Grandmother’s wisdom for the ages: Vandana Shiva

CHENNAI: It is not often that one finds an auditorium in Chennai packed to the hilt, and audiences scrambling to find any and every bit of free space to catch a lecture, a scientific one at that, from start to finish. But then, Dr Vandana Shiva is no stranger to rousing receptions, the likes of which are only accorded to rockstars, and the occasional celebrity. The food sovereignty advocate and environmental activist was here in Chennai at the invitation of Prakriti Foundation, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. As part of the programme, a documentary called The Seeds of Vandana Shiva, which chronicles her journey in agricultural activism, was screened in several schools and colleges in the city.

For the attendees, Dr Shiva’s discourse was an eye-opener on multiple fronts as the anti-globalisation evangelist tackled a range of subjects that had them spellbound from the word go. Delving into topics such as the contentious farm laws that had been enacted during the peak of COVID season in India, the manner in which India’s agricultural sector had been handicapped by the bane of monoculture and seasonal crops, the tragedy of farmer suicides, seed monopoly of the MNCs, climate change, robotic farming and more.

The anti-GMO campaigner, who brandished her love for all things Thamizh — silk saree, super-sized bindi, and mullapoo braids: check — lent a particularly local angle to some of the causes she fights for. Elaborating on the pitfalls of gene editing, she spoke about scientists working on the creation of bovine animals minus the horns, an idea whose time has certainly not come in Tamil Nadu, where the painted horns of bulls and cows are believed to have a cosmic significance, as people pay obeisance to the sun and rain gods during Maatu Pongal. The manner in which appalams and murukkus have also disappeared off our street food menu is one of the casualties of our modern approach to agriculture. She signed off the session by exhorting students to speak to their grandmas and grandpas to learn about what the dinner table looked like, before processed food became the norm.

For attendees at the lecture, it seemed like a fanboy and fangirl moment for the books. Content specialist Vandana, who was among the attendees tells us that she was never the starry-eyed, selfie-obsessed admirer for any individual in the public eye. But in the case of Dr Shiva, she made an exception and joined the beeline that was formed near the stage at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Mylapore where the discourse was held. Other members of the audience such as Srikala, a bioinformatics scholar, as well as Ganesh, a climate activist were of the opinion that we needed more people like Dr Shiva to reinforce the ideas about organic farming, carbon footprint, and zero-waste existence. Needless to say, Dr Shiva's power-packed lecture was an experience Chennaiites would remember for a long, long time.