Agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan on Saturday made a strong case for India remaining a secular democracy.
Delivering the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture, organised by the Indo-American Association, he said that other countries had admired India because of its Gandhian commitment to remaining a secular democracy.
“We need a secular democracy; a democracy where people can express their viewpoints. You can adopt a religion in your personal life, but in public life, you should be secular,” said Mr. Swaminathan.
He said that entering the Anthropocene Era, when human activities have a significant impact on the planet, also places a responsibility on humans. “This era, the Anthropocene Era, is where we can make a difference. You can make it better, you can make it worse. I am sure you will make a wise choice,” he said.
Mr. Swaminathan said that Mr. Gandhi was a guiding light to Rev. King. He chose to construct his talk around the refrain ‘We Shall Overcome’ of the United States’ Civil Rights Movement. To illustrate his point, Mr. Swaminathan mentioned Barack Obama’s rise to the American Presidency.
On the objective of making famine history, Mr. Swaminathan referred to the doomsday predictions of the 1960s on India’s food demand-supply gap to say that scientific interventions had helped better the situation. “We can be very proud that we have come from the time of Bengal Famine to legislating on the Right to Food,” he said, citing Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh as States that have made great strides on improving the public distribution system.
Mr. Swaminathan called for sustainable development in the future and said that an objective should be Evergreen Revolution: where productivity would increase in perpetuity without ecological harm. He said that there should be safe and responsible use of biotechnology. Mr. Swaminathan noted that science communication remains poor and urged eminent scientists to explain their work to the public.
