THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION IN PUNJAB (INDIA)

Bespreking van het baanbrekende boek The Violence of the Green Revolution van Vandana
Shiva, geschreven in 1991, in het kader van de cursus Stad, Platteland en Milieu aan de
KUN, maart 2001.
Study-subject: Stad, platteland en milieu (cursus OS 2002)
University: Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen
Nijmegen, 5 March 2001

Guus Geurts Studentnummer: 9912460

g.geurts@student.kun.nl

Introduction
In this paper I will use the models of Pressure and Relief and Access to Resources which
come from the book At Risk natural hazards, peoples vulnerability, and disaster written
by Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner in 1994 and reprinted in 1997. I will apply these two
models to describe the causes and effects from the Green Revolution in Punjab in India. This
province is lying in the Northwest of India at the border with Pakistan, and has through five
big rivers streaming in it naturally a high fertility and also a high population density. Of the
total area of 50.38 lakh hectares of Punjab, 42 lakh hectares are under agriculture. Since 1965
the Green Revolution has taken place in this countrystate.
For this paper I use the book from Vandana Shiva The violence of the Green Revolution
Third world agriculture, ecology and politics, written in 1991. To my opinion this book
should be on the compulsory literature list of each student which studies environment and/or
development of third word countries, and also for agricultural students both in the North and
South. The strong part of this book is the comparison she makes between the western and
traditional Indian vision on development in agriculture. This is a clash between thinking in
balances in ecological and social systems, and thinking in economic growth with externalising
negative effect. Her conclusion is that applying the western vision by the Green Revolution
only brought disaster to most of the people and the ecological system.
In chapter two I will describe the pressure and release model from Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and
Wisner. In chapter three I will apply this model to the situation in Punjab after the Green
Revolution, according to the book of Vandana Shiva. In chapter four I will describe and apply
in the model of Access to Resources of Blaikie et al., to the situation in Punjab. I will end with
the conclusions.
Note: Because I like the words which Vandana Shiva chooses and the integration of all
elements in her text, so much, a lot of this paper is coming directly from her book. When I use
her words literally, you will find this by the page in her book in brackets. The most of chapter
three is also coming from this book.
2. The Pressure and Release model
Although this model is constructed specially in cases that lead to disasters, it is also applicable
to the Green Revolution. The model consists of five parts (Blaikie 1997 p.23):
1 Root causes 2 Dynamic pressures 3 Unsafe conditions Disaster Hazards
This process means the progression of vulnerability

Root Causes
In the model :
1. Limited access to power, structures or resources
2. Ideologies like political or economic systems
Root causes or underlying causes are a set of well-established, widespread processes within a
society and the world economy. The most important root causes that give rise to vulnerability
(and to produce vulnerability over time) are economic, demographic, and political processes.
These affect the allocation and distribution of resources between different groups of people.
(Blaikie 1997 p.24)
Dynamic pressures
In the model:
1. Lack of local institutions, training, appropriate skills, local investment, local markets,
press freedom and/or ethical standards in public life
2. Macro-forces like rapid population growth, rapid urbanisation, arms expenditure, debt
repayment schedules, deforestation and/or decline in soil productivity
Dynamic pressures are processes and activities that translate the effects of root causes into
the vulnerability of unsafe conditions () that have to be considered in relation to the types
of hazard facing those people. These include reduced access to resources as a result of the
way regional or global pressures such as rapid population growth, epidemic disease, rapid
urbanization, war, foreign debt and structural adjustment, export promotion, mining,
hydropower development, and deforestation work through to localities. (Blaikie p.24)
Unsafe conditions
In the model:
1. Fragile physical environment, like dangerous locations or unprotected buildings and
infrastructure
2. Fragile local economy, like livelihoods at risk or low income levels
3. Vulnerable society, like special groups at risk or lack of social institutions
4. Public actions, like lack of disaster preparedness or prevalence of endemic disease
Unsafe conditions are the specific forms in which the vulnerability of a population is
expressed in time and space in conjunction with a hazard (Blaikie p.25). Examples of this
unsafe conditions are people having to live in dangerous locations, people having little food
entitlements, or entitlements that are prone to rapid disruption. The difference between unsafe
and vulnerable is that people are vulnerable and live in or work under unsafe conditions. So
vulnerable is not used in regard to livelihoods, buildings, settlement locations, or
infrastructure. (Blaikie)
Hazards
In the model:
Earthquake, High winds (cyclone, hurricane, typhoon), flooding, vulcanic eruption, landslide,
drought and/or virus and pests.
Most of the mentioned hazards are natural caused hazards, although in some there is also a
manmade component.
Disaster
In the model:
Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability
The disaster is only happening when hazard and the vulnerability combined are big enough to
lead to a disaster. At this point the physical hazard triggers to create a disaster.

