The cornerstone of Israel's success lies in its pioneering desalination technology. However, a multitude of other equally significant measures have contributed to Israel's water turnaround. Awareness generation and education campaigns attempted to sensitise the people of the water scarcity, explaining and justifying the mitigating steps. Recognising the excessive water outflows into agriculture, a multi-faceted strategy was undertaken. A staggering 80% of Israel's wastewater is recycled for irrigation. This saves freshwater resources, both from diversions to irrigation and from the potential contamination of wastewater. Open water canals were replaced with pipes. Simcha Blass’s modern drip irrigation system was extensively adopted.2 Israel, today, boasts the highest crop per drop ratio in the world.3 

In stark contrast to Israel's holistic approach, India's water management strategies have traditionally followed a supply-centric model, seeking to augment water supply through a command and control relationship with nature. This is done through large scale river interlinking and dam construction projects that attempt to train the river. Despite being endowed with relatively abundant water resources, India is staring at an impending water crisis. Projections show that India will have only 50% of the water it needs by 2030.4 90% of Indian freshwater is used in agriculture.5 Additionally, it fares poorly in agriculture water utilisation efficiency.6 

For a country that uses almost all of its freshwater very inefficiently in agriculture, laws to conserve water in the agricultural sector are wholly absent. Surprisingly, stringent measures are enforced in the sectors where the scope for conservation is minimal - industry and utility sectors account for 5% of the national water use.7 There is an urgent need to address these gaps.

Water should be treated as a flow instead of a stock of material resource as is done by the hitherto water policies in India. River basins should be the unit of governance.8 Water rights should be separated from land rights. A system of water markets can be explored for efficient allocation of water resources. A paradigm shift in policy that adopts a systems approach to water management is necessary.

The first step towards this shift came in the form of the Draft National Water Policy of 2022. The Ministry of Jal Shakti, for the first ever time, set up a committee of independent experts led by Dr Mihir Shah, to draft this policy. The committee submitted its recommendations in 2022. The draft policy inculcates a multi-stakeholder approach operating within the natural contours of nature.9  

With water being a state subject, the draft National Water Policy is for the states to adopt. On the plus side, there are government initiatives facilitating wider adoption of drip irrigation. Newer irrigation projects are using pipes instead of canals for better efficiency. However, river linking and dam construction projects are still actively being pursued in various parts of the country. The Ken-Betwa linking project was awarded the final clearance last month. Godavari-Krishna and Penna-Cauvery projects are under consideration. Cauvery-Vaigai-Gundar project's land acquisitions are underway. 

The draft policy presents a promising vision. Its effectiveness hinges on decisive action. With some political will and collective effort, India can overcome its water challenges and emerge as a water-secure nation. 

Not when it comes to water. Agricultural export, especially of water-intensive crops, is a proxy for water export. Every kilogram of rice production needs 3000-5000 litres of water. Exporting rice represents a permanent loss of freshwater resources from the country.3 This globalisation of local water is a strategy that many countries are taking advantage of, and India is getting the short end of the stick.  

Rice or paddy is not the only example. Sugarcane is another water-guzzling crop that India exports a lot of - second rank this time.4 Only behind Brazil, which stands at first. However, Brazil has the luxury of having the highest volume of freshwater - 12% of the world's total for 2.75% of the global population.5 India, on the other hand, has merely 4% of the global freshwater resources for 18% of the world's population. According to the FAO, 90% of this water is used in agriculture.6

India is sleepwalking towards an impending crisis. By 2030, India will be left with just 50% of the water it needs.7 This is a threat with catastrophic repercussions - the worst in our history and will disproportionately affect farmers.

Punjab and Haryana are a major rice belt today. They are not ecologically suited to growing paddy. Traditionally, they did not engage in its cultivation at a large scale. It began five decades ago, after the Green Revolution. Today, three-fourths of the rice farms in the region use tube wells for irrigation - drawing large amounts of groundwater using powerful motors.8 According to the Central Ground Water Board, the water table in the region is dangerously low, and water extraction far exceeds the replenishment rate.9

Despite these drawbacks, growing paddy is the only worthwhile choice there because of the low risk and guaranteed returns resulting from the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and procurement policies of the government. These policies were necessary to address the immediate problems of food insecurity in India during the 1960s and 1970s. Sugarcane has its own version of MSP as well in the form of Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP). Five decades later, they have had massive unintended consequences resulting in terrible market distortions.

