M. D. Nanjundaswamy

Prof. Mahantha Devaru Nanjundaswamy (1936–2004) was an Indian rural activist and anti-globalisation campaign leader. As president of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (Karnataka State Farmers' Association) he led campaigns against agricultural patenting by multinational companies, which he called "Western biopiracy".^[1]

Background and education

Nanjundaswamy was born on February 13, 1936 in Mysore. He was the fifth child of M. N. Mahantha Devaru and Rajammanni. Mahantha Devaru descended from Madrahalli of T. Narsipura taluq ; he was the first to get the Masters Degree in the State of Mysore. Mahantha Devaru was not only a renowned lawyer but also a Member of Legislative Assembly and Member of Legislative Council of the then Mysore State, for a long period of 26 years. Mahantha Devaru Nanjundaswamy completed his primary education at Hardwick High school. Later he passed the Intermediate exams from Yuvaraj College and applied for Medical Science at the Mysore Medical College. Though he was qualified, due to internal politics, his application was rejected. Then he completed Bachelors in Science in the year 1954 from the University of Mysore. Nanjundaswamy still had the urge to study medical science, he applied for Medical science for the second time. The cruel politics once again played its tricks and he was rejected despite scoring highest marks. This incident couldn’t shake the determined young man. As per his father’s advice, Nanjundaswamy completed his Bachelors in Law(BL) in 1956 from the University of Mysore. Once again, he proved his merit in the year 1961 as he passed Masters in Law (LLM( with a first class from Karnataka University.

The first struggle for honour and self-respect

He went to the Netherlands for higher studies.^[1] With the Ford Foundation Scholarship, he completed the Post-master’s Research work in 1961-62. During the same period, Nanjundaswamy finished Doctoral Work in International Law from the Sar University of the then West Germany. He submitted a thesis which reflected his opposition to the British Law that had been harmful to the honour and respect of India. The then one of the famous scholars of law, Prof. Sidal Huen Weldern, also the Dean of the University, and Maer Hoffer didn’t accept his argument. Upset, Nanjundaswamy left his PhD incomplete and took the job of a receptionist at the Air force base. It was during this period that the Indian Premiere Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru passed away. As a responsible citizen of his country, Nanjundaswamy declared holiday for himself which was mocked at, by his employer. That insult was enough to break his heart. So he resigned his job, left all the things he had bought in that country, rushed to the airport in his Mercedes Benz and left the luxurious car behind. Nanjundaswamy, the epitome of self respect and knowledge, with empty hands and loads of dreams for the progress of farmers of the world flew back to his motherland in the year 1965.

A Movement begins

As soon as he returned to India, Nanjundaswamy started cultivation in the land given to him by his grandfather, Nanjappa. As he stayed abroad for five years, he had lost touch with Kannada. But every day, he started practicing speeches with the corns in his fields which improved his Kannada steadily. His friend K.P. Poornachandra Tejasvi and a relative Sundaresh had already started farming. Nanjundaswami’s Farmer Movement began through his protest against the Levy system at Mysore. It happened for the first time in Karnataka. This struggle was supported by Tejasvi in Chikkamagluru and Sundaresh in Shimoga. Thus the one man farmer movement was converted into a movement of three. This was the first step of the farmer movement.

