Growing Stories from India: Religion and the Fate of Agriculture [illustrated] 0813134129, 9780813134123

Table of contents :
Introduction..............1
Chapter 1 The Ecological Imagination..............12
Chapter 2 Narratives of Agriculture..............28
Chapter 3 Balaram and the Yamuna River..............56
Chapter 4 Borrowing Balaram..............93
Chapter 5 The Festival of Holi..............121
Chapter 6 The Land in Between..............161

Citation preview

—Ann Grodzins Gold, coauthor of In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan “This important book is an early benchmark for the study of food, culture, and religion. It will endure and be quoted in years to come.” —Christopher Key Chapple, author of Yoga and the Luminous: Patañjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom CULTURE OF THE LAND A Series in the New Agrarianism Series Editor: Norman Wirzba

A. WHITNEY S A N F O R D , , associate professor of religion at the University of Florida, is the author of Singing Krishna: Sound Becomes Sight in Paramanand’s Poetry.

GROWING STORIES FROM INDIA

The challenge of balancing humanity’s immediate needs with the welfare of the broader biological community and our own future is a complex problem that cannot be answered by technology alone. Growing Stories from India demonstrates a unique approach to industrial agriculture that shows that our current paradigm is only one of many options. Engaging the works of modern agrarian luminaries such as Wendell Berry, Frederick Kirschenmann, and Wes Jackson to explore alternative agricultural philosophies, Sanford affirms that agriculture can be redefined as a practice of restoration and renewal.

“This book is highly significant for its stunning cross-cultural leaps that work. Sanford’s call to environmentalists to turn their minds from wilderness to agriculture is of enduring significance.”

Religion and the Fate of Agriculture

encourages us to reconsider patterns of reciprocity, mutual obligation, and domination in agricultural methods. Merely creating new stories is not enough—she asserts that each story must lead to changed practices and reveals how even tragic stories may be revisited and reinvented as a means of addressing ecological issues.

AGRICULTURE

SANFORD

(CONTINUED FROM FRONT FLAP)

d

GROWING STORIES FROM

Religion and the Fate of Agriculture

Cover photo by Pradyumna P. Karan Jacket design by Jen Huppert Design

KENTUCKY

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

A. WHITNEY SANFORD FOREWORD BY VANDANA SHIVA

d

GROWING STORIES FROM

Religion and the Fate of Agriculture A. WHITNEY SANFORD

The costs of industrial agriculture are astonishing in terms of damage to the environment, serious human health problems, decreased social equity, and animal suffering. These circumstances demand that we expand our ecological imagination in search of viable solutions. In response to growing dissatisfaction with the existing food system, farmers and consumers are creating alternative models of production and consumption that are both sustainable and equitable. In Growing Stories from India: Religion and the Fate of Agriculture, author A. Whitney Sanford examines the global food crisis and illustrates the value of Hindu contributions to agrarian thought with a perceptive reading of a traditional folktale. In the story, a deity named Balaram pursues the Yamuna River, which is personified as a goddess. Angered by the goddess’s rejection, Balaram uses his plow to drag the river toward him. Although Balaram is credited with providing water to the region, the violence of his actions raises valid questions about our sense of entitlement to the earth’s bounty. By employing narrative as a framework for the discussion of modern agriculture and the food crisis, Sanford (CONTINUED ON BACK FLAP)

Growing Stories from India

Culture of the Land A Series in the New Agrarianism This series is devoted to the exploration and articulation of a new agrarianism that considers the health of habitats and human communities together. It demonstrates how agrarian insights and responsibilities can be worked out in diverse fields of learning and living: history, science, art, politics, economics, literature, philosophy, religion, urban planning, education, and public policy. Agrarianism is a comprehensive worldview that appreciates the intimate and practical connections that exist between humans and the earth. It stands as our most promising alternative to the unsustainable and destructive ways of current global, industrial, and consumer culture.

Series Editor Norman Wirzba, Duke University, North Carolina

Advisory Board Wendell Berry, Port Royal, Kentucky Ellen Davis, Duke University, North Carolina Patrick Holden, Soil Association, United Kingdom Wes Jackson, Land Institute, Kansas Gene Logsdon, Upper Sandusky, Ohio Bill McKibben, Middlebury College, Vermont David Orr, Oberlin College, Ohio Michael Pollan, University of California at Berkeley, California Jennifer Sahn, Orion Magazine, Massachusetts Vandana Shiva, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, India Bill Vitek, Clarkson University, New York

GROWING STORIES FROM INDIA Religion and the Fate of Agriculture A. WHITNEY SANFORD Foreword by Vandana Shiva

The University Press of Kentucky

Copyright © 2012 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com 16 15 14 13 12

5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sanford, A. Whitney, 1961– Growing stories from India : religion and the fate of agriculture / A. Whitney Sanford ; foreword by Vandana Shiva. p. cm. — (Culture of the land) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8131-3412-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8131-3413-0 (ebook) 1. Alternative agriculture—Philosophy. 2. Agriculture—India—Religious aspects. 3. Food supply—Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series: Culture of the land. S494.5.A65S26 2011 630.954—dc23 2011034351 This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses

For my husband Kevin, my best friend and partner in this journey

Contents

List of Illustrations

viii

Foreword

ix

Introduction

1

1. The Ecological Imagination: From Paradigm to Practice

12

2. Narratives of Agriculture: How Did We Get Here?

28

3. Balaram and the Yamuna River: Entitlement and Presumptions of Control

56

4. Borrowing Balaram: Alternative Narratives

93

5. The Festival of Holi: Celebrating Agricultural and Social Health

121

6. The Land in Between: Constructing Nature, Wilderness, and Agriculture

161

7. Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair: Revising the Ecological Imagination

194

Acknowledgments

225

Notes

227

Bibliography

241

Index

257

Illustrations

Map of Baldeo and India

61

Picture of Balaram painted on a Dauji Temple wall

68

Picture of Revati painted on a Dauji Temple wall

74

Throwing color from the temple roof

133

Image of Balaram in Dauji Temple

135

Singing samaj for Balaram

141

Parading the jhand through town

143

Piled wood and govar before the bonfire

145

Throwing a bucket of color

150

Carrying the jhands during Huranga

151

Weighing and distributing prasad after Holi

152

Foreword

I am writing this foreword in Patna, Bihar. Bihar is where Sir Albert Howard was sent in 1905 by the British Empire to “improve” Indian agriculture. When Howard came to Pusa in 1905 as the imperial economic botanist to the government of India, he found that crops grown by cultivators in the neighborhood of Pusa were free of pests and needed no insecticides or fungicides. “I decided that I could not do better than watch the operations of these peasants and acquire their traditional knowledge as rapidly as possible,” he wrote in An Agricultural Testament ([Goa: Other India Press, 1940], 164). “I regarded them as my professors of agriculture. Another group of instructors were obviously the insects and fungi themselves. The methods of the cultivators, if followed, would result in crops practically free from disease, the insects and fungi would be useful for pointing out unsuitable varieties and methods of farming inappropriate to the locality.” Within five years, Howard’s “professors—the peasants and the pests” had taught him “how to grow healthy crops, practically free from disease, without the slightest help from mycologists, entomologists, bacteriologists, agricultural chemists, statisticians, clearing-houses of information, artificial manures, spraying machines, insecticides, fungicides, germicides, and all the other expensive paraphernalia of the modern experiment station.” Howard could teach the world about sustainable farming because he had the humility to learn it from practicing peasants and from Nature herself. Sir Albert Howard is known as the father of modern organic agriculture, but the Indian peasant was his teacher. Howard believed that the cultivators of the East had a lot to teach Western experts about disease and pest control and about how to break Western reductionism’s vicious and

x

Foreword

violent circle of “discovering more and more new pests and devising more and more poison sprays to destroy them” (Ibid., 162). An agriculture of permanence grows out of a sacred relationship with the earth. Wendell Berry said, “eating is an agricultural act,” and one could add that “agriculture is a spiritual act.” The act of growing and giving food in abundance is the highest dharma. As the Taittiriya Upanishad states: From food [anna], verily, creatures are produced Whatsoever [creatures] dwell on the earth. .................................... For truly, food is the chief of beings. . . . (Taittiriya Upanishad 2.2, in The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, 2nd English ed., trans. Robert Ernest Hume [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931], 284) Beings here are born from food, when born they live by food, on deceasing they enter into food. (Ibid., 3.2, 290) Food is alive, it is not just pieces of carbohydrate, protein and nutrient, it is a being, it is a sacred being. Verily, they obtain all food Who worship Brahma as food. (Ibid., 2.2, 284)

When agriculture is a sacred duty for maintaining life on earth, the seed is sacred, the soil is sacred, the cow is sacred, and the trees are sacred. The inspiration for starting Navdanya came to me from the sacred seed. The seed for the farmers is not merely the source of future plants or food; it is the storage place of culture, of history. Seed is the first link in the food chain. Seed is the ultimate symbol of food security. Free exchange of seed among farmers has been the basis of maintaining biodiversity as well as food security. This exchange is based on cooperation and reciprocity. A farmer who wants to exchange seed generally gives an equal quantity of seed from his field in return for the seed he gets. Free exchange among farmers goes beyond the mere exchange of seeds, however; it involves the exchange of ideas and knowledge, of culture and heritage. It is an accumulation of tradition, of knowing how to work the seed. Farmers gather knowledge about the seeds they want to plant in the future by watching them actually grow in other farmers’ fields. This

