When institutions of repute end up 'honouring' MSS, some people protest (thank god for them)! Here is a text of some people who have protested against the honouring MSS by Santiniketan.
We, the ex-students, residents and other well-wishers of Santiniketan strongly condemn the decision of Visva-Bharati to confer its highest honour Desikottama to M.S.Swaminathan this year. As we all know, M.S.Swaminathan has been the mastermind behind the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ which ushered in corporate funded destructive agriculture depending largely on transnational chemical fertilizer and pesticides as well as genetically engineered crops leading to large-scale depletion of natural resource by polluting our lands and rivers, devastating the natural sustainable age-old practice of our revered farmers thereby driving them to suicide. We believe that the policies of people like Swaminathan have harvested despair for farmers across the country making them more and more dependent on monoculture, high-yielding variety and agrarian corporations and they have reached a stage of no return..
It is indeed a matter of deep regret that this same University once conferred the same honour to the farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuwoka for his contribution to natural farming and sustainable agriculture. It should be noted that the conception of Swaminathan and his fellow policy makers are based on pure profit motive and greed which has no place in the ideology of Rabindranath.
Manisha Banerjee
Pijush Mukherjee
Sailen Mishra
Samsul Alam
Mrityunjoy Ghosh...