From 1965 to 1978, Nanjundaswami served as a professor of law in Sharada Vilas College of Law, Mysore, BMS College of Law and Renukacharya College of Law in Bangalore. During this period, he was influenced by a book called ‘Marx, Gandhi and Socialism’ written by the pioneer of socialist movement of India, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. The influence was so strong that he joined the Samajawadi Party, the smallest political party in Karnataka then. As he was not comfortable working with the old prominent leaders of the party like Shantaveri Gopala Gowda, J.H.Patel, K.G.Maheshwarappa and others, Nanjundaswami formed a Youth Association called Samajawadi Yuvajana Sabha in 1968. He served the same as the General Secretary of the State from 1968 to 1972. Gradually Prof. Nanjundaswami was joined by Poornachandra Tejasvi, B.N.Shriram, P.Lankesh, K.Ramdas, N.D.Sundaresh, Kadidalu Shamanna, Prabhu Shankar, G.S.Shivarudrappa (National Poet). Siddharamaiah (Former Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka), M.P.Prakash (Former Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka), Prof. Ravivarma Kumar (Senior Lawyer), T.N. Sitaram (Film Director), Shudra Shrinivasa, K.R.Nagaraj, Siddhalingaiah (Dalit Poet), Agrahara Khrishna Murthy, Prof. Chandrashekhar Patil and many other talented people who were influenced by Nanjundaswami also joined him. However, Prof. Nanjundaswami and Tejasvi played key roles in the association as they used to create programs for the association, giving an ethical touch to the programs that were handled by them. Both of them brought out a book called ‘Lohia Red Book’ which has inspired many political leaders and successfully brought them to the fore. This is a historical record. In 1972, Prof. Nanjundaswami worked as a member of the National Working Committee of the Samajwadi Party headed by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. He also worked as the Editor-in-Chief of the news paper called “Maanava” from 1968–72; it was a Kannada version of the English paper, “Mankind” started by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. He established the Intellectual Association of Karnataka to bring the scientific thinking to practice in Karnataka. He served as a Founder President of the association from 1972-74. Prof. Nanjundaswami joined hands with Dr. A.T.Kovur, a Sri Lankan intellectual of international fame, to expose the fake miracles of the deceptive god men; he started movements against the false miracles. He opposed the blind beliefs like caste system, the existence of god and religion by beginning the movement of Periyar E.V. Ramaswami, an intellectual from Tamil Nadu. Nanjundaswami even organised the Periyar meeting for the first time in Karnataka and continued the movements from 1974-78. He participated in Lok Nayak, Jaya Prakash Narayan’s democratic movement and formed “Nava Nirmana Kranthi” between 1974–75, in Karnataka. During the same period, Nanjundaswami began protests against the Veer Shaiva and Brahmin assemblies.

Many scholars and the avant-garde polished shoes at Gandhi Nagar in Bangalore and collected funds for the victims of earthquake and floods. Prof. Nanjundaswami worked as the legal advisor for the South Indian Small Farmers’ Association in 1966. He established Karnataka Artists and Writers Association to let the people see the social distortion in Kannada Literature. The association was inaugurated in Mysore by the National Poet, Kuvempu and Prof. Nanjundaswami himself was the organizer of the association from 1974-76. In the 70s, he worked as an unsung contributor for the report of L.G. Havanur, who was the first president of the backward commissions.

Farmers’ Movement – the Great Chapter

In 1972, Prof. M. D. Nanjundaswami and K.P. Poornachandra Tejasvi were involved in organizing the South Indian Small Farmers’ Association, which was the first movement of farmers in Karnataka and second in India, in Mudigere of Chikkamagaluru. At the same time, M D N and Tejasvi joined hands with their close friend, N.D. Sundaresh and former Speaker of Legislative Assembly, former minister and senior Gandhian H.S. Rudrappa and established Sugarcane Growers’ Association in Shimoga. Along with this, he started a law college called Socio-legal Services and Research Centre (SLSRC) and became its principal. July 21, 1980 proved a black day for the farmers. Under the rule of the then Chief Minister, R. Gundu Rao, two farmers were shot dead at Naragund and Navilagund of North Karnataka. Both the farmer associations formed by Nanjundaswami came together and constituted a new organisation called “Karnataka State Farmers’ Association”, which was used as a platform to protest against the killings. It was an intense struggle throughout the state. The Gandhian, H. S. Rudrappa became the president of the association and N.D. Sundaresh became the General Secretary.