Foreword

xi

knowledge is based on the cultural, religious, gastronomic, and other values the community accords to the seed and the plant it produces, as well as its drought, disease, and pest resistance. Paddy, for example, has religious significance in most parts of the country and is an essential component of most religious festivals. The Akti festival in Chhattisgarh, a center for the Indica variety of rice, reinforces the many principles of biodiversity conservation. In the south, rice grain is considered auspicious, or Akshata. It is mixed with “kumkum” and turmeric and given as a blessing. The priest is presented with rice, often along with coconut, as an indication of religious regard. Other plants whose seeds, leaves, or flowers are an essential component of religious ceremonies include coconut, betel leaves, arecanut, wheat, finger and little millets, horsegram, blackgram, chickpea, pigeon pea, sesame, sugarcane, jackfruit seed, cardamom, ginger, banana, and gooseberry. New seeds are first worshipped; only then are they planted. A new crop is worshipped before being consumed. Festivals are celebrated in the fields both before sowing the seeds and during the harvest, symbolizing people’s intimacy with nature. For the farmer, the field is the mother; worshipping the field is a sign of gratitude toward the Earth Mother, who feeds the millions of life-forms who are her children. Festivals such as Ugadi, Ramanavami, Akshay Tritaya, Ekadashi, Aluyana Amavase, Naga Panchami, Noolu Hunime, Ganesh Chaturthi, Rishi Panchami, Navaratri, Deepavali, Rathasaptami, Tulsi Vivaha, Campasrusti, and Bhoomi Puja cannot be celebrated without religious ceremonies surrounding the seed. Seed festivals include those related to identifying which seed to grow, its germination, and other aspects. Seed is a gift of Srushtikarta (Brahma, the creator), who created seeds in the primordial time. The Puranas refer to people getting phala, or fruits (as in the fruits of one’s ritual practice) by worshipping gods through religious sacrifices such as yagya, or yagas. In the case of the complete extinction of one form of matter, the people performed samudra manthana (churning of the ocean) to get it back. Indian agricultural folklore includes stories of kings who plowed the land to plant seed. Janaka, the father of Sita, worshipped Varuna (the god of rain) during drought and got a handful of seeds from him. Janaka planted the seeds after plowing the land himself, so his people would not go hungry. The seed is also worshipped as Dhanalakshmi (the goddess of wealth).

xii

Foreword

All forms of nature are believed to interact and influence one another, be they of the earth or of space. This link is often reflected in the cosmic influences of the planets and stars on the life-forms on earth. The Navadhanyas (the nine seeds) and their respective Navagrahas (the nine cosmic influences) are: 1. Yava (barley) represents Aditya (sun). 2. Shamaka (little millet) represents the moon and is responsible for stimulation, circulation, and balancing. 3. Togari (pigeon pea) represents Mangala (Mars), which is responsible for controlling the nervous system. 4. Madga (mung) represents Budha (Mercury) and stimulates intelligence. 5. Kadale (chickpea) represent Brihaspati (Jupiter). 6. Tandula (rice) represents Shukra (Venus). 7. Til (sesame) represents Shani (Saturn) and is characterized by oil. 8. Maasha (blackgram) represents Rahu. 9. Kulittha (horsegram) represents Ketu. New technologies, such as those of the Green Revolution and other biotechnologies, devalue the cultural and traditional knowledge embodied in the seed and erode the community’s holistic knowledge of the seed. This results in the seed itself becoming extinct, as the existence of the seed is tied intimately to its holistic knowledge. This process is hastened by the new intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes, which are being universalized through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade Organization. The IPR regimes of the West allow corporations to usurp the knowledge of the seed, monopolizing it by claiming it as their private property. Over time, this results in monopoly corporate control over the seed itself, restricting its free sharing within and across communities. This monopoly becomes life threatening, as witnessed among the farmers in India. Seed monopoly is leading to debt, and debt is leading to suicide. Between 1997 and 2009, 250,000 farmers committed suicide in India. Seed, for the Navdanya conservation initiative, represents the accumulation of centuries of knowledge. By being a reflection of the options available to people, it represents their choice.

Foreword

xiii

In today’s context of biological and ecological destruction, seed conservers are the true gifters of seed. This gift, or dana, of the Navadhanyas (nine seeds) is the ultimate gift—it is a gift of life, of heritage, and of continuity. Conserving seed is thus more than merely conserving germplasm. Conserving seed is conserving biodiversity, knowledge of the seed and its utilization, culture, and sustainability. The soil and the earth are sacred. “Whatever I dig of you, O Earth, May that grow quickly upon you, O pure one, may my thrust never pierce thy vital points, thy Earth” (Prithvi Sukta, Atharva Veda 12.35). Trees are sacred. The neem and the khejri are agroforestry species vital for the sustainability of agriculture, especially in the fragile desert of Rajasthan. Industrialization of agriculture is the desacralization of the earth, the soil, and the seed. The justification for violence against the earth is the claim that it increases the production of food, allowing the world to be fed. Yet the more the industrialization of food has spread, the more hunger has spread. Today 1 billion people are permanently hungry. India faces a dual crisis related to food and agriculture. First is the malnutrition and hunger crisis. Every fourth Indian is hungry, every third woman is severely malnourished, and every second child is “wasted” (Navdanya, “Why Is Every 4th Indian Hungry?”). This is not a “shining India” but a “starving India.” Second is the agrarian crisis, tragically highlighted by the aforementioned 250,000 farmer suicides driven by debt, which is largely caused by high-cost chemical inputs. The agrarian crisis and the food and nutrition crisis are connected. Taking note of the hunger and malnutrition crisis, the government is trying to put together a Food Security Act. However, the proposed act has two serious limitations. First, it leaves out nutrition. Without nutrition, there can be no right to food or health. Malnutrition is leading to a public health crisis consisting of hunger, on the one hand, and of obesity, diabetes, and related conditions, on the other. Second, the act leaves out agriculture, food producers, and food production systems. Without agriculture and nutrition, there can be no food security. Both aspects of the food crisis—the agrarian crisis and the malnutrition crisis—are related to the fact that food production has become chemical intensive and is focused on yield per acre. However, yield per acre ignores the loss of nutrition that is leading to the malnutrition crisis. It also ignores the increased costs of chemical inputs that trap farmers in

xiv

Foreword

debt and lead them to suicide. Yield per acre measures a part of one crop grown in a monoculture. This ignores the lost nutrition in the displaced biodiversity. Thus, the Green Revolution led to the increased production of rice and wheat with chemical-intensive, capital-intensive, and waterintensive inputs, but it displaced pulses, oil seeds, millets, greens, vegetables, and fruits from the field and from the diet. Navdanya’s alternative measure of health per acre shows that a shift to biodiverse organic farming and ecological intensification increases the output of nutrition while reducing input costs. When agricultural output is measured in terms of health per acre and nutrition per acre instead of yield per acre, biodiverse ecological systems have a much higher output. This should be the strategy for protecting the livelihoods of farmers as well the rights to food and health of all our people. We propose a paradigm shift from monoculture to diversity; from chemical-intensive agriculture to ecologically intensive, biodiversityintensive agriculture; from external inputs to internal inputs; from capital-intensive production to low-cost or zero-cost production; from yield per acre to health and nutrition per acre; from food as a commodity to food as nourishment and nutrition. This shift addresses the multiple crises related to food systems. It shows that we can protect the environment while protecting our farmers and our health. And we can do this while lowering the costs of food production and distribution. By maximizing health per acre, we can ensure that every child, woman, and man in India has access to healthy, nutritious, safe, and good food. When ethics is externalized from food and agriculture, we witness the destruction of nature, of farmers, and of our health. Ecological abuse and health abuse become the pattern. Instead of agriculture nourishing the soil and food nourishing our bodies, food is becoming the source of disease. The industrialized system of food production has become a war against the earth, our farmers, and our bodies. Seventy-five percent of genetic diversity has been pushed to extinction. Seventy percent of the planet’s water is being wasted and polluted for industrial farming. Forty percent of all greenhouse gas emissions causing climate instability are contributed by an industrialized, globalized agriculture. An alternative is desperately needed if we are to have food and if we are to have life. Bringing ethics and sanctity back into food is now a survival imperative.

Foreword

xv

Growing Stories from India: Religion and the Fate of Agriculture invites us to look to unconventional places to imagine an agriculture at peace with the earth. Another agriculture is not just possible. It has become necessary. Vandana Shiva Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology, India

Introduction

In June 2009, producers Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser released the film Food, Inc. in theaters across the United States. That this movie, an indictment of the U.S. food industry, played in mainstream theaters demonstrates that many people believe that we must rethink and rebuild our food system. In October 2008, prior to the presidential election, the New York Times published a letter to the president-elect from Michael Pollan that explained why we need what he called a Farmer in Chief. Pollan detailed the steep social, health, and environmental costs of industrial agriculture and urged that we must “put the interests of America’s farmers, families, and communities ahead of the fast-food industry’s.”1 Perhaps the most dramatic change can be seen in the proliferation of farmers’ markets and demands for organic produce, to the extent that even Walmart carries organic lines. While we can attribute this growth to multiple factors, such as the perceived health benefits of organic produce and the desire to reduce our “footprint,” this growth of interest in organic food demonstrates a growing dissatisfaction with existing food choices and the search for alternatives. Articles detailing the proliferation of farmers’ markets and the miles traveled by our food appear almost weekly, and these stories acknowledge what many of us have recognized for some time: the costs of industrial agriculture to the environment, human health, animal suffering, and social equity are unbearable. The environmental degradation, hunger, and social instability produced by industrial agriculture demand that we expand our ecological imagination to develop new paradigms for agricultural practice. Expanding the ecological imagination in an agricultural context means

2

Growing Stories from India

imagining agricultural practices that consider effects on the biotic community, which includes multiple human and nonhuman communities. By this I mean that we must recognize that the prevailing agricultural narrative, where fence-to-fence monoculture has taken over from smallholdings and traditional farms, where profit trumps preservation, where technology drives practice, and where the land ethic has been seriously challenged, is just one of multiple narratives. Contemporary agribusiness—industrial agriculture—relies on a narrative of “feeding the world” that entails images of prosperity and plenty. Exposing the narrative dimensions of agricultural practice reveals that multiple narratives exist and, more important, that we can choose among narratives. By asking “What stories do we tell ourselves about food?” we can, perhaps, revise those stories.

