Of creatures great and small

LAST year our cat gave birth to three kittens one gray and two whites. The whites were furry and pretty and the grey was very ordinary. I wanted to keep the two whites but conscience did not permit me to practice apartheid, so I gave away one of the whites, it was easier to find a home for it. A few months later, the white kitten disappeared. Whether it ran away or ended up in somebody's cooking pot, I don't know because there are villagers who relish cat meat. The grey has turned out to be an unbearable menace. Totally fearless, it steals not only milk but eats ripe papayas from my kitchen. It cannot be hunger that drives it to steal because they are fed twice daily, rice and ragi porridge with dry fish or coconut milk added for flavour. Not a bad fare, I would say. Besides there was such a variety of foods available on the farm, rats, squirrels, helpless tiny birds, cockroaches, grasshoppers (and leathery black slugs to tease and play with) that I kept wondering why it should steal from my kitchen! Perhaps cats know by instinct when to eat what food and how much of it, unlike human beings.

No amount of rat poison can dispatch rats as efficiently as a couple of cats but cats fed "two square meals" a day do not hunt as efficiently as the hungry ones. They hunt only when they want variation in their diet. Workers on my farm tell me to starve the cats but that is easier said than done. As a result I end up using rat poison to make up for the inefficiency and laziness of our cats. Rat poison bars that resemble moldy sesame chikki bars are said to be not harmful to birds and insects and are easily available in any pesticide shop.

I have known farmers practicing organic, natural cultivation, vegetarians by descent or by choice being matter-of-fact about eliminating pests without any pangs of conscience. Farmers are rather boastful about the effectiveness of their individual specialised methods in eliminating pests. An organic farmer "disposes" "lowly" creatures such as caterpillars, bugs and slugs, beetles and weevils as far as possible manually, killing them slowly but most surely, if possible one at a time. Farmers have no qualms about using decoction of neem, the yucca or lantana plants, cow's urine, turmeric, garlic, sitaphal seeds, ash, curd, milk, and many other herbal extracts to ward off pests. The knowledge of pesticides handed down to us by our ancients in the form of "traditional knowledge systems" are no less lethal to the lowly creatures as those manufactured in the laboratories of modern science. Of course these home-made recipes for bumping off god's creatures are safe for human beings, to birds, other species of "beneficial" insects and soil organisms and the larger environment. Pests cloud the judgment of the most kind-hearted farmer and no amount of sermonising can convince the farmer of the need for restraint and patient observation before eliminating pests. Farmers resort to spraying pesticides indiscriminately on the entire crop when pests can be controlled by other methods such as inter-cultivation with strong smelling coriander, dill, tulsi, garlic, mint, ginger, marigold and other aromatic plants. Sometimes spraying with chemical pesticides is done routinely in anticipation of pests! If only the agriculture department published books for farmers in simple language with illustrations of all the friendly creatures that inhabits the soil and sky, the farmers would not destroy them mindlessly.

Organic farmers also learn to live with certain types of "lowly" creatures. Frogs, beetles, different kinds of ants, wasps, honeybees, moths, spiders and fruit-eating bats may come straight into the house. It requires a certain amount of tolerance to spare them capital punishment for trespassing. Last monsoon, I noticed hundreds of slugs on our farm. They had not harmed any of the crops but I got really worried after reading that some of the species could be destructive. They left a trail of slime as they travelled, even entered the house especially during monsoon and left shiny marks on the walls. I learnt that the great number of slugs on our farm could be due to the improvement in the soil structure and higher level of moisture retention as a result of our organic farming practices. Healthy soil invites all kinds of creatures that can maintain soil health simply by living. I remember my childhood in a village where soil teemed with life, this was before the coffee planters took to chemical farming. One type of millipede with dark brown stripes when touched, took the shape of a murukku and another much fatter became a round ball. Years later I was very happy to see so many of them near the Auroville plant nursery in Pondicherry where the soil was rich with humus.

I was told there were not many specialists on slugs and snails. It seems the current rage among researchers in agricultural universities is the mite. The mite is carried by the wind and spreads fast. When the coconut mite first made news, farmers dreaded it. It was later proved that the mite could be brought under control by organic pesticides. Riding on the fears of coconut farmers, the Karnataka Government recently purchased Rs. 2 crore worth of Triazphos, a pesticide to contain the mite. News that the Government planned to buy another Rs. 3 crore worth of the pesticide was published by a daily. Activists and farmers are now trying to find ways of stopping the Government from making such purchases in the name of the "farming community". No one knows the whereabouts of the lucky company that struck the deal with the Karnataka Government. Triazphos is a banned pesticide in many countries. These purchases are made when a neem-based safe pesticide has been found to be equally effective in containing the mite.