3. Application of the Pressure and Release model in Punjab

By applying this model I use particularly the book of Vandana Shiva The violence of the
Green Revolution Third world agriculture, ecology and politics. Two major crises have
emerged on an unprecedented scale in Asian societies during the 1980s. The first is the
ecological crisis and the threat of life support systems posed by the destruction of natural
resources like forests, land, water and genetic resources. The second is the cultural and ethnic
crisis and the erosion of social structures that make cultural diversity and plurality possible as
a democratic reality in a decentralised framework. The two crises are usually viewed as
independent, both analytically as well as at the level of political action. (Shiva 1991 p.11) In
this book she however connects the ecological and cultural crisis.
In this chapter I will try to structure her book by using the Pressure and Release model of
Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner.
3.1 Root causes
The Green Revolution started around 1965 in Punjab. There were several root causes that lead
to this development.
The western vision on development
Shiva defines in this vision development as a strategy with the help of capital and
technology, to combat scarcity and dominate nature to generate material abundance. In this
vision technology is a superior substitute for nature, and hence a means of producing growth,
unconstrained by natures limits (p.15).
The Green Revolution is also used as a techno-politic strategy (combination of science and
politics) that would create abundance in agricultural societies and reduce the threat of
communist insurgency and agrarian conflict (p.14). So with the help of foreign capital and
experts, the goal was to stabilise the rural areas politically and create peace and prosperity in
rural India.
The western vision on science
Science takes in this vision a dual character. It offers technological fixes for social and
political problems, but delinks itself form the new social and political problems it creates
(p.21). ) Through this split identity is created the sacredness of science. (p.21)
Shiva calls this the process decontextualisation, in which the negative and destructive
impacts of science on nature and society are externalised and rendered invisible. Being
separated from their material and political roots in the science system, new forms of scarcity
and social conflict are then linked to other social systems e.g. religion. (p.22) So also in
Punjab along to this vision religious differences between Sikh and Hindus are the cause of
conflicts, instead of the here mentioned root causes of the Green Revolution.
Comparable with Vermeersch in De ogen van de panda (1988) who calls this the ScienceTechnology-Capital-system, Shiva says that the conceptual framework of western science is
compatible with the needs of commercial capitalism. They generate inequalities and
domination by the way knowledge is generated and structured, the way it is legitimized, and
by the way in which such knowledge transforms nature and society (p.23).
The western vision on agriculture
Although the agriculture of Asian are almost as permanent as those of the primeval forest, of
the prairie, or the ocean, (Howard 1940 in Shiva p.25) they were regarded by western vision
as primitive and backward. In the traditional agricultural systems people used their excellent
knowledge to create a balance between the resources of nutrients and water. Cropping
systems include a symbiotic relationship between soil, water, farm animals and plants (p.69).
They were preserving and building on natures process and natures paterns (p.26). This
system was based on strengthening the ecological base of agriculture, and the self-reliance of