The Urgency for New Stories The growing dissatisfaction with our existing food system is situated within broader social emphases on greening and sustainability. “Green is the new gold” seems to be the contemporary mantra, and products are increasingly touted as “green,” including SUVs, laundry soap, and dog waste bags. Green and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified buildings and emergent technologies to harness wind and solar power indicate a growing emphasis on sustainable systems. Similarly, schools and universities have implemented sustainability programs that include curriculum reform as well as new policies to guide facility operations. At the same time, this proliferation of green foods, goods, and services allows for a level of “green-washing” because, amidst competing claims of sustainability, it can be difficult to make choices, despite trends that demonstrate that many people want to change how they eat and how they live. Popular books, such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Paul Roberts’s The End of Food, reflect and shape these trends by making explicit to readers the social and environmental consequences of food choices. Books, films, and farmer-scholar-activists such as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Frederick Kirschenmann educate consumers about the environmental and social devastation associated with indus-

Introduction

3

trial agriculture, and this growing awareness produces a sort of cognitive dissonance as we recall the pervasive storybook images of farms populated with red barns and smiling cows. It has become clear to many that the narratives of industrial agriculture—of productivity and plenty—are incompatible with sustainable and ethical food choices; few people conjure up images of meat-packing plants while eating dinner. This dissonance between how we imagine—and would like—our food to be produced and the realities of conventional food production presents an opportunity to reimagine our stories about food. The ramifications of growing problems in our food system reveal the urgency of the situation. In August 2010, for example, an Iowa egg company recalled over 380 million eggs because salmonella had sickened hundreds of people across the United States. Prior to the recall, this company had been cited multiple times for violating environmental regulations, poor and unsafe working conditions, and harassment of workers.2 Predictably, the American public was aghast by the magnitude of the recall and the wide geographic dispersal of the tainted eggs throughout the United States, and numerous editorials called for more stringent FDA oversight of egg production facilities.3 The vast distribution of these eggs reflects a reality of contemporary food production, that most agribusiness is vertically integrated, meaning that one management oversees operations ranging from egg laying to shipping. Such operations offer a highly profitable economy of scale that supplies consumers with inexpensive, plentiful food, and so embodies an industrial agricultural narrative of efficiency, abundance, and progress. However, this economy of scale and efficiency also has led to the “efficient” spread of salmonella (although, as Iowa State University economist Daniel Otto writes, largescale production has also made it easier to discover the source of the disease).4 Privileging efficiency and economy of scale has subordinated concerns about animal and human health, worker safety, and the environment, as demonstrated by repeated violations by this Iowa egg company. For example, due in part to cost constraints, the FDA did not mandate vaccination of hens against salmonella with a low-cost vaccine that dramatically reduced salmonella outbreaks in Great Britain.5 The massive egg recall demonstrates the social, economic, and environmental fault lines in the apparent stability and abundance of our conventional food system. We must address the consequences of inten-

4

Growing Stories from India

sive, large-scale agricultural practices in the United States and elsewhere—devastated local ecosystems and serious environmental consequences such as desertification of once-fertile land, depleted soils, and polluted aquifers. The urgency creates opportunity for change, to move beyond what has become the conventional food system, just as many people are looking for new tools to guide food production and consumption. Even with an increasing amount of information about food products, deciding what to eat can be bewildering (e.g., fresh, local, and organic, or cheap, fast, and processed?); but these uncertainties compel those who are concerned about food to question not only their food choices but decisions leading to those choices. Our food stories are powerful. Consider how an agribusiness media group, the Mid America CropLife Association, responded to Michelle Obama’s organic garden on the White House lawn: this group urged her to use “conventional” methods—meaning synthetic fertilizers and pesticides—and initiated a letter-writing campaign in case she hadn’t gotten the message.6 In the course of exploring stories like these, we will also question the dialectical relations between stories and social structures to understand why some narratives, such as industrial agriculture’s “feed the world” mantra, have proven so compelling and enduring. In this book, I explore how narrative can be useful in guiding not only our ways of thinking about ourselves in the world within the frame of agriculture but also about how we view the task ahead of us— that is, how we can create sustainable relations with the earth and the biotic community, which includes human and nonhuman organisms. I use the term biotic community throughout because of its metaphoric possibilities and because it assumes human participation, membership, and citizenship in ways that phrases such as “the natural world” do not. I also explore the potential of language to transform agricultural practice by investigating the metaphors, narratives, and roles that structure—and naturalize—forms of agriculture.

Scope Theologians, environmental ethicists, and agriculturalists, among others, have called for new stories to guide human relations with the earth, specifically in terms of agricultural practice. A common theme among

Introduction

5

these voices is that our current story is flawed, and a new and improved story to guide human treatment of the earth will restore an equitable relationship between humans and the earth. However, simply creating new stories is not enough. Our stories must also lead to changed practice. Because agriculture presumes human use of the earth and acknowledges human dependence on the biotic community, I draw on insights from cognitive science, philosophy, sociology, and linguistics to demonstrate the process in which altered language and narrative transforms lived practice and shapes the roles we play in the arena of agriculture. In asking “How do we coax food into existence?” we also ask “In what ways do we act out our membership or citizenship within a given community?” To address these and other, related questions, I use a Hindu agricultural narrative—the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River—to think through human behavior in the context of agricultural practice and to provide an imaginative space to consider alternate paradigms for human participation in the broader biological community. Bringing Balaram and the Yamuna River into this conversation about agriculture is a way to reflect upon which qualities and which tropes could lead to more sustainable and equitable agricultural practices. My conclusion demonstrates how language has shaped agricultural practice and closed the gap between value and practice. The dialectic between new or revised stories and changed practices represents an iterative cycle in which new metaphors and reexamined paradigms reinforce changed behaviors and lead to a reconceptualization of our own roles and participation in the biotic community. Engaging the moral imagination and acting upon it lead to seeing ourselves as ecological actors, and being cognizant of this cycle of changed selfperception and changed practice—filtered through the ecological imagination—keeps these changes fresh and relevant. The template of the ecological imagination thus becomes integrated into daily practice, and daily practice is the key to widespread and sustained environmental change. There are numerous indications that concerns about food are affecting daily practice: witness the growth of farmers’ markets, the wide distribution and discussion of popular books on sustainable and ethical food choices, and policies that mandate organic foods in university dining halls. These trends then become essential parts of this iterative

6

Growing Stories from India

cycle as their presence both reinforces existing demands for organic or local produce and raises questions in the minds of those who might not yet have considered such options. What is important to move forward is to bring the ecological imagination into practice, to keep before us narrative frameworks that encourage us to continually critique our actions toward others in the biotic community. This book focuses specifically on agricultural practice for three reasons. First, agriculture has been a lacuna within environmental thought; second, agricultural practices have an enormous impact on the environment, human health, and social equity; and third, production of food is necessary for continued survival. This realization leads to one of the central questions of this book: How can we balance the human need for agricultural production with the needs of the broader biological community? Exposing the narrative dimensions of agriculture demonstrates that the prevailing industrial agricultural narrative is only one of multiple options. Metaphors of dominance and a mechanistic nature have led us to an agrarian crisis, one that provides opportunities for change. Agroecology and restoration ecology reveal alternate narratives of agricultural practice that rely on mutual obligation and reciprocity rather than attempts to control natural processes. These forms of emerging agricultures, and the farmers who practice them, illustrate how changing stories results in changed practices. The social and environmental damage associated with industrial agriculture as well as the myriad uncertainties about how and what we should eat present an ideal occasion to explore different options for agriculture and food production. How can the metaphor of the biotic community help us transform agricultural practice? A practical step toward enacting an alternate narrative is to begin with the question “Does this action reflect good citizenship in the biotic community?” This question could become a filter that helps us decide whether an action is appropriate and just for all members of the biotic community. A narrative becomes transformative to the extent that it alters actual practice; and, in an iterative cycle, changed practice reinforces new modes of thinking as new values, concepts, and ideas transform practice—we must transform agricultural practice at multiple levels.

Introduction

7

This filter provides guidance for individual as well as group practice, from the gardener deliberating methods of pest control to government entities debating agricultural subsidies. The ecological imagination then becomes ecological action, and new stories become practice. When we take seriously the ramifications of citizenship in the biotic community, then agriculture can become a practice of restoration and renewal. I wrote this book to engage in dialogue with multiple intellectual communities and to contribute to current scholarship in religious studies, environmental thought, sustainable agriculture, rural sociology, and South Asian studies. Although these communities are intellectually diverse, the urgent nature of our environmental problems demands interdisciplinary attention. The environmental degradation, increased hunger, and social inequities that stem from industrial agriculture will not be resolved within the confines of a single disciplinary approach. Researchers in agricultural sciences and related fields must consider the religious and cultural paradigms that shape attitudes toward agriculture and food production. Scholars of religion and South Asian studies must investigate myth and ritual practice in the context of unstable environmental and agricultural conditions. Scholars now address these critical issues in the publication venues of their own fields, but we must broaden the conversation to include multiple voices. My goal is to help scholars in fields as diverse as agronomy and religion recognize that we share common interests and problems and to answer a question I often hear: What do religion and agriculture have to do with each other? I wrote this book to build bridges between scholarly communities and to stimulate broad, interdisciplinary dialogue. Scholars in religious studies and South Asian studies have become increasingly aware of the connections between human life and the environment and, more recently, agriculture. This book addresses two broad questions that lie at the intersections of South Asian studies, religion, and religion and nature: How does Hindu thought conceptualize the human relationship to the earth in terms of agriculture? and Does Hinduism offer strategies to alleviate the social and environmental costs associated with industrial agriculture? I discuss these questions in

8

Growing Stories from India

the context of contemporary devotion to the Hindu deity Balaram in Baldeo, India. Text and practice associated with Balaram, associated with fertility and agriculture, mediate basic human concerns, such as protection and sustenance, and demonstrate the intimate ties between agricultural and social health. The story of Balaram and the Yamuna River helps us confront presumptions about the earth’s resources and illusions of control over these resources. In diverting the Yamuna River, Balaram’s actions replicate human entitlement to the earth’s produce, and reflecting on this story provides an opportunity to assess existing attitudes and to explore alternative relations for agricultural practice. Examining the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River helps us to work through our frustration over our illusions of control and to recognize the competing responsibilities of farmers who must both feed growing populations of humans and animals and protect the earth’s fertility. Exploring how agricultural narratives can help us revise human relations with the biotic community suggests three areas of investigation. First, the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River can help us think through the complex issues of how humans intervene upon the earth in terms of agricultural practice. My analysis highlights the salient metaphoric realms present in this story that provide tools to rethink agricultural practice. Investigating this narrative helps us look through Balaram to critique contemporary narratives that naturalize industrial agriculture and privilege productivity with its concomitant market focus over ethical consideration of human and biological communities. The dynamics of this story and the ritual and social context of its telling offer insight into forces that shape human relations with the earth and social relations among humans. Further, this story contains parallels with narratives of agribusiness, and these parallels illuminate the social and material conditions that shape and reflect these stories and render them “natural.” For example, Hindu pastoralism and Western environmental thought both rely on romanticized and urbanized views of the natural world that exclude labor, production, and violence. My second area of investigation builds on the work of agrarian thinkers such as Frederick Kirschenmann, Wendell Berry, and Wes Jackson, who argue that our contemporary agricultural paradigms are

