Failure to ask for a rural environmental agenda is fundamentally a failure to grasp the colossal lack of ecological security that is rapidly declining with time in the countryside. It will be too naive to imagine that this inglorious forgetfulness is an accident. It may not be out of place to remember that one major change is increasingly visible globally - most public decisions are becoming business decisions. Any reader having any doubt about this postulate is requested to refer to the profile below enlisting the priorities for those who run the world.

UNDP deservesapplause for bringing out so unambiguously the strength and solidarity of business interest vis-a-vis public need.

Interestingly, UNDP, in its latest Human Development Report has given a call for a second green revolution for the world's poorest. A note of caution follows which says that this should not just repeat the first revolution - "it needs to aim at increasing yields and incomes and at preserving and developing the environmental base." We in India may entitle ourselves to assess the merit of such suggestions keeping in mind the horror that the first green revolution has unleashed on our agriculture. A closer scrutiny of the first green revolution will be a legitimate enquiry to begin with. It is true, temporarily though, that the first green revolution considerably enhanced the grain output of the country. After the initial years of success, farmers were using chemical fertilisers desperately and indiscriminately to keep up productivity. As a result, the land has lost humus content and is set tobecome vast tracts of wasteland. There are scientific reports on different aspects of pesticides use that bring to light a scary picture. However, their impact on the Indian population has perhaps still not been properly assessed. It is little understood that the effect on population due to overuse of chemical input spreads all over. This is because the carriers are foodgrains and vegetables produced in the villages that reach the consumers in far-off distances.

Indian villages, only 30 years ago, were self-reliant units that hardly needed help from the world outside to sustain their life and livelihood. Things have changed in many cases beyond redemption. Introduction of seed, fertiliser and pesticides has transformed the countryside to an extent that a `new ecological order' has set in. The alien interventions from far outside village have transformed a reasonably autonomous system into an externally regulated enterprise. In the new order the traditional knowledge of farmers of their productiveecosystem, has been made ineffective. Farmers have nearly lost their heritage, their age-old control over conditions of production as well as means of production. The green revolution has single-handedly caused near-complete surrender of the right to self-determination and autonomy of the village folk. The problem is further aggravated by the fierce promotion of manipulated seeds that are set to deal the most severe blow to our agricultural diversity, rural economy and farmers' freedom. These matters are being negotiated at international regimes like WTO, TRIPs and UPOV. But even in our wildest dreams it is difficult to see the interest of the poorer countries being defended at any level.

If `revolution' is understood as an event where the people gain power, one will also have to recognise `counter revolution' as an event where people lose power. If the rise in grain output deserves to be recorded as first green revolution, it will be an act of dishonesty not to define the simultaneous and devastatingfallout on our farmers and agricultural land, the near total loss of self-reliance and a rich agricultural heritage, as the `first green counter-revolution of India'. Counter-revolution is not any freak of history. The supremely powerful giants of agri-business through their flawless network spread over the villages of India are forcing farmers to enhance use of chemical inputs or to use manipulated seeds in an act of cold-blooded design.

The transition from the limitations of the not-so-good first green revolution to the good second revolution without the defects of the first is not easy. For any such goal to be achieved, it is important to anticipate and assess the barriers. The enemies of the village people, village eco-systems and the country's biological wealth are too powerful to be changed by sporadic efforts of outstanding environmentalists or local organisations. There is enough research that proves beyond doubt the hidden coercion of agri-business interests. There have also been successfulexperiments to restore ecological balance in the degraded lands. But the work of empowering the ecologically handicapped remains a non-starter in the absence of an adequately capable organisation that can provide leadership to uproot the `green counter-revolution' inflicting irreparable damages to our land and bio-diversity resource base. Discussing effects of the first green revolution does not exhaust areas of rural environmental concern. Even after 50 years of independent most villages do not have access to minimum living conditions. An alarming 86 per cent of them has no sanitation and 21per cent have no safe drinking water. No wonder water borne diseases still plague our villages alarmingly. Yet the budget provision for rural sanitation and safe drinking water is less than 2.4 per cent of the total plan expenditure.Source: Economic Survey, 1998

The author is a UN Global 500 laureate and a member of the National Committee on Lakes & Wetlands. He has developed a farmer-centred approach towaste-water utilisation and treatment which is considered a leading option under the Ganga Action Plan