Biotechnology : To improve the breeding process

Indian Rice Culture

Jagannath:    How can we revive the rice culture of eastern India?

Debal: This is something I’ve been involved with over these two decades. I think revival of rice culture cannot be done in isolation. If the whole culture in all its gamut, starting from sports, to music, to food culture  -- all are running downhill, we cannot stop it by putting up a dam on one stream in isolation. It will be futile. If the belief system of the city people is that hamburger is the most nutritious food in the world, Coca Cola and Pepsi are the most prestigious drinks in the world, you cannot teach these people anything about political sovereignty, cultural sovereignty, environmental literacy, whatever …Look at the nutritional aspect or health aspect of food and drink items … for example, the date palm sap. India is the home to 7 types of palms, all of which produce fruits that have a lot of food value. And all of them produce sap which is an excellent drink. The date palm sap, the palmyra palm sap, the sago palm sap are all very rich in many different types of nutrients – vitamins, minerals and  fructose. But nobody would care until perhaps our cricket stars – the national heroes gulp down the palm juices to quench their thirst. An important point is that the food culture in India has also been a very important factor in conserving the food diversity and the genetic diversity of crops, because food culture was so intertwined with the genetic diversity and crop species diversity that one supported the other all the time. But rice itself in particular has also been responsible for the distortion in food culture and elimination of certain local food cultures too in the past. For example rice has always been an elite crop. In the drought-prone areas, like Purulia district, in some parts of Chhattisgrah, in Rajasthan, in Gujarat – rice and wheat were elite crops. Only the rich and the powerful could afford to have rice and wheat in those days. Different types of millets – jowar, bajra -- which required little input of water and almost no management for cultivation – were the staple food of the poor of Rajasthan, Gujarat and the drought-prone districts of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal. Today hardly any farmer grows any of those millets. The millet diversity in terms species diversity - barnyard millet, pearl millet, foxtail millet and all their genetic diversity are lost. And some of the varieties have lost forever. It is simply because the farmers and the village people who used to eat them have stopped considering these as their staple as they used to do earlier, because they do not ever get to see in the Bollywood films or in the newspapers a super star or a national hero eating any of these millets. It is always either wheat or rice. So why should they lag behind? The cultural hegemonic statement is that whoever eat millets are cultural laggards. So they should be brought into mainstream. And mainstream means rice and wheat. Mainstream means Coca Cola and Macdonald. So today rice and wheat are also suffering in the same way, not wheat in particular, but the processes of making. Processed foods like rice crispies or murhi, khoi that is puffed rice, chire or the beaten rice – these are hardly enjoyed by the younger generation because these are all backward. Popcorn is rather progressive, especially if that’s an American brand product.

It’s not just the processing but also the diversity of rice which was responsible for maintaining that particular culture. We have a very prominent example in Bengal of kanakchur rice. Kanakchur is the variety whose puffed rice , khoi, retains the aroma. All other rice varieties lose the aroma upon roasting. Only a very faint proportion of it is retained. Basmati, Gobindobhog, Badshabhog – all aromatic rice varieties can retain their aroma after boiling, but in case of dry frying, this aroma is lost because it becomes volatile. But kanakchur, to my knowledge, is the only rice variety that still retains its aroma after puffing. This was the ingredient for making Joinagarer Moa. Moa is a sweet made out of this khoi or puffed rice and Joinagar’s moa is so famous only because of that aroma. It’s not because of the gurh or jaggary that goes into it. It is famous because of that aroma of kanakchur. So because of this kanakchoorh cultivation, Joinagar became very famous and the Joinagar sweetmakers always used that particular variety. So because of this cultural importance, the gustatory flavour of the food itself this variety of rice was surviving. Today, Jainagar’s moa does not contain that rice any more. Jainagarer Moa – the name is retained. Everybody buys any moa in the name of Jainagarer Moa, because that has become a brand name, but nobody knows why it was so famous. Nobody knows why it was a specialty. What’s the special difference between Jainagar’s moas and moas prepared in other places? The farmers who once were growing this, also have forgotten. Now this variety is grown on my farm and I’ve distributed to some other farmers outside Jainagar. So they are still working on it.

So this is an example of  the vanishing of food culture leading to vanishing of a genotype. There have been many many varieties which had been incidentally associated with food culture and that actually contributed to their conservation. For example, the jamai shoshthi ceremony…. I’m not sure whether it is practiced in Orissa, but in Bengal the jamais or the sons-in-law are the most pampered creatures. They have a special day. On that day the son-in-law is invited and is given many gifts and the parents-in-law have to prepare some special dishes in honour of this son-in-law. A few days before this special day of Jamai Shoshthi, some special varieties of rice used to mature. So they are named jamai shal and jamai nadu. These two particular varieties we’re conserving on our farm. These are so named because they could be harvested just before the son-in-law’s arrival and then would be cooked fresh. And that would add some kind of a special flavour. Because of this particular cultural use these two varieties were surviving. On some special occasion like jamai shoshthi or some puja, Ratna or IR-36 are not found to be suitable. So a few farmers still retain some aromatic varieties, some special varieties, some flavoured varieties for these ceremonial purposes. Again gustatory practices, cultural ceremonies, religious rituals – these have become considerable contributing factor in conserving particular varieties. But as time passes by, those varieties tend to be replaced firstly because of the devaluation of the cultural rituals, secondly because of the varieties have been replaced by modern high-yield varieties. Even if one would wish to grow those varieties, they simply do not have access to the seeds. They are all out of vogue. Therefore they are forced to bring in those varieties which are not appropriate.