Introduction

9

failing and that degraded agricultural landscapes and depopulated rural regions demonstrate their failure. While most environmental scholarship has neglected agriculture, these agrarian thinkers seek new agricultural paradigms that emphasize social and environmental sustainability over short-term profit. At present, the dominant narrative of “feeding the world” structures the agricultural worldview of many farmers in the midwestern United States and legitimates destructive features of industrial agriculture. My discussion of the social dimensions of agricultural practice engages scholars in rural sociology who question why and how farmers choose between alternate food production systems. This work explores how alternative agricultures, including organic agriculture, agroecological restoration, and agroecology, reflect the power of the ecological imagination to transform practice. This book complements dialogue within the scientific areas of restoration ecology, sustainable agriculture, and conservation biology because these endeavors assume some level of corrective intervention within ecosystems. Conservation biology, sustainable agriculture, and restoration ecology are strategies specifically designed to benefit ecosystems. In this book I hope to reveal the metaphoric frameworks that shape these interventions, and I demonstrate that the themes structuring restorative practices, such as reciprocity and obligation, differ greatly from themes of industrial agriculture. The alternative agricultures I explore here describe concrete practices and illuminate how alternate agricultural paradigms can be enacted. My work is rooted in the present but looks toward the future, so my exploration of these practices is a means to ask how we might move toward adopting the values and themes that underlie these alternative agricultures. Third, I address the relationship between story and practice and draw on the cognitive linguistic theory of Mark Johnson and George Lakoff to illustrate how language structures the ways in which humans know the world and how that knowledge guides our behavior. Although unexamined metaphoric frameworks appear natural and inevitable, analyzing the language we use to think through moral issues exposes the semantic underpinnings of human moral reasoning. Once the linguistic structures of moral thought are exposed, we can create new paradigms by choosing which metaphors we invoke. Alternative models of agricultural practice demonstrate attempts

10

Growing Stories from India

to rethink human engagement with the land, and questions arising in restoration ecology offer additional questions worthy of consideration in agricultural practice. For example, William Jordan’s discussion of restoration practices in The Sunflower Forest exemplifies this cycle of story and action. Expanding the ecological imagination is necessary for changing behavior, and reflexively changed practices reshape values. These relatively new behaviors have incorporated values such as reciprocity and mutual obligations into their theory and action and demonstrate possibilities for enacting these values in agriculture. These new systems draw upon models of agriculture that predate industrial agriculture, but they do so creatively and reflexively and aim to replicate the long-term practices that can be seen in forms of indigenous agriculture. Thus, they are conscious attempts to rethink the foundations of agricultural relations.

Plan of the Book The seven chapters in this book explore the narrative dimensions of human relations with the earth and suggest that we might not only come to understand our narratives but also to employ our ecological imagination to change agricultural practices. In fact, the first chapter, “The Ecological Imagination: From Paradigm to Practice,” presents and contextualizes one of the book’s central questions: How can we balance the human need for agricultural production with the needs of the biotic community? The second chapter, “Narratives of Agriculture: How Did We Get Here?” provides the context for a discussion of agricultural narrative and the necessity for new paradigms for food production. This chapter discusses our current agrarian crisis, investigates the stories that have brought us to this point, and demonstrates the environmental and social costs associated with industrial agriculture that demand that we envision alternate agricultural paradigms. Chapter 3, “Balaram and the Yamuna River: Entitlement and Presumptions of Control,” introduces the story of the deities Balaram and the Yamuna River, which offers an honest reckoning with human dependence on the earth for sustenance and human entitlement to the earth’s production in the context of Balaram’s multiple obligations to the earth, his family, and his subjects.

Introduction

11

Chapter 4, “Borrowing Balaram: Alternative Narratives,” moves beyond context to critique how concepts such as protection are used to justify inequitable practices and social relations. I demonstrate how narrative legitimates destructive interventions and normalizes hierarchical social relations, particularly gender relations. The presumed need for protection can be a slippery slope toward control and domination, and it is worth reflecting on how this need is assessed and why narratives of need are told and retold. Chapter 5, “The Festival of Holi: Celebrating Agricultural and Social Health,” examines the springtime harvest festival of Holi, when devotees celebrate the renewal of social bonds and agricultural fertility. This chapter explores Holi’s comedic role in releasing social and agricultural tensions and stabilizing society, but argues that defusing tensions does not resolve structural problems and that the resulting stability tends to maintain existing hierarchies. Analyzing the social role of stories of control and mastery over the earth provides insight into our reluctance to explore alternative agricultural practices. Chapter 6, “The Land in Between: Constructing Nature, Wilderness, and Agriculture,” demonstrates parallels between the pastoral paradigm of Vaishnava devotion and the neglect of agriculture in Western environmental thought. Vaishnava pastoralism and Western environmental thought both emphasize romanticized and urbanized views of the natural world that exclude labor, production, and violence. By exploring the role of agriculture in the context of religion, nature, and society, we can understand the persistence of certain stories. The final chapter, “Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair: Revising the Ecological Imagination,” describes different discourses of agricultural systems and how they can help us think through different modalities for human relations with the biotic community. Stories from farmers who have adopted these practices show how stories and metaphors provide alternate models for human-earth relations that lead to changed practices.

Chapter 1

The Ecological Imagination From Paradigm to Practice

In this book, I explore how narrative can be useful in guiding our ways of thinking not only about ourselves in the world within the frame of agriculture but also about how we view the task ahead of us—establishing sustainable relations with the earth and the biotic community, which includes human and nonhuman organisms. As Wendell Berry suggests, learning how to live sustainably is the human predicament, and it has both practical and spiritual dimensions.1 Revealing the metaphors and narratives that underlie existing and alternative agricultural practices enables us to investigate the consequences of those practices. Only then can we develop agricultural practices that reflect our responsibilities to multiple biological and human communities. This chapter provides a foundation with which we can explore the narrative dimensions of our responsibilities and relationships to the earth and contextualizes one of the book’s central questions: How can we balance the human need for agricultural production with the needs of the biotic community?

Relational Agriculture One narrative approach we might take is that agriculture is inherently relational and dialectical because it is, by definition, human manipulation of the earth to produce food. These relations mean that agriculture presents a distinct set of considerations within the broader field of environmental ethics. Therefore, agriculture on many scales—and the resulting food—provides opportunities to consider human interactions with the earth. A garden, for example, is a dialogue between the gar-

The Ecological Imagination

13

dener and the earth, and both parties have a sort of agency. Further, this dialogue is not static, but continuously shifting according to human and nonhuman circumstances. A garden is not a machine; it is difficult to force a plant to yield fruit. My garden requires that I consider this dialogue on a small, individual scale, but expanding the moral imagination requires that we address this dialogue on multiple scales, ranging, for example, from small organic farms catering to niche specialty markets to large-scale systems that churn out “green” produce for Walmart. Agriculture on any scale presumes human use of the earth and acknowledges human dependence on the biotic community, so we would do well to consider what constitutes appropriate conduct in agricultural praxis. Environmental discourse traditionally has tended to neglect agriculture, and terms of environmental discourse derive much of their intellectual, rhetorical, and political vigor from tropes such as wilderness and pristine landscapes. This discourse rarely offers tools to discuss the quality of human practice or agriculture; for example, wilderness discourse does not address land that is used for production. Human participation in the biotic community, particularly in terms of sustenance, is one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence, so it is critical to reflect upon the qualities of these relations. As an essential part of this reflection, I consciously consider a plurality of relational modes because humans have multiple relationships with the earth. That humans use and rely on the earth offers the possibility that interventions can benefit ecosystems and be equitable among human populations. For example, our agricultural use of the earth offers the potential to create and preserve multiple species of edible plants, and this opportunity to enhance physical and cultural biodiversity exists at multiple scales. On a small scale, I can grow and purchase heirloom tomatoes; on a larger scale, Americans’ growing emphasis on locally produced foods and a shift away from subsidized agribusiness might help farmers in places such as Oaxaca, Mexico, preserve the genetic richness of landraces of corn and beans. There are many examples of agricultural practices that promote soil health and biodiversity; these systems, ranging from indigenous practices in India to emerging forms of agroecology, reflect narratives of holism and balance. The tropes of dance and jazz, as suggested by scholar Evan Eisenburg and farmer Mi-

14

Growing Stories from India

chael Ableman, imply images of partnership in which each responds and adapts to moves and nuances of others.2 Such tropes acknowledge another aspect of agriculture: that the earth has agency. We cannot force the earth to produce (at least not long-term), as most gardeners quickly realize, and agrarian thought must explore the metaphor of agency and its entailments in contexts of narrative and story. This exigency calls us to address two questions: What stories do we tell ourselves about how we should coax food into existence? And in what ways do we act out our membership within a given community?