Nanjundaswami never cared for power or position; he continued as the organiser of the association. He used to drive his Plymouth throughout the state with other leaders and organised the first great conference for farmers in Karnataka under the declaration “To build a new Karnataka” on 2 October 1982, which attracted a massive crowd of ten lakh people. During the conference, 35,000 people were arrested; all the prisons of Karnataka were full. The struggle received more fame than the Quit India movement of 1947. To discard the evils of caste system from his life, Nanjundaswami married Pratima, a Kshatriya Maratha bride. They had a baby girl on 12 March 1981 who was named Chukki and on 12 September 1983 they had a boy who was named Pajje. The names of his children were very different from the usual names which didn’t represent any caste. Thus secularism was successfully advocated by him.

In 1984, the government of Ramakrishna Hegde was disturbing the farmers of a village in Hunasuru of Mysore. When Prof. M. D. Nanjundaswami and his colleagues protested the government’s act, Nanjundaswami, N.D. Sundaresh and K.T. Gangadhar were arrested by the Hunasuru police and released later. In 1985, the farmers of Chikkonahalli of Tumkur district were so influenced by Prof. MDN’s speech that they stripped the policemen. This incident led to the arrest of M D Nanjundaswami, N D Sundaresh, Prof Ravivarma Kumar, Manjunath Datt, Panduranga Vithala, Devaraj and Krishne Gowda in Chikkamagaluru who were sent to Karwar prison. In 1985, the Janata party-run government passed the 101 C Act which meant to seize the properties of farmers. This Act was opposed by Nanjundaswami and team, and there was organized a state wide “Padayaatra” where lakhs and lakhs of farmers participated. Ram Manohar Lohia started a Law College and worked as its principal from 1985-89. There was also a severe protest against the illegal granite mining at Chennapattana of Bangalore rural. It continued without fearing anybody and till the mining was stopped. In 1987, they opposed growing the eucalyptus trees as they were depriving the land of its fertility and minerals. The movement against growing the eucalyptus was named “Don’t grow eucalyptus”.

On March 23, 1987, the first Women’s conference was organised in Karnataka. Many women farmers participated in the conference and protested against the exploitations on them. In the same year, the Farmers’ Association formed “Kannada Desha Paksha” with the support of Kannada, Dalith and Labour organisations. Prof Nanjundaswami and N D Sundaresh were elected President and General Secretary respectively.

In the year 1989, Babagowda Patil was elected to the Legislative Assembly from Kittur and Dharwad rural constituency. Later when Babagowda Patil resigned from Dharwad constituency, Prof Nanjundaswami contested from that constituency for the rural by-election and won with great majority. He became the voice of the farmers in the Assembly. In the same year, he conducted a unique laughter movement against the Congress government in front of the Vidhana Soudha.

In 1992, Prof Nanjundaswami became the Legislator and played an important role in procuring good rate for sugarcane on the basis of Recovery. He was instrumental in many developments in his Dharwad rural constituency which were ten times the developments in other constituencies. The developments included drinking water facility, roads, building schools and especially providing plots of land to thousands of people was the most memorable contribution of Nanjundaswami. He proposed the meeting of farmers of both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as a necessary step towards solving the Kaveri water problem; it was a very significant suggestion given by him in the assembly. Nanjundaswami opposed the Congress government yet again because the government had organised the International Film Festival when Karnataka was affected by drought. He opposed GATT’s director, Peter Sutherland’s visit to India. The protest was held at Delhi with the slogan “Sutherland, go back”.

