On Thursday, the world bid farewell to a true legend in the field of agriculture and science as Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan, affectionately known as M.S. Swaminathan, passed away at the age of 98 in Chennai. His remarkable journey from the fields of Tamil Nadu to becoming the father of India’s ‘Green Revolution’ has left an indelible mark on the nation’s history.
Source: YourStory.com
Here are some remarkable insights into M S Swaminathan
M.S. Swaminathan’s journey towards agricultural excellence wasn’t his initial choice, as his parents wanted him to study medicine. However, during the Bengal famine of 1943, he was deeply moved by the food scarcity crisis, leading him to commit his life to securing India’s food supply, even though medicine and engineering were more socially prestigious choices during that era.
Source: The News Minute
In 1949, Swaminathan embarked on a scientific journey, researching the genetics of vital crops such as potato, wheat, rice, and jute during a time of looming famine in India, and his partnership with Norman Borlaug and fellow scientists paved the way for the development of high-yield wheat seeds, a pivotal milestone in India’s ‘Green Revolution.’
Swaminathan’s quest for knowledge took him around the world: he worked in the Netherlands to enhance crop resilience, pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in the UK studying species differentiation, and in the United States, he contributed to the establishment of a USDA potato research station during his post-doctoral research associateship at the University of Wisconsin’s Laboratory of Genetics.
Source: The Statesman
Swaminathan garnered a multitude of awards and honors, such as the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Ramon Magsaysay Award, World Food Prize, and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science, reflecting his unwavering dedication to agriculture and science, and he was further recognized with the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Gold Medal for his commitment to sustainable agriculture, among other prestigious accolades.
Despite his accomplishments, Swaminathan faced career controversies, including a disputed paper on mutant wheat due to a lab error and an agricultural scientist’s suicide, exposing issues in Indian agriculture research. In 2018, another controversy emerged when he was wrongly listed as a co-author on a criticized paper, leading Swaminathan to clarify his minimal involvement.
Source: Tree Take
He authored over 200 scientific papers and numerous books. His research spanned various fields, including crop improvement, cytogenetics, genetics, and phylogenetics. Some of his most frequent publishers included the Indian Journal of Genetics, Current Science, Nature, and Radiation Botany.
M.S. Swaminathan’s global impact is evident through his election as a Fellow of esteemed scientific academies such as the Royal Society of London, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as his role as a founding fellow of The World Academy of Sciences and recipient of honorary professorships from institutions worldwide.
Swaminathan’s leadership at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s Genetics Division led to global recognition for their research on mutagens, highlighted by the creation of a ‘Cobalt-60 Gamma Garden’ to study radiation mutation and collaborations with nuclear scientists like Homi J. Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, enabling agricultural researchers to access Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay, and further advancing crop mutation studies.