Role of Narrative and Story Human food choices and the agricultural practices that produce this food have enormous social and environmental impacts, so examining the stories that validate these practices is a step toward ameliorating these impacts. Food is central to the stories we tell about who we are, as individuals and as social and religious beings, and our food choices (whether conscious or not) enact these stories. Stories and language shape how humans comprehend our world and thus dialectically shape human activity. Myths and stories provide the imaginative space through which we define our relationships to other human beings and to other members of the biotic community. While myths reflect existing concepts of relations with the biotic community, we can examine these myths in the context of the moral imagination as it relates to food and agriculture. For example, I can use myth to evaluate my own participation in the biotic community and to ask what sort of role am I playing and whether I am satisfied with this role. In most traditional cultures and, arguably, in contemporary Western cultures as well, stories are the primary means of passing on ecological knowledge between generations. More important for this case, myths, as Pramod Parajuli explains, “are plans for land-use” in an agroecological context and are both “ecologically-informed and morally-binding.”3 Stories are critical for our moral lives and help us first imagine, then think through and follow various courses of action. As stories explore the reasons for and ramifications of certain actions, they provide explanations for the way things are, but, more important, suggest possibilities for the way things could—or maybe even ought to—

The Ecological Imagination

15

be. Studying the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River, for example, helps us understand human behavior in an agricultural context. Keeping the gardener in mind as we reconsider narratives of agriculture helps us find a balance point from which to critique and rethink agricultural praxis. For example, a common tendency in alternative food publications is to either vilify conventional farmers or romanticize organic farmers, as can be seen in the “True Cost of Food” video produced by the Sierra Club’s Sustainable Consumption Committee.4 In this entertaining fifteen-minute cartoon, a beleaguered mother is shocked by the “true cost” of a tomato when she shops at a store that looks suspiciously like Walmart, and ultimately finds relief at the local farmers’ market. The video is well researched and effectively conveys its message. I have used it in class multiple times, and my students recognize that it is an exaggeration that, while engaging and thus useful, does not address real constraints for both farmers and consumers. In fact, these tropes and caricatures can also distract us from the fundamental problem: How should humans treat the earth in agricultural practice, and, by extension, How are consumers culpable for damages arising from food production? First, demonizing conventional farmers simply allocates blame and does not address the problem. Second, casting farmers in a bad-guy role makes their narrative choices inaccessible to us, so we lose the opportunity to discover their stories. Many farmers in the midwestern United States, for example, view themselves as protagonists in their story; in some ways, they do feed the world, and many farmers view this as a religious, social, and ethical duty to themselves, their families, and growing populations around the world. Disregarding their narratives closes off possibilities for dialogue and potential for change. Similarly, idealizing organic farmers as quixotic figures in a romance tilting at industrial agriculture does not allow us to engage with the narratives of organic farmers. Neither trope acknowledges that farming is hard work and that all farmers must make complex choices about soils, pests, and weeds. Recently, a local organic grower told me that “farmers love gardeners” because gardeners recognize the choices and compromises that farmers must make to provide food. Our stories about agriculture and food must help human beings wrestle with the reality of human need and our dependence on the earth for survival,

16

Growing Stories from India

particularly as we work to understand different ways of understanding agriculture. The demand for new stories comes from producers as well as consumers, and emerging alternative agricultural practices demonstrate the dialectic between story and practice. Frederick Kirschenmann of the Leopold Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and Wes Jackson of the Land Institute in Salinas, Kansas, have written extensively on the need for new approaches to agriculture. Kirschenmann’s and Jackson’s own research and that of their respective institutions have provided important data on the practices of sustainable agriculture, such as Jackson’s research on perennial polycultures that mimic the prairie ecosystem, unlike monocultures of corn and soybean. These perennial polycultures, designed to “regenerate the soil into a healthy ecosystem,” exemplify principles of interdependence and reciprocity between humans, soil, and plants.5 These qualities of interdependence, regeneration, and reciprocity are fundamental to alternatives agricultures such as agroecological restoration. I use the phrase alternative agricultures to designate a set of agricultural practices that are deliberately differentiated from what today is considered conventional agriculture; alternative agricultures include, but are not limited to, organic agriculture, ecological agriculture, agroecological restoration, and agroecology. These approaches are not identical, but demonstrate specific practices that enact a range of agricultural models. However, they share critical features that facilitate the process of thinking through the consequences of specific agricultural discourses. First, the theory and practices of these agricultures rely on a set of metaphors that include balance, stability, and interdependence, in stark contrast to industrial agriculture. Second, these practices have been named and articulated in response to contemporary industrial agricultural conditions; for example, soil scientist Fred Magdoff discusses “ecological agriculture” and entomologist Miguel Altieri coined the term “agroecology.”6 Although each of these systems has been articulated in response to contemporary problems and some share metaphoric resonances, their practices reveal that specific qualities, such as interdependence, can be enacted in multiple ways. These agricultural stories presume that humans use land for agricultural purposes and, more important, that human presence can be

The Ecological Imagination

17

restorative, a critical distinction between much writing in environmental ethics. Dana Jackson, director of the Land Stewardship Project, and biologist Laura Jackson coedited The Farm as Natural Habitat, a book that suggests ways in which farms might become sites of agroecological restoration. An agricultural ethic cannot rely on a simple ideal of pure, untainted land, and movements such as New Agrarianism, as discussed in The Essential Agrarian Reader, and New Urbanism explore relationships between people, agriculture, and the built environment. As Wendell Berry has long argued, our land usage must be just toward both humans and the land itself.7 As farmers seek to enact new stories, they face social, financial, and biological challenges. Judith Soule, in “Conservation and Agriculture as Neighbors,” discusses the Nature Conservancy’s efforts to work with farmers and the related challenges of transforming agricultural practices to reflect conservation efforts. Several authors in The Farm as Natural Habitat ask a critical question posed by Brian DeVore: “Why do they do it?” and this query about why farmers have changed their agricultural practices points to the importance of narrative and story.8 DeVore’s question is important because, as Soule states, current structures of subsidies and incentives penalize farmers who follow conservation measures.9 Further, as Beth Waterhouse points out, when midwestern farmers changed their own stories about how they related to the land, their practices changed.10 However, changed practices, albeit even environmentally friendly changes, such as reduced pesticide use, present biological challenges that can be frustrating and potentially devastating. Stories that emphasize reciprocity and interdependence of the biotic community implicitly acknowledge the agency of the earth and thus the loss or diminishing of human control over the earth’s processes. These new stories must offer tools for people to cope with the reality of the earth’s agency—that is, what happens when the earth does not act in accord with human desire. At present the dominant feedingthe-world narrative structures the agricultural worldview of many farmers in the midwestern United States, and this worldview underlies industrial agricultural practice, one that presumes human entitlement to the earth’s bounty. This book directly challenges this prevailing narrative and its relationship to practice and complements dialogue within the scientific ar-

18

Growing Stories from India

eas of restoration ecology, emerging alternative agricultures such as agroecology, and conservation biology because these endeavors assume some level of corrective intervention within ecosystems. These developing fields move beyond ecology, which can be broadly defined as the study of relationships between organisms and their environments in their attempts to repair and restore patterns of relations. In The Sunflower Forest, William Jordan writes that restoration ecology is a form of agriculture and that the practice of restoration is healing for relationships with the biotic community as well as healing for relationships within the human community. As defined by the Society for Ecological Restoration, “ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.”11 Similarly, conservation biology addresses the biology of species, communities, and ecosystems that are perturbed, either directly or indirectly, by human activities or other agents, and has as its goal providing principles and tools for preserving biological diversity.12 Both disciplines are responses to problems or crises that arise in ecosystems and are attempts to remedy the situation; indeed, the introduction to a special section on restoration ecology in Science states that “our planet’s future may depend on the maturation of the young discipline of ecological restoration.”13 Although both conservation biology and restoration ecology are strategies specifically designed to benefit ecosystems, this book in a context of religious studies offers insight into the metaphors and narrative structures that guide these interventions because scholars within religious studies and South Asian studies have become increasingly aware of the connection between human life and the environment and, more recently, agriculture. Specifically, I use a Hindu agricultural narrative to think through human behavior in the context of agricultural practice and to provide an imaginative space to consider alternate paradigms for human participation in the broader biological community. Borrowing Balaram helps us recognize patterns in agricultural relations that appear in multiple agricultural contexts. Although industrial agriculture and alternative agricultures all have metaphoric and narrative structures that shape agricultural practices, I chose this Hindu agricultural narrative because it confronts the dilemmas of human entitlement to the earth’s bounty that all agriculturalists face. Explor-

The Ecological Imagination

19

ing this story in its broader ritual and social context reveals parallel social dynamics in Indian and U.S. agrarian thought. For example, tensions over entitlement reflect power dynamics in social, particularly gendered, relationships as well as relations with the biotic community. I show how in both cases the relationship between agricultural and social stability, or the “need for productivity,” establishes and maintains social hierarchies. Further, I reveal how these parallel dynamics help explain why agriculture has received relatively little attention in environmental thought and why the narratives of industrial agriculture continue to be told. This cross-cultural approach helps us imagine means of food production that are sustainable and equitable for multiple human and nonhuman communities.

How Balaram Can Help My analysis of Hindu agricultural narrative explores those stories that have shaped human participation in the biotic community and considers how narratives offer alternative models for agricultural practices. The figures of the Hindu agricultural deity Balaram and the goddess Yamuna River are paradigmatic characters in this agricultural myth. In this story, Balaram, a male agricultural deity, forcibly diverts the Yamuna River, a goddess, to release her waters and thus ensure the region’s agricultural fertility. Balaram’s actions demonstrate a set of conflicting moral allegiances; he must negotiate his responsibilities to his family, to the river, and to those he is bound to protect. This story is rooted in Holi, the regional springtime agricultural festival in which the winter crops are harvested, and devotees of Balaram see his actions as protective of their community, particularly his duty to ensure fertility, successful crops, and prosperity. His story can help us consider how narrative might guide human agricultural practice. Balaram’s competing responsibilities parallel the obligations of agriculturalists, but reflect dynamics of power and violence that characterize human participation in the biotic community. Balaram’s aggression toward the goddess Yamuna River in procuring water for agriculture reflects human violence toward the earth and toward other humans, so this story functions as a heuristic device to question narratives that naturalize destructive human relations with

20

Growing Stories from India

the earth. For example, this tale allows us to ask, What tropes frame human entitlement to the earth’s bounty? I consider this story illuminating because it is unsettling, in part since it illustrates human frustration with the earth’s agency, because the Yamuna River—like the earth—is both subordinate and empowered in relation to the agriculturalist Balaram. These elements—the Yamuna River’s agency and Balaram’s frustration—render this story important in considering human practices because this Hindu narrative represents an honest wrestling with the dilemma of human need and human approaches to the natural world. Stories that present harmonious relations between humans and nature abound in Hindu narrative and elsewhere, and we might strive toward those ideals. For example, the image of the Hindu deity Shiva’s household provides an apt, if idealized, metaphor for the biotic community. Shiva, his consort Parvati, and their two sons live upon Mt. Kailash in the Himalayas. Their household includes the bull Nandi, serpents, the lion, the peacock, and the mouse. The moon rests upon Shiva’s forehead, and the river Ganga streams from his matted hair. Within this household exist sets of natural enemies, yet they live in harmony and balance; the lion does not destroy the peacock, destruction that would represent extinction. This harmonious household represents equilibrium within the biotic community on a macro scale, but does not acknowledge the biological realities of the food chain.14 This image of Shiva’s household provides an ideal of how relations should work on a large scale, but it does not offer specific tools to deal with the reality that survival equals death. For example, the lion must eat something to survive, and we need stories to help us confront the realities of human need and practices that have caused our environmental problems. Current realities such as climate change, collapsing fisheries, and degraded soils reveal a more accurate portrait of human behavior than what is depicted by Shiva’s household. However, we can use Shiva’s story to illustrate qualities of mutual obligation and reciprocity in human-earth relations that exist in contemporary, emerging narratives, such as restoration ecology, which emphasizes mutual exchange, restoration, and acts of ritual atonement. Balaram’s story, though, illustrates existing human failures.