the peasants of the country. This was the indigenous way of handling the food crisis after
participation in 1947, also propagated by Gandhi.
The other was the exogenous way, and taking shape in American foundations and aid
agencies. This vision was based not on cooperation with nature, but on its conquest. It was
based not on the intensification of natures processes, but on the intensification of credit and
purchased inputs like chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It was based not on self-reliance, but
dependency. It was based not on diversity but uniformity. (p.29) The seed / chemical
package sets up its own interactions with soils and water systems, which are, however, not
taken into account in the assessment of yields. (p.69) As a result western expert mistakenly
believed that their technologies could substitute land, and chemicals could replace the organic
fertility of the soils (p.104).
Pressure through the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the American Government, the
World Bank, the seed and chemical multinationals, the central Government of India and
the various agencies it controls.
American advisors and experts came with the aim to shift Indias agricultural research and
policy from an indigenous and ecological model to an exogenous, and high input one,
finding, of course partners in sections of the elite, because the new model suited their political
priorities and interests (p.29). Between 1952 and 1970 the mentioned organisations did
everything to promote the Green Revolution, through for example education of Indian
students, providing credit, forcing India to devaluate its currency and to provide favourable
conditions for foreign investments, importing liberalisation, eliminating of domestic controls.
The main supporters of the Green Revolution strategy Subramaniam became agriculture
minister in 1964, and Swaminathan became Director of IRRI (the International Rice Research
Institute in the Philippines) which with support from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations
was developing new high yielding varieties of rice. Some of the mentioned organisations
made sure that indigenous varieties were lost. For example due to pressure of the World Bank
and IRRI the MPRRI was shut down. They had conserved 20,000 rice varieties and were
doing research to develop a high yielding strategy based on indigenous knowledge of the
Chattisgarh tribals. In the Philippines, IRRI seeds were called Seeds of Imperialism.
(p.44)
Also the opening up of markets was important, when American producers of fertilizer were
anxious to ensure higher fertilizer consumption overseas to recoup their investment. The
fertilizer push was an important factor in the spread of new seeds, because wherever the new
seeds went, they opened up new markets for chemical fertilizers. (p.105) The use of chemical
fertilizers was also pushed by international agencies, government policy, the World Bank and
US AID.
The centralisation of politics that results in a central state which controls agricultural
policy, finance, credit, inputs and prices of agricultural commodities.
A policy of planned destruction of diversity in nature and culture to create the uniformity
demanded by centralised management systems. (p.12) Instead of the traditional vision of
diversity, decentralization and democracy this western vision concentrates on the demands of
uniformity of the market, centralization and militarization.
The rise of the market and rise of the state that was part of the Green Revolution policy led to
the destruction of community and the homogenising of social relations on purely commercial
criteria. The shift from internal farm inputs to centrally controlled external inputs shifted the
axis of political power and social relations. It involved a shift from mutual obligations within
the community to electoral politics aimed at state power for addressing local agricultural
issues. (p.175)

3.2 Dynamic pressures

As a result of the root causes the Green Revolution started in Punjab around 1965.
The Green Revolution contains the following components which all can lead to dynamic
pressures:
use of new crops (wheat) and new varieties (rice), the so cold High Yielding Varieties
(HYV)
These miracle seeds were designed to overcome the limits placed on chemically intensive
agriculture by the indigenous seeds. They became central to breaking out of natures limits
and cycles. (p.36) The miracle seeds of the Green Revolution transformed the common
genetic heritage into private property, protected by patents and intellectual property rights.
Peasants and plant breeding specialists gave way to scientists of multinational seed
companies and international research institutions like CIMMYT and IRRI. Plant breeding
strategies of maintaining and enriching genetic diversity and self-renewability of crops were
substituted by new breeding strategies of uniformity and non-renewability, aimed primarily at
increasing transnational profits and First World control over the genetic resources of the Third
World. The Green Revolution changed the 10,000-year evolutionary history of crops by
changing the fundamental nature of seeds. (p.63)
use of chemical fertilizers
use of pesticides
use of mechanisation and petroleum
intensive and accurate irrigation, mostly made possible by building of dams
High yields are not intrinsic to the seeds, but are a function of the availability of required
inputs, which in return have ecologically destructive impacts.
As a result of these components of the Green Revolution a lot of negative effects occurred.
Most of them were decreasing of access to resources as a result of regional pressures. The
dynamic pressures I discern are land degradation, genetic erosion which resulted in explosive
growth of pests in the crops, other negative ecological effects and poverty under the local
population.