"Along with paddy cultivation, a system of agriculture was imposed on us," says Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president of one of the largest farmers' groups in Punjab. "Farmers had to buy new machinery, fertilisers, and pesticides. A new market system was also introduced. Now, farmers can't go back to growing other crops. Efforts to grow fruits, vegetables, and cotton have proved economically unviable. We even cultivated green gram as the government promised to buy it. No procurement has taken place yet."10

These circumstances are not limited to the northwestern parts of India. They extend across the country and adversely affect many regions like the Krishna and Cauvery basins in the south and Upper Ganga basin in the north. Rice is grown as an irrigated crop during the non-monsoon season here. The result has been a relentless exploitation of surface and ground water resources. Various interstate water disputes including Punjab-Haryana and Karnataka-Tamil Nadu conflicts; and even international disputes like the India-Bangladesh dispute over the transboundary Teesta river, find their roots in improper water management resulting from unsustainable agriculture practices.11

Indian rice exports are the most competitive in the world due to the lowest prices. It is cheaper than it should be because of the colossal overproduction that occurs due to government interventions imposed on the entire market. The hidden social costs are in the form of the invisible water exports. This borne by the entire country, disproportionately so by the farmers. 

Rice and wheat have long been staples of the Indian diet. However, their hegemonic position on our plates has only gained prominence in recent decades, at the expense of other grains. To understand the origins of this shift, one must delve into the early years of our Republic.

Hunger dictates policy

The Indian Republic was born hungry. While the people starved during the Bengal famine of 1943, the British diverted supplies from India to support the war effort. With the partition, India lost a significant portion of its foodgrain-producing belts in Punjab and East Bengal. 

In 1946, the Interim Government took control of British India, with Rajendra Prasad as Minister of Food and Agriculture. After independence, one of the first things Prasad did included raising the flag at the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) declaring that India’s most pressing task would be to conquer hunger. In the ensuing years, the experiment with collective farming yielded underwhelming results, while land reforms further fragmented landholdings, severely impacting agricultural productivity.1

Following a slew of failed food policies in the 1950s, India embarked on the Green Revolution as a means of achieving food security. The government actively promoted the cultivation of high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat through minimum support price (MSP) and procurement policies.

The MSP for rice and wheat grew far more rapidly than that of crops like millets, incentivizing farmers to cultivate these grains even in regions where they were not traditionally consumed.2 This proved effective in addressing Indian food security challenges in the short term. Decades later, these policies in the present context are not sustainable.

Millets Faded into Obscurity

In the years preceding the Green Revolution, millets accounted for 40% of all cultivated grains in India. Today, their share has dwindled to around 6% of the total foodgrain output. Meanwhile, rice production has doubled, and wheat production has tripled in the country. This shift was accompanied by a transformation in the attitudes of urban Indian consumers. Millets, once an integral part of our diet, were relegated to the category of coarse grains, perceived as inferior to the more refined rice and wheat. Millet flour was replaced by wheat flour, and rice became the default grain for direct consumption.3 

The decline in millets consumption also meant the loss of their significant nutritional benefits. Apart from being gluten-free, millets are rich sources of calcium, iron, protein, magnesium, vitamin B3, and fiber.4 The advantages of millets over rice and wheat extend beyond cultural nostalgia and nutritional superiority. This aspect will be explored in an upcoming newsletter.

Resurgence of Millets

Today, millets are experiencing a revival. The government is actively promoting their consumption through various programs targeting all stakeholders, ranging from a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for millets-based food processing industries to promoting millets on the global stage during India's G20 Presidency.5 The UN has declared 2023 as the Year of Millets. 

As India faces a growing diabetes epidemic, urban populations are increasingly incorporating millets into their diets. Embracing the healthy tag, many restaurants are fashioning millet-based dishes as rustic offerings in their menus. Their popularity is only expected to rise.

Perhaps, grandparents will soon be feeding their grandchildren millets again, if they aren't already.