The Ecological Imagination

21

My analysis of Balaram’s relationship with the Yamuna River uses this story to reflect broadly upon agricultural narratives and, in doing so, looks through Balaram to assess those contemporary narratives that render normative industrial agriculture and valorize economic dimensions to the exclusion of social, ethical, and environmental concerns. My analysis neither assumes the wholesale adoption of this myth nor does it facilitate the so-called cafeteria style of extracting perceived values out of other cultures. As Laurie Patton rightly cautions, simply mining myths for pieces of ecological wisdom and extracting them from their cultural, practical, and textual milieus replicate the environmental extractions that are being criticized.15 Such a process strips myths of the nuance, complexity, and cultural situatedness that render them meaningful. Ultimately we must create our own stories that emerge out of practice and direct engagement with the land. Still, Balaram’s story is helpful for this project because it is complex and does not romanticize human relationships with nature. The complications in Balaram and the Yamuna River’s relationship reflect power dynamics in human—and particularly gendered—relationships, and, more important, in human interactions in the biotic community. I do not advocate taking Balaram’s story as our own, but instead I consider relevant tropes and themes that help us explore the stories about agriculture we tell ourselves and the stories we might begin to tell to address the cycle that perpetuates our current agrarian crises. Having delineated the self-perpetuating relationship between story and practice, we might interrupt the cycle with revised narratives and practices.

The Environment, India, and Agriculture This book reflects my own intellectual trajectory and reveals how my interests in the environment, devotional Hinduism, and agriculture have converged in Balaram, a Hindu deity associated with agriculture. While I have always been personally concerned with environmental issues, my scholarly focus on agriculture began with a circuitous journey from urban Philadelphia through Baldeo, India, to Ames, Iowa. My doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania on sixteenth-century devotional poetry focused on an idyllic nature. This pastoral corpus

22

Growing Stories from India

idealized rural life and critiqued urbanity, a stance reminiscent of Henry David Thoreau’s writings of life at Walden Pond. My travels through the wilderness areas of the United States and later my work at Iowa State University (ISU), a land-grant institution whose main strengths are agriculture and technology, sensitized me to the importance of agriculture in Balaram devotion and suggested alternate readings of my experiences in backcountry settings. The four months I spent backpacking and cycling around the western United States in 1996 grounded my theoretical concepts about relationships between agriculture, the pastoral, and wilderness in practical experience. While reading, hiking, camping, and cycling in areas designated as wilderness, I saw—and felt—the very real distinction between a pastoral view that sees nature as cooperative, peaceful, and supportive of human activity and, at the time, what I came to understand as a more real view of the natural world in which humans are, in Aldo Leopold’s words, “plain and simple members” of the biotic community or, perhaps, dinner. Backpacking in areas with mountain lions certainly translates this discrepancy from a theoretical notion to an embodied one. These dichotomous understandings of the natural world paralleled my reading of the divine brothers Balaram and Krishna’s relationship to nature. Prior to this cross-country trip, I had begun looking at the stories and practices associated with Balaram as an agriculturalist. The devotional tradition that focuses on Balaram and Krishna is situated within a pastoral construct, an alternate set of stories and practices centering on Balaram as an agriculturalist that complicate the pastoral scenario. Balaram’s concerns with protection and sustenance render him anomalous to the pastoral construct that tends to exclude such concerns. For example, danger and starvation have no roles within a pastoral construct. My extended time in the backcountry suggested a parallel to this dynamic in contemporary environmental thought. For example, Western environmentalists have romanticized wilderness for its aesthetic value and as a place of repose and spiritual invigoration. However, the confluence of my focus on Balaram and my wilderness experiences dialectically reconfigured my perceptions of the natural world. Con-

The Ecological Imagination

23

fronting grizzlies in Montana and running low on water in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park were sobering experiences that prompted serious reflection on my own vulnerable status within the food chain. Just as Thoreau revised his thoughts on nature as restive after a neardisastrous trip to Mt. Katahdin, the northernmost point on the Appalachian Trail, I reconsidered my role in a wilderness environment and what I might do to survive. Considering the dichotomous views of nature as restorative and as dangerous prompted me to reevaluate the human relationship to our biotic community, and Balaram and Krishna provide models for these variant views of human relations with the natural world. This complementary pairing illustrates contemporary attitudes toward environmental issues. That is, Krishna represents an urban and pastoral view of nature in which nature is restive and important for human social and psychological reasons. Balaram, however, embodies those human concerns, frustrations, and forces that do not fit in the pastoral realm, but that exist in an agricultural context. Balaram’s interaction with the Yamuna River acknowledges the reality that human beings do not fully control nature in agriculture—or any other—circumstance. This wilderness idyll ended with my arrival in Iowa in August 1996. Through the eyes of a transplanted northeasterner, the endless roads through fields of corn and soybeans outside of town seemed bucolic; the scene fit my paradigm of “the country.” Central Iowa’s flat terrain is a (slightly lazy) road biker’s paradise, and the isolation and quiet of the river valleys offered the illusion of wilderness. This agricultural landscape appeared—to my eyes—clean and pure; it seemed to reflect the pastoral landscapes depicted in art and literature. After all, it appeared cleaner than the dirt and grime of Philadelphia, where I attended graduate school. I was wrong. As I reconsidered my environmental stance through the lens of large-scale agriculture, I became aware of the mythic and narrative foundations of agriculture. Shortly after I had begun to rethink my concepts of pastoral, agriculture, and wilderness, I spent the academic year 1998–1999 conducting fieldwork in Baldeo, India.16 My goal was to learn more about Balaram, a figure subordinate to his younger brother, Krishna, who is central to Braj devotion. I spent most of my time in the Baldeo Temple,

24

Growing Stories from India

the primary pilgrimage destination for Balaram devotees. My activities in Baldeo were threefold: examining relevant manuscripts; collecting printed materials and stories involving Balaram by interviewing Pandas (hereditary temple guides) and locals; and observing daily and seasonal worship as it regards Balaram. As I lived, studied, worked, and played in Braj, I began to understand the way in which devotees in Baldeo viewed Balaram in an agricultural milieu, and I had to rethink all my assumptions about the context of Balaram’s actions and persona. I saw how Balaram—both in myth and in devotees’ ritual practice—mediated a problematic convergence between protection, agriculture, and violence, a linkage highly dramatized in the stories and practices of the springtime festival of Holi. Balaram’s relationship with the Yamuna River is a central focus of the Holi festivities, and these festivities demonstrate tensions inherent in agriculture, such as scarcity and desire for control of natural processes. Humans have little control over the earth and natural forces, and the frustrating reality is that natural forces may or may not support human endeavors—ask any farmer waiting for rain. My discussions with the Pandas of Baldeo emphasized the centrality of agriculture and protection to Balaram devotion as distinct from Krishna’s pastoral realm. The Pandas function as the transmitters of culture; they guide pilgrims through the necessary rituals and tell the appropriate stories. As such, their narratives construct understanding of and devotion to Balaram. Their narratives provide the cognitive frameworks—metaphors and discourse—that constitute knowledge of Balaram and his relationship to agriculture and the earth. Once back in Iowa, I found that the rhetoric that emerged from the ISU College of Agriculture revealed both competing agricultural narratives as well as the necessity to reexamine those narratives. The College of Agriculture, along with the USDA, Farm Bureaus across the United States, and agribusinesses such as Monsanto and Cargill, proclaim that this agricultural system feeds the world and that our high yields of corn and soybeans attest to an efficient and successful agricultural system. Photographs of verdant fields and full harvests appear to corroborate this evidence. However, while cycling through endless fields of corn and soybeans, friends and colleagues affiliated with the Sustainable Agriculture Program, which is housed in the College of Agriculture, and the Leopold

The Ecological Imagination

25

Center for Sustainable Agriculture presented alternate narratives that neither the Farm Bureau nor the College of Agriculture wants to tell. Iowa’s rivers are toxic from agricultural runoff. Nitrogen applied to fields runs into the Mississippi River and contributes to a hypoxic zone that kills river life in the Mississippi Delta. Extensive monocultures have reduced wildlife habitat and supplanted the biodiversity necessary for healthy ecosystems. Heavy fertilization and overplanting have depleted the topsoil, the “black gold” that rendered Iowa’s agriculture so productive. Largescale hog production exemplifies animal cruelty, and the stench from their waste-product lagoons is unbearable. Something is wrong with our models for human-earth relationships. Agricultural runoff, loss of biodiversity, poisoned soil, and inhumane meat processing: although this is not a pretty portrait, it is nonetheless a portrait of contemporary agricultural practices, both in the United States and abroad. This portrait pleads the case for revised narratives for agricultural thought and practice and invites us to recast the roles for human participants in the biotic community. Stories and myths are important because they can be enormously potent forces for change; story reflexively shapes and reflects values and practices and is a tool for assessing human action. This is so because stories take us out of our immediate context, and this removal provides the emotional distance through which we are able to critique our own behavior. In this mode, for example, science fiction situates emotionally charged controversies at a remove such that readers might reflect on these controversies with less personal and/or emotional investment. Although a society’s laws and policies might spell out clearly the rules and consequences for disobedience, stories reach us at an emotional—and possibly prerational—level and structure norms and behaviors. Myth, lore, and story have, in contemporary parlance, become shorthand for something false or at best trivial, but this usage denies their transformative power. Myth, for instance, functions as a form of truth, a means of conveying truths and values through metaphor and symbol. Myths reflect moral stances on human behavior and provide an imaginative space that allows us to reflect upon human relations with the world. Further, myths can be an agent of change. The analysis of agricultural myth and narrative presented in this book provides an opportunity to reflect broadly on human-earth relations in terms of agriculture.

