M.S. Swaminathan, the man who fed India
The father of India’s green revolution has died
H IS FAMILY wanted him to become a doctor. But the devastation of the Bengal famine of 1943, which killed between 2m and 3m people, put M.S. Swaminathan on a different path. A follower of Mohandas Gandhi, the young Tamilian renounced medicine for unglamorous agriculture. His role in newly independent India would be to ensure its poor had enough to eat.
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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “The man who fed India”
From the October 7th 2023 edition
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