GATT and Dunkel proposal was opposed by Nanjundaswami in the same way as Mahatma Gandhi opposed the British rule with the Salt Satyagraha. Nanjundaswami named his Satyagraha as “Beeja Satyagraha” which was conducted with the support of the North Indian farmers’ leader Mahendra Singh Tikayat at the Boat club in New Delhi on March 3, 1993. In the same year on October 2, he organized the International conference and seminar for the Beeja Satyagraha in Bangalore. Nanjundaswami attacked the multi-national seeds company called Cargil Seeds both in Bangalore and Bellary as they were harmful to the progress of farmers. In the same year, a French farmers’ association called Confederation Peyane invited him to France to participate in the protest against GATT. Later, on October 2, 1994, he organised a protest against globalization in Bangalore, for the first time in the world. This protest was supported by stalwarts like Mahendrasing Tikayat and Medha Patkar. In 1995, Nanjundaswami began protest against the chains of fast food like KFC, Pizza Hut, MacDonald’s and others as they were harmful to health; this movement was the first of its kind in the world. Former Union Minister and Environmentalist, Maneka Gandhi also supported the protest. On January 30, the Kentucky chicken fast food centre was attacked by the farmers and the police arrested hundreds of farmers. A week after the attack, Nanjundaswami was also arrested and was released on bail after a month. He was invited to China in the same year to attend the International Farmers conference. Later, he had a discussion with associations of Japan, Thailand and Korea to protest against GATT in those countries. In 1995, he opposed globalisation by forming a third world federation and organised the conference at Gandhi Bhavan of Bangalore. He was invited to Malaysia in connection with the same. In 1996, La Via Campacina, the farmers’ association, of Mexico invited Nanjundaswami to its second international conference and elected him the organiser for South Asia. On December 13, 1996, he was invited to Rome to attend the Genetic Resources meet of World Food Organisation (FAO). After few days of this meet, he protested against World Food Conference in front of the FAO office and the protest was called “Hunger gathering”. On 30 January 1996, Nanjundaswami conducted a National level conference to fight for farmers’ rights. The conference was organised at the Bangalore National college ground. He also expressed an intense protest against the Miss World contest held in Bangalore.

In June 1996, Prof Nanjundaswami was invited by the UN to attend an agricultural conference.

In 1997, he was given Dr. Jachani Humanity Award for his contribution in the field of agriculture and farmers association. In fact, Nanjundaswami was forced by the Nidumamidi mutt to accept the award.

In 1997, Prof Nanjundswami gave an interview to a private television channel during the Conference of World Food Organisation. An organisation called STATI UNITI DEL MONDO (SUM) was so impressed by his interview that it put forward a proposal of establishing a big bank of seeds with international standards under his initiative. He agreed to this offer. Nanjundaswami established public charities called ‘Amritabhoomi’ on a 200 acre land at Chamrajpet. He celebrated the 50th Independence day as a ‘Black day’ because according to him, farmers had not received their freedom yet. He and Maneka Gandhi together struggled against Cogentrix and Enron in Chikkamagaluru. Members of Brazil’s world famous movement of farmers, “Muvi Mentho Samterra (MST)” invited Prof Nanjundaswami to Brazil. The farmers’ movement of Chile too invited him and organised a public speech. He organised a big conference and an International seminar in Hyderabad to oppose the World Trade Organisation.

As Prof Nanjundaswami always hated idolization, he rejected the “Right Livelihood” award, which is called “Alternative Nobel Prize”, in the year 1997. He did not mention the news even to the media. In 1997, the UN invited him on behalf of the International farmers’ association La Via Campacina to the Convention on Biological Diversity conference at its headquarters in New York, USA.

In 1998, Prof Nanjundaswami opposed the Terminator technology of the seeds’ company called Monsanto; he burnt the poisonous and environmentally harmful BT cotton in Raichur. The prestigious Aaga Khan foundation invited him to the UN for the second time. He and the La Via Campacina association together formed a youth organisation called “People’s Global Action (PGA)” in Europe through which they opposed the World Trade Organisation summit.

In 1999, Prof Nanjundaswami proved to be a trail blazer in many respects because he, along with 400 members of the Farmers’ Association went to Europe and protested in front of the multinational companies like Nestle, Cargil, Novartis, Bear, surrounded the G-8 summit in order to coerce, protest in front of the World Trade Organisation and Swiss bank, destroyed the crops of Monsanto in France and protested in front of FAO.