26

Growing Stories from India

Between Narratives of Agriculture As I examined different agricultural narratives, I understood that my investigation of Balaram and the Yamuna River provided a touchstone from which to question contemporary narratives of agriculture. My previous work illustrated how the language of the Hindu poetic tradition creates a world for devotees. That is, the narratives, metaphors, and tropes—figurative language—structure a worldview through which devotees understand their relationship to the deities Krishna and Balaram and to the physical world.17 And, through analyzing Hindu narratives of agriculture, the storied nature of our own views of agriculture became increasingly apparent. For example, contemporary western scientific views are also situated within a set of narratives. Broad narratives of progress and productivity— the narratives of modernity—structure contemporary discourse about agriculture. However, because agriculture has become embedded within a scientific discourse, its cultural and religious dimensions are obscured. Understanding and uncovering the narratives that underlie—and shape—our agricultural practices enable us to better evaluate our stories and our practices. Making explicit the narrative element that maintains and validates contemporary agricultural practice renders possible a choice between narratives. For example, if we recognize the religious and cultural dimensions of intensive agricultural narratives, then we can choose our own stories to guide our attitudes and subsequent behavior. Exploring the metaphors that characterize our participation in the biotic community helps us engage our moral imagination to rethink agricultural relations. By asking difficult questions such as “What roles do we play in the biotic community?” and “What kinds of relationships within that community do we envision?” we avoid a sentimental and amorphous relationship with nature that does not demand action. Investigating relationships in the biotic community through the lens of narrative and metaphor enables us to explore what these relationships might require of us. The metaphors and entailments behind Balaram’s interactions with the Yamuna River help us focus on how agricultural processes are related and illustrate tensions stemming from the human need to control these processes. Agriculture itself is a mechanism to direct natural processes, but the narratives of modernity that underlie industrial agriculture have natu-

The Ecological Imagination

27

ralized assumptions that humans have both control and entitlement over the earth’s processes. Agriculture, by definition, presumes human manipulation of biotic processes; after all, its goal is the production of food and human sustenance. The relationship between Balaram and the Yamuna River facilitates our rethinking the metaphoric entailments of human-earth relations and the nature of these manipulations. This story illuminates the dangers of relationships based on control and protection that can lead to exploitation and an overemphasis on productivity at the expense of a long-term, sustainable partnership. These cautions direct us to the importance of agency and freedom in regard to relationships within the biotic community. Exploring the relationship of Balaram and the Yamuna River and the construction of their roles as agriculturalist and river in the story makes it possible to critique how these roles emerge in contemporary systems of agriculture. For instance, sets of dances that both appear in narratives about Balaram and are performed in contemporary Holi festivities in Baldeo, India, enact ties between society and agriculture. These practices embody social tensions related to agriculture and evoke questions that reflect existing hierarchies—questions such as “Who is invited?” and “Who participates?” Evan Eisenberg, in his insightful book The Ecology of Eden, suggests that jazz could be a beneficial model that could facilitate a more nuanced and responsive human-nature relationship, and Sharon Welch writes that the receptiveness to the discordant voices, ambiguities, and possibilities of jazz render this form an appropriate model for the dynamics of community building and social responsibility.18 In a similar mode, I imagine a sort of free-form dance, perhaps involving multiple partners, in which each must give and take, lead but not dominate. Once we shape new narratives of agriculture and human relations, we can act in ways that are mutually beneficial for the earth and for humans. The following chapter discusses our current agrarian crisis, investigates the stories that have brought us to this point, and demonstrates the environmental and social costs associated with industrial agricultural practices that demand that we envision alternate agricultural paradigms.

Chapter 2

Narratives of Agriculture How Did We Get Here?

Proponents of industrial agriculture justify current practices with claims of high productivity, yet they rarely acknowledge that this system also produces environmental degradation, social instability, and hunger. This chapter examines the stories that have brought us to these crises. My aim in this book is to uncover the metaphors and narrative structures that underlie myth and story and to reveal how these structures shape norms that guide human action with regard to agriculture. Subsequent chapters use the story of the Hindu deities Balaram and the Yamuna River to do this work; this chapter provides the context for a discussion of agricultural narratives and the necessity for new paradigms. First, I explain how industrial agriculture and the resulting environmental degradation demonstrate the need for new stories. Second, I argue that any agricultural ethic must address the effects of our engagement with the land on human and nonhuman communities; I further argue that our stories and metaphors must therefore consider new roles for humans in the biotic community. Finally, I discuss how metaphor and narrative shape human behavior by providing recognizable roles, characters, and plots that seem “natural” to us. In a process that might best be construed as an iterative cycle, metaphor and narrative provide norms for agricultural practice, and they provide the imaginative space to envision changed practices and their consequences. These norms structure—but do not determine— practice; and, as such norms are acted upon, they reflect existing practices. Disrupting this self-perpetuating cycle with revised metaphors and narratives might be the best possibility to transform practice.

Narratives of Agriculture

29

Obviously, narrative structure frames myth and story, but it is less obvious that scientific and agricultural views also are shaped by these literary conventions. The predominant food narrative in the United States has been one of abundance, stability, and plenty. For example, when I walk down the aisles of the grocery store or even turn on the television, I am confronted with what seems like an endless array of food choices. Just picture the chip aisle—how many flavors of Doritos are there now? In the United States, we live amidst a bounty of food choices, a veritable cornucopia of food products. This proliferation of products, however, is illusory and masks the reality of an encroaching agricultural monism. More and more products are fashioned from combinations of corn products that bear no resemblance to their origins.1 This illusory abundance available to us in gleaming supermarkets has led to several generations of children believing that food comes from the supermarket, with little or no understanding of how that food arrived on the shelf. Growing up in a suburb of New York City taught me that meat came wrapped in plastic and potato salad came from the deli. (I am embarrassed to admit that I did not know that people could actually make potato salad until I was in my early twenties.) TV dinners were a real treat, and the health food craze of the 1970s entirely bypassed my family. Visits to family members in rural north Georgia demonstrated to me how food was grown; I was enchanted with my uncle’s small farm in Athens, Georgia, and I loved to pick tomatoes with my grandmother. Nonetheless, these activities seemed exotic to me, and the A&P in suburban New York was the norm. This store, and others like it, met the food needs of my immediate family, and their abundance seemed congruent with the storybook image of farms gleaned from alphabet primers and picture books. For many, including myself, this narrative of abundance is no longer adequate. My time in Iowa made me aware of industrial—or what many call conventional—agricultural practices, and, like many, I sought alternatives. The recent proliferation of farmers’ markets and programs designed to reconnect consumers to producers demonstrates that many of us are seeking new modes of relating to the earth and to our food. An increasing number of people are beginning to grow their own foods; for example, in the first quarter of 2009, 300 new gardens

30

Growing Stories from India

registered with LocalHarvest, a web-based program to help link consumers with sustainably grown food.2 The Florida Organic Growers have a popular “Gift Garden” program that provides raised-bed gardens to low-income households with advice and assistance for a year. The owner of an organic herb nursery near my home in Florida stated that so many new gardeners have asked for assistance that he simply cannot keep up. Many factors have contributed to this new demand, including the deteriorating economy and recent food scares. Tom Stearns, founder of the Center for an Agricultural Economy, stated that the twin factors of E. coli and salmonella contributed to the success of his sustainable agricultural project in Hartwick, Vermont.3 Nonetheless, some unintended consequences of these new gardens highlight the importance of staying local. Dan Barbour, chef and coowner of Blue Hill Restaurant in New York, writes that the backyard garden demand for plants hastened the spread of tomato blight: the big box stores such as Lowe’s and Kmart bought and sold infected plants because it was cheaper and more expedient than growing seedlings locally. Gardeners, he argues, must realize that all gardens, no matter how small, are part of a larger agricultural web, and gardeners must understand how their actions fit into a larger biological and social framework.4 The real and perceived deficiencies of the existing food system have demonstrated to many that our previous agricultural stories are no longer adequate. If we are to begin the process of creating new stories, then we must consider the existing ones that have allowed us to become so disengaged from our food and from the earth and examine the agricultural narratives that have fostered such a profound disconnect between our food, its production, and us.