Land degradation caused by:

- water logging
- salinization of the soil
- desertification and water scarcity
- destroying water resources
- destruction of soil fertility
- micronutrient deficiency
- soil toxicity, by high use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers
- biomass reduction used for fodder and organic manure
The Green Revolution only functions properly when the physical environment, especially the
availability of water was sufficient. This higher need for water was caused by the shift from
water prudent crops such as millets and oilseeds to monocultures and multicropping such as
wheat and rice, and by the replacement of old varieties of wheat with new varieties of wheat
and rice (p.125). So intensive irrigation was required mainly by building large dams and
applying surface irrigation. (see also unsafe conditions and disasters)
The dramatic increase in water use has led to a total destabilisation of the water balance in
the region. The water cycle can be destabilised by adding more water to an ecosystem than the
natural drainage potential of that system. This leads to desertification through waterlogging
and salinisation of the land. Desertification of this kind is a form of water abuse rather than
water use.(p.128) Land gets waterlogged when the water table is within 1.5 and 2.1 metres

below the ground surface. () The rich alluvial plains of Punjab which have a very negligible
slope suffer seriously from desertification induced by the introduction of excessive irrigation
water to make Green Revolution farming possible. (p.129)
The problem salinity arises through intensive irrigation in arid regions. In regions of scarce
rainfall, the earth contains a large amount of unleached salts. Pouring irrigation water into
such soils brings those salts to the surface and leaves behind a residue when the water
evaporates. It is estimated that about 0.7 lakh hectares in Punjab (about one third of the total
area), just like in one third of the worlds irrigated land, are salt affected and produce either no
yields or very poor yields.
Where irrigation is dependent on ground water, the water table is declining at an estimated
rate of one to one and a half foot every year, due to over-exploitation. (p.140) So half of the
development blocks in the state cannot sustain any further increase in the number of
tubewells.
The nutrient cycle, in which nutrients are produced by the soil through plants, and returned to
the soil as organic matter is thus replaced by linear non-renewable flows of phosphorous and
potash derived from geological deposits, and nitrogen derived from petroleum (p.104). This
led to a western NPK-mentality, with high gifts of these three minerals. As a result deficiency
of micronutrients as zinc, iron, copper, manganese and magnesium arose.
Soil toxicity arose through irrigation and high chemical fertilizer input, for example fluorine -,
boron -, selenium and aluminium toxicity. It is posing a threat to crop production as well as
animal health. (p.116)
As a result of the reductionist approach only the output of crops were counted, but not the loss
in maintaining the conditions of productivity. These outputs have also to be uniform likes the
central market wants them, and not divers like the traditional crops which partly were used for
own food. The indigenous cropping systems are based on internal organic inputs. (p.72) So
they used straw from the harvested crops and other through westerns considered wastes to
feed the farm animals, and/or to increase soil fertility. Also the animals provided organic
manure. The new varieties were however selected by producing little straw, because otherwise
as a result of high fertilizer input they would lodge and the crop would be lost. So the straw
production was much lower, with negative effects on soil fertility through lower input of
biomass. This process also occurred because millet and course-grain were replaced by wheat
and grain.
Also the heavy use of chemical fertilizers and new seeds directly led to decreased soil fertility,
because the soil productivity (which also needs organic mass) was lowered and the nutrient
recycling was disturbed. The results were new defiences and diseases.
As a result of replacing pulses by wheat and rice the nitrogen fixing capacity of crops was
lost, so more fertilizers were needed. As Kang has cautioned, This process implies a
downward spiralling of agricultural land use from legume to wheat to rice to wasteland
(Kang (1982) in Shiva p.109-110).

