Sustainability and social creativity should get much more attention—conversation with Prof Jagmohan Singh

by Bharat Dogra and Madhu Dogra

Prof. Jagmohan Singh is Chairman, Shahid Bhagat Singh Centenary Foundation. He has been involved with several initiatives of human rights, social change and educational reform. As a nephew of Shahid Bhagat Singh, he has devoted his life to spreading the ideas and vision of the great revolutionary freedom fighter. Here we present excerpts from a wide-ranging conversation with Prof. Jagmohan Singh at his residence in Ludhiana on July 17, 2024.

Farmers’ movement has drawn particular attention in the context of Punjab in recent times. How do you see this movement?

The movement for checking increasing corporate control over farming and food sector was entirely justified. Even after the repeal of the four controversial farm laws, the trend towards increasing corporate control of agriculture including control of multinational companies has not stopped. They have been trying to introduce several GM crops from time to time. Cotton crop has become dominated by GM varieties. The farmers’ movement should oppose this more firmly as such trends are very harmful for environment and health. Sustainability aspects should get much more attention. Of course fair price is also very important, but alongside you must raise sustainability issues and only then the demand becomes truly relevant in the context of true, sustainable improvement of farming and food sector.

How do you see the growing concern over increasing costs and debts of farmers?

It is very important to reduce ever escalating costs of farmers, and for this it is important also to reduce their ever-increasing dependence on costly inputs, including chemical fertilizers and pesticides and the kind of machinery which imposes too heavy a cost on small farmers. In addition chemical pesticides and herbicides also involve serious health hazards and environment ruin including harm to soil. Any harm to soil is very costly in terms of sustainability, loss of nutrition and loss of water or moisture retention capacity. Changes in crop rotations are being discussed but the key question of water is not getting the due attention in these proposed changes. There should be caution to ensure that the change is not from one kind of problem to another kind of problem. Solutions certainly exist to reduce costs—for example in the form of cooperatives that make available more appropriate smaller implements to farmers instead of everyone being pushed into buying bigger and more expensive machinery, pushing farmers into debts. Indebtedness is a huge problem for farmers. In fact Shahid Bhagat Singh  was arguing at a very young age for farmers’ freedom from debts.

Is natural farming also an important part of the solutions?

Yes, it certainly is, and I am happy to tell you that now even in the most leading green revolution state of Punjab several farmers are trying solutions based on natural farming and several farmers of Haryana too are making these efforts.

Was adequate caution exercised before introducing the green revolution technology?

Unfortunately such caution was not observed. In fact there are research reports which suggest that the failure of this technology had already become evident in Mexico but still it was pushed towards India.

How do you see the prospects of India’s agriculture now?

I think that India has to be very, very cautious that powerful forces are not allowed to succeed in pushing India towards wrong paths that can lead to increasing dependence of India on imports of critical food items including pulses and cereals.

Most of the discussion on Punjab farming are in the context of farmers. What about the condition of landless farm workers and dalits?

They certainly need more justice and more attention. One recent movement was for the distribution of limited land assigned legally to them. As new controversies were starting at some places one suggestion I made was for growing fodder crop together and then sharing this. This has led to better use of the limited land available at some places in a way that also strengthens the unity of the community.

Any other recent promising initiatives that you will like to mention?

Yes, some recent efforts by people to strengthen the gram sabha ad genuine rural decentralization have raised a lot of hopes of improved utilization of resources and the entire community contributing to creating a better village.

Coming now to social aspects, various addictions, drugs, liquor etc. have emerged as a leading problem.

Yes, but some aspects of this growing social problem have not received the due attention. There are scientific reasons to support the view that a significant decline in micro-nutrients, in turn related to soil health depletion, may lead to a craving for some intoxicants. The hard working laborer who does not get the much-needed nutrition at the end of the day’s toil also has an increased urge for seeking relief in liquor or other intoxicants. Certainly the solution is not to condemn the addict but to help him, provide suitable conditions to help him out of the addiction. Solutions have to be found not just at the individual level but also at the social level. When various addictions

increased a lot in Iceland, there they found a solution by launching several initiatives of social creativity whether in sports, arts or other areas, and this had very good results. This confirms that problems like addiction are likely to grow most in conditions of social vacuum. Unfortunately, not only are many such well-planned social creativity initiatives missing in India but in addition our education sector has not been able to advance such initiatives, while at the same time education has become more stressful for students and narrowly commercialized as well, draining away its creativity potential.

One never hears enough about women in the context of these various social and economic problems.

Women ultimately have to bear the most burden of the economic crisis as they have to somehow manage the households. They also bear the worst burden of addictions in the context of further worsening of economic problems as well as growing domestic discord and violence suffered by them. Hence increasing educational opportunities for women and looking at their welfare in various other contexts is very important.

Lastly, we cannot end this conversation without come comments from you regarding the history of the freedom movement which you have been studying so creatively that you repeatedly make important points which others appear to have missed.

Well, it is the year 2024 now and while reading about the situation in our country about 100 years back I was thinking about various important initiatives taking place in or around 1924. After the sudden withdrawal of the non-cooperation movement there was disappointment and a vacuum and the colonial rulers used the opportunity to give more room to the sectarian elements leading to incidents of sectarian violence. However several great revolutionaries and social reformers came forward to respond with great initiatives which brought hope. We saw Bhagat Singh and his young comrades establishing the Bharat Naujavan Sabha, Baba Ambedkar taking forward the movement for the education of depressed classes, Ramaswamy Naicker taking forward the self-respect movement and Narayan Guru’s important initiative. So efforts like these can still bring hope.

Bharat Dogra and Madhu Dogra work together on issues of social reform and freedom movement.