Nanjundaswami conducted the second International conference of PGA in the folk land, Channapattana of Bangalore rural. He and Josay Boave of France together took a huge procession against the WTO summit at Seattle, USA. In 2000, Nanjundaswami protested against the globalisation and liberal import policy at Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Later, he and K T Gangadhar were invited to the Farmers’ Movement at Honduras in America.

Again in 2000, Prof Nanjundaswami along with Lavia Campacina organised the world’s first women farmers’ conference and world’s third International Farmers’ Conference at Channapattana. He also organised the World Farmers’ Great Conference at National College ground, Bangalore on October 2, 2000.

On March 3, 2000, FAO invited him to Rome to attend the Genetic Resources Meet for the second time. He opposed the meaningless policy of electricity and also the bad condition of electricity supply to the farmers by organising a protest in front of the KPTCL office. Then he organised a big conference of farmers at Cubbon Park in Bangalore.

He and Chaudhari Mahendrasingh Tikayat together burnt the environmentally harmful crops BT cotton at Savalangi village in Shimoga. A disciplined team of young farmers called “Green Army” was formed. The UN invited Prof Nanjundaswami for the third time to the conference in Connection with Biological Diversity on May 5, 2000. Paul Nicolson from Bosch and Nettie Weeb, who was the president of Canada’s National Farmers’ Union, were also present at the conference. In 2001, Nanjundaswami conducted the first World Farmers’ Martyrdom day at Bijapur. Similar to Gandhiji’s Dandi march, he arranged for the Cart march of the farmers from Kashmir to Kanyakumari to protest against the central government’s import policy, which stressed more on unlimited import. Mahendrasingh Tikayat led the Cart march from Kashmir and Nanjundaswami led the march at Kanyakumari. Then they surrounded the Mumbai port and threw all the imported goods into the sea. In connection with the same, he organized a conference of farmers at Delhi. The coconut trees of farmers of Karnataka were affected by some strange disease that made the trees look as though they had been eaten by insects; coconut growing farmers had to face financial loss. Prof Nanjundaswami started a movement of extracting sweet sap or Neera from coconut trees at Arasikere of Hasan from the fields of Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, who was also a farmer leader. The Congress-run government tried to stop the movement by getting two farmers shot by the police at Channapattana’s Vithalenahalli. But the movement grew intense. The government was forced to let the farmers extract the sweet sap from the trees and H D Devegowda (JD (S) leader, former Chief Minister of Karnataka and Prime Minister of India) misused the movement to revive his political career.

The then Union Agriculture minister, Ajith Singh in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government had asked Prof Nanjundaswami to be the President of the National Farmers Commission. But he rejected the position.

He organised a world farmers’ conference at Bangalore with lakhs and lakhs of farmers participating in it. The conference was organised to oppose World Trade Organisation’s summit at Doha on October 2, 2001 and to strengthen the sweet sap movement. Cherie Honcal, President of Kensington Welfare Rights Union and her companions; Sharath Fernando of Sri Lanka and Choudhari Mahendrasingh Tikayat from North India had attended the conference. The Labour Association and Kannada Associations of Karnataka had also supported the cause.

In 2002, Nanjundaswami and the farmers attacked the place in Davanagere, where the Monsanto company was doing research on BT cotton and burnt the crops. He opposed the BT cotton at Bangalore through a big protest. On April 17, the World Farmers’ Martyrdom day, he organised a National level Farmers’ Conference at Dharwad to oppose the work done by the Monsanto Company. Choudhari Mahendrasingh Tikayat and the leader of Tamil Nadu, Selva Muthu also participated in the conference. Prof Nanjundaswami slapped a Chief Engineer of KPTCL as he had demanded bribe from the poor farmers at Arasikere in Hassan. The police arrested Nanjundaswami, produced him at the court and later released him on bail.

He wanted the electricity supply to be of good quality and equally distributed to all the rural and urban regions; so he posed a strike in front of the KPTCL in Bangalore for 20 days.