All this makes me think of agriculture as an inherently violent activity, whether one is organic or chemical, whether vegetarian or non-vegetarian, there is no escaping or dodging the central issue that food production involves violence. Buddhist lore has it that a butcher by name Angulimala confronted by the Buddha about the violent life he leads tells the Buddha that it is not just him alone but his family and the many buyers of meat who are party to the sin. The Buddha suggests the butcher find out from his own family and the buyers of meat whether they consider themselves responsible for the sins committed by him in butchering animals. Angulimala's customers "naturally" refused to take responsibility for the sins. Consumers of food, even vegetarians with holier-than-thou attitudes are like Angulimala's customers who do not want to take responsibility for the sins committed by the policy maker, the pesticide manufacturer and the farmer.

I believe the life of a cow has been very precious to us only because of its importance to our agriculture. When one of our cows was sick with liver fluke, our workers suggested that I sell it to a village community who might buy it. I was shocked that they could think of a sick animal with such serious disease as food for some other community even if the desperately poor people ate carrion at one time. I was more shocked that our workers who worshipped it while it was healthy, bathed and decorated it with kumkum, turmeric and flowers on festivals and enjoyed its milk in the tea every evening could suggest such a thing. Finally when it died the ground was very hard to dig a pit to bury it and I was worried stray dogs might dig it up if it was not buried properly. I gave it away and that was also depressing.

Recently I have been reading a book entitled The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. The book is an eye-opener to anyone who thinks plants do not feel, and more importantly, respond to violence and pain. It is an area of research and line of inquiry that had been explored half a century ago by the eminent Indian scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose. There are no campaigns to protest the chemical warfare against nature especially the plant kingdom, the death of honeybees, butterflies, frogs and birds, the death of so many types of plants classified as weeds.

Women clad in gorgeous silks and saffron-clad sanyasis are motivated by religious sentiments to campaign against the slaughter of cows but see the death of many species of birds, aquatic species, animals and insects - the "lower forms of life" from chemical poisoning as inevitable. I understand genes from pigs are used to strengthen the skin of genetically modified tomatoes that are in competition with chicken-flavoured potatoes in the markets of Europe and the United States, all in the name of genetically modified foods. With such "frankenfoods" entering the market every day where is the dividing line between vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods? I will not be surprised at all if such foods are accepted by a people who celebrate the heroism of the Indian sepoys who broke in mutiny against the British only because the guns they carried were greased with pork and beef fat. I also remember the uproar two decades ago over vanaspati adulterated with beef tallow.

In the village I grew up in pigs and chickens were sacrificed once a year. Many a time the meat-accepting, violent and lower caste deities were installed in "sacred groves" a tradition and practice of which our environmentalists are proud and never tire of holding up such "sacred groves" as models for the conservation of trees.

The most ardent environmentalists will be forced to re-think their position if they have to live in areas frequented by wild boars and if they have to make a living by farming alone. Orange was a major crop for my parents along with coffee. Crows came in great numbers during the fruit season. Estate owners employed little children to scare the crows. When they did not succeed in shooing the birds away, crows were shot dead and hung up to scare away and as a lesson to other crows. The same fate awaited the birds especially sparrows that ate grain. They were scared away by children by beating empty kerosene tins with wooden sticks. Monkeys were considered a menace to farmers because not only did they not eat their fill but also wrought havoc, biting into all the hundreds of pumpkins, gourds, and throwing down all the mangoes without eating a single one fully.

In an ecological sense, I wonder if we can have nature in balance without predator and prey. As children of farmers belonging to a community that was once proud of its hunting traditions, I often ask myself if meat-eating is the culprit and whether meat-eaters are more violent than the non-meat eating humans. I believe, like the cat I mentioned earlier, meat-eating agricultural communities knew how much to cull from nature and practiced laws of self- restraint. I believe practice of any type agriculture, without violence to environment whether to the plant kingdom or to the animal kingdom is impossible. Without a nation of self-restraint, no balance can be maintained. Against all restraint is modern industrial farming methods.

Emphasis on production of certain types of food (especially of grains) in great amounts to feed concentrated populations in towns and cities places great demands on land. This population that does not return any of its wastes back to the land and wants great quantities of food in the supermarket shelves all the time is a burden on nature.

PUSHPA SURENDRA

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