On the western coast of the Indian subcontinent, by the river Tapi, lies the city of Surat. In the 17th C, Surat was a bustling port, teeming with artisans, traders and sailors. Hailed as a cosmopolitan emporium of the Indian empire, its docks were littered with Indian, Chinese, Persian and Southeast Asian ships.¹ Through the 18th C, however, Surat was in a state of decline. By 19th C, it had become a languid coastal town with a population of a mere 80,000 people.²

Surat wasn’t the only Indian city to undergo de-urbanisation. Prominent urban centres like Machilipatnam, Srirangapatna and many others also couldn’t endure the colonial era. The economic policies of the British impoverished the Indian society. They created and sustained a de-industrialised and de-urbanised economy - rebuffing all the economic and social benefits that come with it. The result was a largely rural, agricultural, impoverished society with deep economic and social inequalities.

While striving for self-rule, the leaders of the Indian independence movement had to garner the support of​​ the masses. They assured the people that the end of the British rule would be the end of their woes. The people recognised that it was the State that created the terrible socioeconomic conditions, that the State had to undo these conditions for things to improve. Consequently, the public’s thoughts went a step beyond - the idea that the State itself had to create better socioeconomic outcomes took hold. A tendency to lean on the State had developed already. When independence came on 15th August 1947, it came with a lot of hope and expectations. However, the promises made were too great.

Ideological Winds

Every nation, at its birth, is shaped by its founding political leaders. And those political leaders are shaped by the prevailing ideological winds of​ their time. Thinkers like John Locke dominated the ideological moorings of the American founding fathers. His liberal ideas of strong individual freedom and property rights find a direct mention in the US Declaration of Independence.

On the other hand, some of the most influential voices during and after the Indian Independence struggle were socialists. The Indian leaders were educated in the era of Marxian thought and the Russian revolution while being under the repressive colonial clasps of a liberal nation. It is no surprise that Socialism appealed to them. Socialist thought emphasised the equality of outcomes rather than opportunity. It lay the responsibility of ensuring this with the State.

Thus, the Constitution became the tool with which these political leaders set out to honour those unfulfilled promises. The Constitution became a tool for social revolution. 

Works Cited

Britannica. “Surat | Textile Hub, Trading Port, Gujarat.” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Surat. Accessed 19 October 2023.

Haynes, Douglas E., and Frank Conlon. “Rhetoric and Ritual in Colonial India: The Shaping of a Public Culture in Surat City, 1852–1928.”, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270991245_Rhetoric_and_Ritual_in_Colonial_India_The_Shaping_of_a_Public_Culture_in_Surat_City_1852-1928_By_Douglas_E_Haynes_Berkeley_University_of_Calfornia_Press_1991_xi_363_pp_4295. Accessed 19 October 2023.

Centred around J. Robert Oppenheimer, the movie tells its tale mainly through three phases of his life - a young student, finding his place in his world; an ambitious physicist tasked with creating an atom bomb; and finally an older man reeling silently to cope with the consequences of his successes. The subtle, yet discernible differences in the psyche of the man in each stage makes for some powerful storytelling.

Watching a young Oppenheimer in Europe grappling with his thoughts, with Ludwig Goransson playing in the background just hits differently. It was a phase of his life that I could relate with the most.

We see Oppenheimer’s thoughts keeping him up at night, his troubled by visions of a hidden universe. This might be attributed to Oppenheimer’s character in particular - the pondering type. But I like to think it is Nolan pointing to the burdens of a physicist’s mind. Comprehension of the complexities of quantum physics and molecular physics can lay bare some fundamentals about the world we live in that can be hard to come to terms with. It is the same reason we all experience a short identity crisis after a visit to the planetarium. I can only imagine how Oppenheimer must have felt, fully and forever drowned in this world, on a much larger scale. Though his homesickness definitely adds to it all, the glimpse of passion at the prospect of attending Bohr’s lecture shows that he was exactly where he wanted to be.

The sweeping shots of Harvard and Göttingen are awe-inspiring. Historic centres of learning always are. Looking at them as communities that nurtured and shaped some great scientific minds of our time brings an added layer of veneration.

After his return to America, I could see his poise that came with being on home turf - driven, boastful and self-assured. Before the war, his inquisitive attitude also comes through with his inquiries into various contemporary issues. A curiously uninformed person until the 1930s, bring a New Yorker, Oppenheimer did not know about the 1929 Wall Street crash until 6 months after the fact. This changed after his European days. For instance, he displayed strong opinions about the Spanish civil war. He was well read and delved into various subjects.

He never restricted himself to one discipline at the cost of another. During his lectures, he was known to often jump from one topic to another. He would also abandon physics months on end while he studied something else that interested him, like philosophy.