Genetic erosion caused by:

- mixtures and rotation of diverse crops like wheat, maize, millets, pulses and oil seeds
were replaced by monocultures of wheat and rice
- the introduced wheat and rice varieties reproduced over large-scale as monocultures
came from a very narrow genetic base, compared to the high genetic variability in the
populations of traditional wheat or rice plants. (p.81)
which resulted in explosive growth of pests in the crops.
At present, rice cultivation in Punjab is vulnerable to about 40 insects and 12 diseases (p.9798) mostly unknown before the Green Revolution. This leads to ever increasing demands for
pesticides. Yet the new costs of new pests and poisonous pesticides were never counted as
part of the miracle of the new seeds that modern plant breeders had gifted the world in the
name of increasing food security. (p.98)

Diversity was a central principle of the indigenous breeding strategies. Diversity contributed
to ecological stability, and hence to ecosystem productivity. The less the diversity and the
more the uniformity in an ecosystem, the higher is its vulnerability to instability, breakdown
and collapse. (p.78) The crop and varietal diversity of indigenous agriculture was replaced
by a narrow genetic base and monocultures. The focus was on internationally grains, and a
strategy of eliminating mixed and rotational cropping, and divers varieties by varietal
simplicity. (p.45) As a result of the formal mixed cropping and using many varieties the
growth of pests was controlled. Indigenous varieties, or land races are resistant to locally
occurring pests and diseases. Even if certain diseases occur, some of the strains maybe
susceptible, while others will have the resistance to survive. () Cropping systems based on
diversity thus have a built-in protection (p.93) The Green Revolution however resulted in
high replacement rates of the new varieties in wheat, because after one or two years the
varieties gets overtaken by pests. The vulnerability of rice to new pests and diseases due to
monocropping and a narrow genetic base is also very high. () Most of the high yielding
varieties released so far are susceptible to major pests with a crop loss of 30 to 100 %
(p.89) Most of the released varieties are not suitable for typical uplands and lowlands which
together constitute about 75 % of the total rice area of the country. (p.90) Howard believed
that the cultivators of the East had a lot to teach the Western Experts about disease and pest
control and to get Western reductionism out of the vicious and violent circle of discovering
more and more new pests and devising more and more poison sprays to destroy them
((Howard, 1940) in Shiva p.94) Howard regarded the Indian peasants and even the insects and
fungi themselves as his professors of agriculture. Howard could teach the world sustainable
farming because he had the humility to learn it first from practising peasants and Nature
herself. (p.94-95)
Also the shift from organic to chemical fertilizers reduces the plants resistance to pest
attacks. Thus there is a linkage between heavy use of fertilizers and vulnerability of pests.
() Even those high yielding varieties of crops, which are specially bred for disease
resistance become highly susceptible to certain types of diseases when heavy doses of
fertilizers are applied. (p.95)

Other negative ecological impacts:

- greenhouse effect with atmospheric pollution
- pesticide contamination of soil, water and animal life
- lost of common lands under forests and pastures
The Green Revolution puts new demands on scarce renewable resources like water, and
generated new demands on non-renewable resources like fuel.
As a result of high use of chemical fertilizers NO2 is released, which is a greenhouse gas, as
is CO2 produced by more use of mechanisation instead of hand labour.
Also common lands under forests and pastures have been put under agricultural crops. As the
Green Revolution spread, local community management broke down and grazing lands and
forest were broken up for monoculture cultivation. These former nature areas, where also less
suitable for constant keeping under soil depleting crops.

Poverty under the local population caused by:

- indebted farmers
- landless farmers
- unemployed or only seasonally employed land labourers
- building dams or irrigation canals
As a result of the high inputs of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and the buying of the new
varieties instead of saving (free) seeds from last years harvest, farmers needed much more
money to purchase them. It was possible to get credits and loans from banks, but in years that
the harvests or prices were low, especially small farmers couldnt pay back their loans. So

