived, he would have aggressively moved to shift India from the British to the US sphere of influence -- but done it with a panache that Truman couldn't quite muster. Nonetheless, Nehru's 1949 trip to Truman's US was pretty positive.
The Dulles brothers -- and their uncompromising "you are either with us or you're against us" attitude -- caused US-India ties to sour in the mid-1950s (John Foster Dulles was Ike's Secretary of State, brother Allen was CIA chief). Soon after Ayub Khan's coup of 1958, Pakistan signed up to join CENTO (US, Britain, Iraq, Iran, Pak) and later SEATO (along with the SE Asian allies).
When Nehru visited JFK early in his term (1961), however, the visit was a complete disaster. Nehru looked upon himself as an elder statesman, and JFK found his sermonising sanctimonious. Still, the US agreed to an immediate shipment of fighter planes for India when China attacked in 1962 (this was a few weeks before the Cuban missile crisis, and China-India was seen by the world's media as a confrontation between the free world and communism). But a longer-term defense relationship failed to evolve because Nehru asked for co-production rights (like those made available to NATO allies like Turkey) but Kennedy would only agree to that if India would sign up to be an ally. I guess we are finally edging closer to getting there 43 years later, although the CPI(M) and the Left are doing their damnedest to nip the emerging relationship in the bud.

The interesting thing about Indira was that she wasn't an ideologue at all to start with. In fact, she was totally pragmatic -- as her appointment of the right-wing Morarji as DPM and Finance minister showed. Inder Malhotra's biography of Indira (which is quite insightful because he was a close friend of Feroze Gandhi's) points out how Indira was in Japan in 1969 when she got wind of a secret meeting between Morarji (and members of the Congress syndicate of Kamaraj, Atulya Ghosh, SK Patil and Nijalingappa) with the Jana Sangh. She came back convinced that the Syndicate's nomination of LS speaker Sanjeeva Reddy (rather than the trade unionist Vice President VV Giri) for President was really a ploy to get rid of her, and she began manoeuvring with the left (Communists, and the two Socialist parties, plus the "young turks" within Congress like Chandrasekhar, SS Ray, and ex-Communist Mohan Kumaramangalam). She called for Congressmen to vote with their "conscience" (rather than in favour of the Congress candidate Reddy), Giri won and the rest (sadly) is history.
Indira adopted the strongly left-wing policies she had explicitly eschewed in 1966-69 (despite the strong urging of many of her confidants). She called for the nationalisation of banks and abolition of the privy purses. Both were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1970 by a 7-6 vote (saying that they both contravened the Right to Property, which was a Fundamental Right in our constitution). When a vacancy for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court next came up, Indira "superseded" 3 judges (Grover, Hegde and Khanna) who had voted against her, and appointed AN Sen instead (the seniormost judge who had voted in her favour). And she took the issue to the people -- with the slogan of Garibi Hatao -- and won an overwhelming victory in 1971.
Although she didn't need the communists after 1971, she began to edge closer to the Soviets only around 1970. Of course, this was precisely when Nixon was beginning to cozy up to China -- with Kissinger flying to his secret rendezvous with Mao via Pakistan. Soon after, the US shifted its support to the PRC in the UN (giving it the Security Council seat that Taiwan's KMT had held since 1945, and which Nehru had turned down in the 1950s -- for the sake of the ungrateful PRC!). But even in the runup to the December 1971 war (which the late Gen. Aurora pointed out was inevitable by May, when Indian troops began going into every E Pakistani village disguised in lungies and pretending to be the Mukti Bahini...), Indira wooed the "liberals" in the western world -- the height of her success being the extraordinary concert for Bangladesh (starring Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, etc.) that thoroughly subverted Nixon's tilt to Pakistan and China. In the end, the estrangement of 1971 was equally the fault of Indira and Nixon, probably more the latter's.
(I'll address the economic issues in more detail in a day or two...!).