Prof Nanjundaswami and the farmers surrounded the KPTCL offices all over Karnataka and returned the electricity meters. This was a strong opposition to the inequality in the distribution of electricity, impractical policy of electricity and supply of third-rate electricity. In 2002, he inaugurated the Amruta land.

In order to make the central government realise the rights of farmers and to oppose the WTO summit at Cancun, Prof Nanjundaswami, together with Mahendrasingh Tikayat organised a big conference at Kisan Ghat in Delhi.

On January 30, 2003, he organised a Gram Swaraj movement at Hospet of Bellary in order to stop the increasing suicides of the farmers in the country and to change the existing government. Prof Nanjundaswami took a decision to establish a market where farmers’ goods could be supplied directly without any mediators or agents; he also decided to sell the products of the farmers with the banner ‘Namdu’, which was suggested by film star Rajini Kanth. He began a protest against the illegal mining of granite stone at Chamaraj Nagar.

On 17 April 2003, Prof Nanjundaswami celebrated the World Farmers’ Martyrdom day in Davanagere; Rajendra Singh, who was a Magsaysay winner, was the chief guest on this auspicious occasion.

Many farmers were beaten; some senior civilians were also assaulted and a woman was aborted as a result of the lathi charge by the police at Hirebaganaal village. This was an angry reply to the movement of returning the electricity meters at Koppal. To oppose this heinous act of the Congress government, Prof Nanjundaswami organised a state level protest at Koppal where thousands of meters were returned. He also organised a workshop for farmers at Mudhol of Bagalkot where farmers could learn to repair their transformers all by themselves.

He began a movement against the online lottery centres at Davanagere and spread the movement all over the state. On 9 September 2003, he organised a huge rally in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Bangalore to oppose the WTO summit at Cancun.

On 11 September 2003, the environmentally harmful Monsanto seeds were brought inside the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Prof Nanjundaswami and a team of farmers attacked the institute and destroyed the laboratory. He also opposed the cancellation of grace marks for rural students by the Congress government and declared the grace marks as marks of respect.

Though he was suffering from lung cancer, Prof. Nanjundaswami constituted an alternative forum – Mumbai Resistance - against the World Social Forum conference that took place at Mumbai. He also arranged a huge exhibition at New Delhi. Prof M D Nanjndaswami, Justice Pramila Nesargi, film actor Ashok, Gandhian Satyavrata, P V Narayan and other supporters fought for social justice in education before the High Court of Bangalore; as a result, all of them were arrested and released later.

Battling death for a long time, he breathed his last on 3 February 2004. Lakhs of farmers and foreign farmer leaders participated in the historical funeral of Prof MDN. His body was buried in his dream land – Amruta Bhoomi. Farmers across the country paid tribute to the great soul. In 2004, members of the poor people’s movement called Kensington Welfare Rights Union in America paid tribute to their favourite revolutionary leader by wearing green shawls. The Forth International Conference organized by Lavia Campacina in June 2004 in Brazil was dedicated to Prof MDN. On 13 February 2005, on the 69th birth anniversary of Prof MDN, farmers of Karnataka organised a conference - “Gram Swarajya Pratijna Dina” - at Mysore to pay tribute to him. In the Fifth International Conference of Lavia Campacina, which took place in October 2008 at Mozambic in Africa, they once again paid tribute to Prof MDN.

Thus, as a source of encouragement to many revolutionary leaders of the world, and a prominent personality in the struggle against globalisation through his ideals, principles and popular struggles, Prof MDN has been glowing as a lamp of inspiration in the hearts of many farmers. He was a miracle born on the soil of Kannada land.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Assayag, Jackie (2005). "Seeds of Wrath: Agriculture Biotechnology and Globalization". In Jackie Assayag, Christopher John Fuller. Globalizing India: perspectives from below. Anthem Press. pp. 71–73. ISBN 9781843311959. 

Persondata
Name	Nanjundaswamy, M. D.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1936
Place of birth
Date of death	2004
Place of death