they get indebted. In worst cases after a few years they had to sell their land to bigger farms,
and try to get work as land labourer.
Also by using machinery hand labour was replaced, so people got unemployed or could only
work during planting and harvesting seasons. So this system was not sustainable in a region
with a high population, with much labour available. Next to this big farmers who first had
tenant farmers on their land who did all the work and had to give a part of the harvest to the
landowner, were replaced because by using machinery the landowner could do the work in his
own (with some land labourers).
As a result of all this small farmers, landless farmers and land labourers got in worsened
conditions.
..many people had ended up as paupers when their land was acquired for the construction of
the Bhakra main canal. Several displaced farmers had become drug addicts while many others
had turned into alcoholics. (p.161) They also risk waterlogging and salinisation of their land,
when canals have been built. Also many farmers have to leave their land, when by building
dams their ground is flooded.
3.3 Unsafe conditions
Following the dynamic pressures vulnerable situations are created for the people of Punjab.
These include:
Nutritional imbalances as a result of the reduction of pulses, oilseeds, millets and other
crops
As a result of the Green Revolution agriculture of many different crops was replaced by
mainly rice and wheat. Owing to this the supply of local produced food which contains all
needed proteins, minerals and vitamins, decreased. If people want this crops who were
produced outside the region at least the prices increased because of the transportcosts.
Pesticide contamination of food, water, and human life
As a result of the much higher use of pesticides since 1965, food and water got contaminated.
Building dams with by heavy rainfall can lead to floods (see also disasters)
Creating injustice and inequalities
During Green Revolution technologies created were directed at capital intensive inputs for
best endowed farmers in the best endowed areas, and directed away from resource prudent
options of the small farmer in resource scarce regions. The science and technology of the
Green Revolution excluded poor regions and poor people as well as sustainable options. ()
The science of the Green Revolution was thus essentially a political choice. (p.45)
Peasant movements had tried to restructure agrarian relationships through the recovery of
land rights. The Green Revolution tried to restructure social relationships by separating issues
of agricultural production from issues of justice. (p.50) Through increasing material
prosperity the goal was to defuse agrarian unrest. So not through redistributive justice but
through economic growth, the rural area of Asia had to be pacified.
But injustice has been at the root of the worst forms of scarcity throughout history and
injustice and inequality has also been at the root of societal violence. (...) By-passing the
goals of equality and sustainability led to the creation of new inequalities and new scarcities.
The Green Revolution strategy for peace had boomeranged. In creating new polarisation, it
created new potential for conflict. (p.57)
The increased demand for water by intensive irrigation caused by the Green Revolution led to
social and ecological disruptions. Social considerations of equity favour the extensive use of
irrigation water which assures a protective dose of water over as large an area as possible. The
Green Revolution limits the provisioning of irrigation to a smaller region. Thus leading to
inequalities.
All those effects of Green Revolution led to growing inequalities and injustice, between local
people and small and big farms. Before the Green Revolution farmers were dependent on each

other for example during planting and harvest time and to maintain the irrigation system.
After the Green Revolution farmers were more working on their own. Differences arose
between farmers with more or less money and farmers who had the possibilities to sustain
their farm or not. Also the number of indebted and landless farmers rose (see dynamic
pressures) and the situation of land labourers got worse. Also the traditional culture, in which
people worked in the community or village on mutual (though asymmetric) obligations,
changed. After Green Revolution cultivators where fragmented and atomised and related
directly to the state and the market (banks, seed and fertilizer agencies, food procurement
agencies, and electricity and irrigation organisations) instead of to the community. When
hazards occur this can lead too much more risk for the most vulnerable people, because they
can not longer rely on their community. Next to this it generated an erosion of cultural norms
and practices and it sowed the seeds of violence and conflict. (parts from p.172)
3.4 Hazards
The natural hazards which can damage Punjab are:
Heavy rainfall
Drought
3.5 Disasters
As a result of the unsafe conditions and the hazards disasters can arise.
These include:
Hunger and shortage of drinking water
Due to building of dams, by using explosives to construction natural springs and waterways
are blocked, causing a shortage of drinking water in the catchment of the Pandoh dam. Water
scarcity has also been aggravated by the indiscriminate felling of trees, the blasting of rocks
for the construction of the dam and the diversion. (p.143)
Conflict and violence
This has led to at least 15,000 people killed between 1985 and 1991.
The conflicts have developed between classes, between regions, between the local farming
community and the central state, between the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and
between the representatives of the Sikh and Hindu religion. For example the conflict between
Punjab and Haryana goes about sharing of river waters in a context of exploding demands for
water. After two decades, the conflict is no longer merely over how the water should be
shared, but also over how much water there is to share. (p.164)
Water conflicts in Punjab are already taken places between 1950 and 1990, but worsened
during the last 25 years caused by:
- political fragmentation of Punjab,
- the centralisation of water control to the central government for example by building
large dams,
- the increased demand for water for Green Revolution agriculture.
The centralised control of the Bhakra system had made the Indus basin more vulnerable to
floods, as well as to water scarcity, which have further fuelled waterconflicts between
neighbouring states, and between the states and the Centre. (p.144) According to Shiva the
centralisation has increased the ecological and social vulnerability of Punjab, leading to
violence. Mega projects thus tend to centralize power and the loss of power by the federating
units becomes a cause for conflict. (p.149)
Before the dams the older canal systems of Punjab were regionally managed within the State
since the 19th century.
Intensive irrigation also introduces conflicts between private and social interests.
Waterlogging does not recognize farm boundaries, and drainage cannot be managed except as