In this way the erosion has gained momentum. And it is very difficult to stem this erosion. One way of course is to inculcate into the local people that these religious or cultural ceremonies are very important, in which case you run the risk of perpetuating some social injustices and superstitions. The other option is to emphasize the intrinsic value of the genetic diversity itself and then inventing or reinstating certain cultural values like organizing a party or ceremony of rice and then inviting people to have a taste of diversity. I have done this. We can call it a ceremony of diversity or festival of diversity. People should experience a diversity of taste. A taste of say 40 varieties of cooked rice of different colours, aroma, size, etc. People would take one spoon of each variety to taste. Every year the result is that people don’t take any other thing – no vegetable, no daal, nothing – because 40 spoons of rice, each spoon having different flavours, taste and aroma. So it is a very fulfilling experience. They are so happy. It is really astonishing for them that rice could have so many different tastes and aroma. That itself is an example of instituting a new culture, a new sentiment, a new knowledge. I do not say that everyone would like it, but if at least a miniscule percentage of those invited come to value this, then they can create a market demand of certain varieties. It would also make the farmers proud to say that yes we grow that particular variety or varieties. This may reinstate the inherent value of genetic diversity.

The other aspect is the culture itself, the food culture. In linguistics, within the same language there are so many dialects. In Manchester, they say ‘booter’ and not butter. When I was traveling in Europe, I was very happy to know that Breton … Britany is a province of France … Breton is the language. Only 15 years back almost nobody used to speak in that language. Today Breton is taught at schools. There’s a Breton speaking club. There’s a Breton newspaper, Breton radio station, Breton TV station, because suddenly the young people in this country realized that this is “our language”. “Our parents are the last generation with whom this language will die off. So it is our responsibility to revive our language.” And that sense of ownership, that sense of cultural heritage of oneself is the most important, which very sadly is extremely lacking in our country. But it’s not just language or food culture. None of the indigenous sports draw attention of any viewer. It’s only cricket and today it is golf or tennis – these are the games of the richest people. These are the games that attract sponsorship of rich corporations. Most of the rich musical traditions in all states have become eroded. What I’m trying with my very small efforts at Basudha is that we conduct an annual festival of diversity, where we invite local indigenous singers and we criticize them if they use a single modern word or a modern tune. If they do that they are eliminated. So they take special care to revive the real traditional ones, old songs which were completely forgotten by the local people and the singers themselves.

Now, after eight years, I’ve a collection of 200 forgotten songs, which are now being sung. This is one. We’ve reinstituted stilt race ran-pa – 40 young people can now walk on stilts – and the pitcher race for women and many many other things. I’m not saying that just by these tokens we can restore the entire culture, but these are some of the symptoms to prove that you can restore the forgotten culture. I’m not saying that you’ll have to replace football simply because football belongs to England. It’s not that. We’ve to be critically appreciative. We’ve to criticize, at the same time we have to appreciate some of the things that are positive and contributive to our own culture. In this way we’ve restored some of our food cultures too, because they go hand in hand with self esteem and good health, like date palm sap with which we began this discussion. Now in most of the youngsters around Basudha there’s a pocket of resistance. Now Coca Cola and Pepsi sale in 4 villages in that area has come down to zero. Nobody buys these bottles. Rather every winter, these date palm groves are thronged by young people and in the summer, the Palmyra palm sap is enjoyed by everyone. I’m not talking of the fermented ones. Fresh tapped sap. So in this way the food culture is slowly reviving. It may not go to the full length of restoring everything back, but that is the beginning. That should be the beginning. That should be the course of the early educators. And firstly, the educators should be educated. Most of the teachers do not know this, because it is not in the textbooks – the inherent value of this indigenous diversity, whether it is linguistic diversity or genetic diversity or cultural diversity it’s not mentioned in any of the textbooks and therefore it does not matter. So it’s really an uphill task, especially in view of the enormous opposition of the institutions – govt. institutions, the cultural institutions. The cultural institutions would give very high payments to baul singers and indigenous dancers in a New Delhi auditorium before some foreign dignitaries, but then it becomes a commodity.

Whenever a cultural item becomes a commodity, it’s doomed by the market, because it’s no longer attached with the soul of the soil. It’s no longer spontaneous. Then it is manufactured as a commodity to sell in the market for which there’s a coterie of consumers. So Saraikella’s Chhou or Purulia’s chhou has a coterie market in Delhi or Kolkata. For them they manufacture these items. And in the process of this manufacturing they may miss some of its vital elements, because the elite people will not understand the meaning of that particular word. Or it may be too crude, so they eliminate those things. The result is that the remaining part of this Seraikella Chhou is no longer the people’s property. It’s no longer what the people used to cultivate. This is another form of tampering and commodification of cultural entity. When the govt. says that we’re supporting this, it’s that kind of support. Indigenous cultures cannot be restored without restituting their access to and control over their traditional resource base, and the values of the indigenous society.