Raised in a non-observant Jewish family of New York, the Bhagavad Gita was a spiritual crutch to him. He would unfailingly turn to the Gita and quote from it on many occasions. His interest in the leftist ideology and the resulting associations at the time go on to become a major talking point during his security hearing later on.

The transition to wartime and the beginning of arms race changes the mood of the movie, bringing in a specific direction and purpose to Oppenheimer’s scientific vision, culminating in Los Alamos.

The organisation of the town and its personnel showcased the capabilities and willpower of American wartime bureaucracy. Matt Damon was enjoyable to watch as the intrepid soldier-in-charge attempting to balance secrecy and efficiency. He displayed clear weariness at the lack of discretion on the part of the scientists. Yet, he extended a long leash to allow them to operate as per their preferences. The subtle portrayal of this high trust society within a low trust wartime government was great.

Oppenheimer was shown as the lead scientist-manager who brings all the players together. This cues in my first criticism of the movie. I failed to notice the inspiration or genius from Oppenheimer in this stage. For all the praise as the father of the atom bomb, his role in the movie felt unsubstantiated. I am sure it wasn’t in reality. He directed the Manhattan Project with a combination of his intellect, leadership and charisma. He was known to be able to instinctively grasp the core of the issues that surfaced, manage egos and create synergies in the teams. I wish we got to see more of this.

The lead up to Trinity and its eventual execution was a high point in the movie. The deafening silence during the explosion ensued by the delayed sound was reminiscent of witnessing a fiery lightning before thunder arrives. It redefined the terror of a nuclear explosion that I had not wholly acknowledged.

Becoming the dividing line of his life, Trinity test marks Oppenheimer’s shift in perspective about nuclear weapons. We see cracks in his beliefs. Until that point, he was aware of the concerns his colleagues voiced about the atomic bombs. However, he believed in seeing it through and also believed it wasn’t his place to deliberate upon their future use. After the tests, an unease crept into his mind.

From Trinity to the Japanese atomic bombings, he goes from denial to unease to abject horror. I cannot imagine a human soul ever coming to terms with the fact that they created the bomb responsible for taking the lives of at least a hundred thousand people. And I don’t think Oppenheimer ever did.

This abstract movie had many elements including one of a biopic and a political thriller. However, this particular bit was purely horror. The crowds cheering during Oppenheimer’s address overlapped with the sound of a lone scream gave me a psychological jump scare. I can’t believe how convincing Cillian was in these parts.

The gravity of many moments are communicated simply by a close up shot of Oppenheimer’s face: the loading of Fat Man and Little Boy into trucks headed for the Western Pacific for instance. Cillian manages to get so much across. His performance was superb.

Oppenheimer’s self-appointed role as an intellectual liberal, advocating international cooperation for nuclear arms control was his way of taking responsibility for giving fission bombs to the world. I marvelled at the conviction it takes for a person in his position to use his voice in that manner at that period in US history. I cannot imagine the political enemies he made along the way. In hindsight, it is one of the most courageous examples of freedom of expression and dissent.

The motivated actions of the State and Levi Strauss to delegitimise Oppenheimer through a rigged legal process, shown since the start of the movie, then begins to make clearer sense. Robert Downey Jr. gave a phenomenal performance. Coupled with the tight script and dialogues, I have spent a long time trying to catch all the elusive shades of his character sprinkled throughout his screen time before the reveal of his true motives. His insistence that he’s an Admiral despite being a reserve and his repeated references to how Oppenheimer soured Einstein on him comes to mind.

Despite being a star studded cast, every performance was restrained and impactful. I absolutely loved Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer. She brought out the enormous agency and conviction that Kitty possessed, which was a big factor in Oppenheimer’s achievements and survival. Many things come to light through the prism of her incisive insight into many things including Oppenheimer himself and his reasons for silently accepting the attacks on his credibility.

Borden recollects flying on a plane during the world war when he saw a German missile whiz by, headed for Britain. The helplessness and horror of that moment. Oppenheimer often imagined himself in that plane watching numerous nuclear ICBMs as they pass above him, enough to destroy the world. Such a powerful image.

The fear surrounding the possibly self-sustaining chain reaction from an atomic explosion that could ignite the entire atmosphere, when first presented, was terrifying to comprehend. Putting it to rest in the literal sense and then, resurrecting the idea figuratively hammered the point home. What have we done.