a community activity. But community management of resources has been the first casualty in
the privatisation thrust of the Green Revolution. (p.139) So this leads inevitable to conflicts,
which are not resolvable immediately.
With government as referee, handing down decisions in all matters, each frustration becomes
a political issue. In a context of diverse communities, that centralised control leads to
communal and regional conflict. Ever policy decision is translated into the politics of we and
they. We have been unjustly treated, while they have gained privileges unfair. In Punjab,
this polarised thinking gets expressed with the added dimension of religious discrimination
against the Sikhs. (p.172)
In short three kinds of conflicts seem to have converged in creating what has been called the
Punjab crisis:
1. Related to conflicts emerging form the very nature of the Green Revolution; such as
conflicts over river waters, class conflict, the pauperisation of the lower peasantry, the use
of labour-displacing mechanisation, the decline of profitability of modern agriculture etc.,
all heading to a disaffected peasantry engaged in farmers protests.
2. Conflicts related to religion-cultural factors and revolving around Sikh identity. These
conflicts were rooted in the cultural erosion of the Green Revolution, which
commercialized all relations, and created an ethical vacuum where nothing is sacred and
everything has a price. Religious revivalism which emerged to correct the moral and
social crisis crystallised finally in the emergence of a separist Sikh identity.
3. Conflicts related to the sharing of economic and political power between the centre and
state. (p.174-175)
The paradox of separatism is that it is a search for identity in a framework of uniformity, it is
a search for identity in a structure based on erasure and erosion of identities. The shift from
Sikh farmers (who are the majority in Punjab) demands to the demand for a separate Sikh
state comes from the collapse of horizontally organised diverse communities into atomised
individuals linked vertically tot state power through electoral politics. The ecological crisis of
the Green Revolution is thus mirrored in al cultural crisis caused by erosion of diversity and
structures of local governance and the emergence of homogenisation and centralised external
control over the daily activities of agricultural food production. (p.175-176)
Floods
This happened in September 1988, after a period of heavy rainfall. 65 % of its 12,000
villages were marooned, 34 lakh people in 10 of the states districts were affected. () 80 %
of the standing crop was destroyed, and 1,500 people were killed. Very much blame went to
the central dam management board (BBMB) who filled the dam above the maximum storage
capacity, and released water without even warning to the thousands of people who live close
to embankments of the two rivers. (p.146)
4. Application of the Access to Resources model in Punjab
In this chapter I will apply the Access to Resources model of Blaikie et al. to the situation in
Punjab after the Green Revolution. Contrary to the Pressure and Release model, which I
applied in the whole state of Punjab, this model is only applicable at village level.
I will choose a small village, which contains small farmers and land labourers. For this two
groups I will make both apply this model.

1. Social relations and flows of surplus

For both small farmers as land labourers after the Green Revolution the mutual dependency of
other farmers and other people living in the village, decreased. In times of poverty or disaster
other people in the village are not so much inclined to helping each other, in contrary to the
times before Green Revolution. As a result of growing inequalities and independence the risk
of conflict is higher.
Small farmers
2. A Households
- 10 small farms
B Their resources and assets
- land, labour, little capital, tools, cattle
3. A Income opportunities
- growing crops for self reliance and/or
markets or traders
B Access qualifications
- knowledge of soil, plants, water resources,
chemical fertilizers, pesticides and seeds

Land labourers
- 20 families of land labourers
- labour
- working for big farmers, especially
during particular seasons
- working skills for land labour

4. Structures of domination
- centralised watercontrol, no power
- relationship to landlords
- relations to banks for loans, leading to debt - landlords keeps on mechanising,
- relations to markets and traders
and decreases wages every year
- relations to traders/companies selling fertilizers, pesticides and seeds
- less access to common property resources, since Green Revolution
- degraded soils by salinisation and waterlogging, leading to decreasing crop outputs
- increasing pesticide use caused by ever increasing diseases and pests
5. Choices of the household
- choice of crop, depending on agriculture
for self reliance only or for markets also

- only choice is to work as much as

possible during planting and harvesting
season.

6. Livelihood
- total income of food and money from sold
products to the market or traders

- total income of wages by labour

7. Household budget
- food and money depends on: the weather,
severeness of soildegradation, pest and
diseases, availability of water

- wages depends on relationship to landlord. Job only at seasons or permanent

8. Decisions 9. Outcome of decisions

When harvest is lost or too low for several years - stay in the village or move to the city
the indebtness may grow too high, so the
to get higher wages
farmer may have to sell his land.

As a result of this cycle after one year some small farmers may have decided to sell their land
to bigger farms and become land labourer. Also some land labourers may have decided to
leave the village and move to the city to have a better chance on a better livelihood. So after a
few years time the rural population will decrease and the urban population increase. In fact
that is what happening all over the world.
Conclusions
The Green Revolution was particularly a fight between western visions on development,
agriculture and science and the indigenous Indian vision. The western vision who promised so
much won, but most people and ecosystems of Punjab lost. Although even the Green
Revolution was bounded by ecological limits, and by attempting to break out of them, if
further increased those limits, generating new levels of scarcity, insecurity and vulnerability.
Conflicts which arose are much more a result of the political, economic and cultural processes
inherent to Green Revolution, than to religious differences between Sikh and Hindu which
always were mentioned before as the cause of violence.
The Pressure and Release model was for me much more appropiate to explain the causes and
effects of the Green Revolution, than the Access to resources model.
The main advantages in my opinion are:
- the possibility to explain the root causes,
the macro instead of the micro level,
the surveyability and clearness of this model.
Literature
Blaikie, Piers & Cannon, Terry & Davis, Ian & Wisner, Ben (1997), At risk natural hazards,
peoples vulnerabiltity and disasters (Second edition), London, Routledge
CIDIN,
(2001),
Reader
studievaardigheden
2001
Culturele
Ontwikkelingsstudies, Nijmegen, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen

antropologie

Dogra, Bharat, (1994) Green Revolution: no joy for the poor In Return to the good earth
Damaging effects of modern agriculture and the case for ecological farming (pp. 242-244),
(Second edition) Penang, Malaysia, Third World Network
Howard, Alfred, (1940), Agricultural Testament, London, Oxford
Kang, D.S., (1982), Environmental problems of the Green Revolution with a focus on Punjab,
India, in Richard Barett, (ed), International dimensions of the environmental crisis (p.204),
Boulder, Westview Press
Shiva, Vandana, (1991) The violence of the Green Revolution Third world agriculture,
ecology and politics, London, Zed books Third World Network
Vermeersch, Etienne (1997) De ogen van de panda Een milieufilosofisch essay (Negende
druk), Antwerpen, Stichting Leefmilieu