The Stories of Industrial Agriculture In this book I use the terms industrial agriculture and large-scale agriculture interchangeably. This is a multistage food system that incorporates all stages of food production, starting from the seed and including intermediate stages, such as transportation, processing, and farm equipment. Although farming refers to the actual process in which the inputs, such as water, soil, seed, and fertilizer, become products, such as

Narratives of Agriculture

31

corn and soybeans, farming is but one step in the process of agrifood.5 In the latter, seeds as well as the food itself are commodified, and profit, rather than the well-being of farmers or their communities or the nutritive value of the food, becomes the primary measure of value. This system replaced the subsistence, seed-to-plate system. When the balance of the production of family farms shifted from subsistence to commercial markets, each stage of agriculture became more and more specialized.6 Industrial agriculture arose largely in response to the needs of the growing industrial economy of the United States and was modeled upon the structures, ideologies, and practices of industry. Even though this large-scale form of agriculture is historically recent, industrial agriculture has become so normalized that it is referred to as conventional in distinction to alternatives such as organic. Contemporary industrial agriculture emerged out of Western capitalist domains, and this system now prevails on a global scale. Industrial agriculture is clearly the dominant system, but small-scale subsistence agriculture often exists in a parallel economy, so the distinction is not simply national or geographic. Industrial agriculture does not include small-scale farms in the United States, but it does include large ventures in non-Western countries such as India. Further, despite the litany of problems associated with industrial agriculture, subsistence and/or indigenous forms of agriculture are not axiomatically environmentally friendly or sustainable. In Out of the Earth, soil scientist Daniel Hillel provides numerous geographic and temporal examples in which people have overused their land, and the resulting loss of topsoil and increased soil salinity have rendered further agricultural production impossible. Because overuse cuts across culture, time, and place, it is important to avoid romanticizing people or practices. However, despite deleterious past agricultural practices, contemporary industrial agriculture has produced problems on an unprecedented scale that demand immediate and sustained attention. The environmental degradation that has resulted from large-scale intensive agriculture compromises our ability to continue food production in any meaningfully sustainable fashion. The UN Livestock Report documents in great detail the effects of the world’s growing livestock industry on climate change, pollution, and depletion of water reserves.7

32

Growing Stories from India

Dana Jackson notes that the Midwest has become an “ecological sacrifice zone” in which problems of soil erosion, loss of water, and contamination of soil and groundwater are perceived as compromises necessary to “feed the world.”8 Industrial agricultural practices have treated topsoil and groundwater such as the Ogallala Aquifer as limitless resources when in fact they are nonrenewable in any meaningful time frame. The unacknowledged, but apt, metaphor underlying extraction of these resources is mining, and their removal constitutes theft from future generations. Although problems such as soil erosion began with agriculture itself, the chemical- and irrigation-intensive practices of large-scale agriculture that arose with the industrial revolution have exacerbated the problems exponentially. Even by the mid-nineteenth century Europe and the United States had depleted the soil of its nutrients to the point that both entities began what sociologist John B. Foster and soil scientist Fred Magdoff refer to as “guano imperialism.” Guano, rich in phosphates and nitrogen, became a highly treasured commodity as a fertilizer, and in 1856 the U.S. Congress passed the Guano Island Act, which authorized the seizure of ninety-four islands, rocks, and keys, making these lands and their resources U.S. possessions.9 Similarly, the loss of biodiversity above and below the soil has contributed to disease and pest outbreaks. The biological diversity that resulted from crop rotations helped enhance soil fertility, for example, through fi xing nitrogen, and encouraged pest control by interrupting pest life cycles.10 The monocultures of intensive corn and soybean production in the Midwest, however, led to greater pest problems and soil nutrient depletion, which contributed to a continuing cycle of increased use of fertilizers and pesticides. Heavy applications of fertilizers and pesticides have contaminated the soil and water, resulting in both health and environmental concerns. For example, farmers in the rural United States who use agricultural chemicals and their families have elevated rates of certain cancers.11 Farmers and consumers in less developed countries such as India suffer an even greater rate of exposure to toxic chemicals; most farmers do not have access to protective gear, and produce in local markets often contains residue of short-lived toxic organophosphates at levels unacceptable for export.12

Narratives of Agriculture

33

One concern, in particular, is that the nitrogen runoff from agriculture in the Midwest has created a hypoxic “dead zone” in the Mississippi Delta that, in 2007, exceeded 22,000 square kilometers, a size larger than Massachusetts.13 The transition to industrial agriculture has had social consequences as well; rural communities suffer job loss due to the loss of small-scale farms, which leads to further depopulation of rural areas.14 In short, current practices are flawed and nonsustainable. The 1930s Dust Bowl, produced by years of drought and misuse of soil, provides historical evidence of the consequences of erosion. In 1935, the United States government passed the U.S. Soil Conservation Act.15 By 1938 the U.S. Soil Conservation Service was sufficiently concerned with deteriorating soil health in the United States that assistant chief Walter C. Lowdermilk made an eighteen-month tour of North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East to survey the effects of longtime cultivation. In his article “Conquest of the Land through Seven Thousand Years,” Lowdermilk decried the massive problems with soil erosion in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa that had resulted from centuries of overgrazing and exploitive soil practices: As we read in the Holy Lands records of decline and ruin and oblivion of great empires of the past, we were moved by the ineffable sadness and tragedy of man’s failures to find a lasting adjustment to his land resources. Time after time I pondered tragic ruins or great centers of power and culture and the even more tragic ruins of the lands that supported these teeming centers of population, the question would come to mind: Must our fair country of America rise to great power and strength only to decline and fall, because we fail to find a solution to this age-old problem of a permanent source of abundant and adequate food? Have we the intelligence—have we the will to establish here a lasting nation where the dream of liberty for all is planted? Here is a challenge to the perennial youth of our land!16

In 1939, Lowdermilk responded to this degradation with a lecture in Jerusalem entitled “The Eleventh Commandment” in which he proposed an additional commandment to the Moses Decalogue. This eleventh commandment required humans to become stewards of the land and to adopt conservation practices that would ensure the land’s continued fertility and abundance.17

34

Growing Stories from India

Some scholars and practitioners in the agricultural and scientific communities have responded to these kinds of crises with methods to repair or restore biological diversity and the associated biological processes. For example, in the 1940s, Sir Albert Howard, considered the father of organic agriculture, popularized the concepts of organic farming, based on his experiences in Indore, India, using terms such as “interdependence” and the “wheel of life.”18 More recently, entomologist Miguel Altieri helped develop agroecology, a theory and practice that “seeks the diversification and revitalization of medium and small farms and the reshaping of the entire agricultural policy and food system in ways that are economically viable to farmers and the general public.”19 Like agroecology, conservation biology and restoration ecology are approaches that explicitly aim to repair or reverse environmental damage. These fields assume human involvement in the ecosystem and, to different degrees, are designed specifically for repair and restoration; repair and restoration, themselves invoking metaphors of health and healing, suggest the role of human-as-physician, excluding other human roles, as Aldo Leopold’s term “plain and simple members” of the biotic community suggests. While all forms of agriculture intervene into the earth’s processes, agroecology, for example, strives for longevity and restoration, rather than simply extraction. The idioms and metaphors of agroecology, conservation biology, and restoration ecology emphasize balance, relationships, and interactions between different elements of the ecosystem, such as plants, soil processes, and pests, rather than concentrating on one element of the system. Whereas industrial agriculture rests upon idioms of control and machinery, agroecology, for example, relies on such idioms as balance and reciprocity and focuses on relationships and interactions. In many cases, the scientists who designated terms such as conservation biology and agroecology are well aware of the power of discourse to “change the terrain of your mental map, reasoning that if you were to conceive of nature differently, then you would view and value it differently.” In The Idea of Biodiversity, David Takacs illustrates how conservation biologists introduced the term biodiversity to connote webs of relations and change how we perceive ourselves in relation to the biotic community.20

Narratives of Agriculture

35

Metaphoric Realms of Modern Agriculture If these approaches to agriculture, whether industrial or organic, seem natural, it is because they are situated within recognizable metaphoric and narrative realms, through such concepts as the war on nature and land as commodity. Industrial agriculture’s discourse of feeding the world and progress suggests a romantic narrative, a quest to end hunger. In this narrative structure, familiar to us through fairy tales, books, and movies, the hero must overcome obstacles such as dragons to achieve victory and maintain righteousness. Viewing industrial agriculture through this narrative framework, uncooperative nature assumes the role of the dragon, and we empathize with the hero, the agriculturalist, applauding his struggles to subdue nature. This casting helps explain how human entitlement to the earth’s yield can appear so natural and why the agency of nature poses such a threat. Revealing how this narrative structure casts humans and members of the biotic community into well-known roles and shapes relations between these communities exposes the fact that these roles and relations are not natural; rather, they reflect just one of many possible narrative realms. I suggest that viewing agricultural relations in a comic or tragic narrative might recast the roles of both humans and the biotic community. While most people will readily acknowledge that religions and cultures place agriculture and the natural world within mythic frameworks, it seems less clear—and certainly less acknowledged—that the Western scientific view of agriculture is also situated in a narrative structure. However, because science—and thus scientific agriculture— appears within a metaphoric context of objectivity and universal truth, its own narrative and mythic structures are obscured. Modern science functions within a “social imaginary” of neutrality and objectivity that proffers authority, legitimacy, and credibility while concealing its rootedness in specific social-political-material realms.21 As Fred Kirschenmann articulates in “Spirituality in Agriculture,” modern science and agriculture are situated in the Western scientific paradigm and modern ideologies of progress, fragmentation, and control. In this narrative, which can be traced to René Descartes (1596–1650) and Francis Bacon (1561–1626), the body and the earth are machines, and progress results

36

Growing Stories from India

from improved technological manipulation of the parts or fragments. This view comprehends the world and its processes in terms of fragments instead of relationships. In this view, the natural world is like a machine, and by knowing the roles and functions of the component parts, it is possible to understand how the machine works and, more important, how to control it. Bacon states that “by the art and the end of man, nature can then be forced out of her natural state and squeezed and molded.” In this way, “human knowledge and human power meet as one.”22 Historian Carolyn Merchant argues that Bacon’s images of “constraint of nature in the laboratory, dissection by hand and mind, and the penetration of hidden secrets” are all tropes that appear still today when “praising a scientist’s hard facts.”23 The concept of the scientist’s hard facts, however, rests upon the separation of fact and value, and this separation makes science appear to be objective and value-free. However, the veil of objectivity obscures the cultural situatedness of scientific views such that science does not always appear to be situated in a narrative framework. In this schema, data are extracted and isolated from their situatedness in more complicated sets of relationships.24 For example, if the sole marker for judging corn production is the number of bushels produced per acre, a range of other markers, including beneficial factors such as fodder for animals, the impact of fertilizers on soil and water health, and the effects of monocultures on rural economic health, is excluded. The latter are examples of the relationships and social situatedness of agriculture that the fragmented systems of modernity—what some might call capitalism—do not take into account. Examining the language used in science as well as the social-situatedness of scientists and their institutions, though, reveal that values are indeed embedded within scientific inquiry. As in Merchant’s analysis of Bacon’s language, culturally determined narratives and language both shape and reflect values and attitudes toward the natural world, and Merchant argues that attitudes toward nature reflect and shape those toward women. Images and ideologies of constraint, dissection, and penetration are not neutral or benign and demonstrate an ideology of domination of nature, and, by extension, of women. Anthropologist Frederique Apffel-Marglin and Paramond Parajuli argue that even seventeenth-century scholars recognized that the scientific worldview,

Narratives of Agriculture

37

which separated fact and value, was a political innovation to fabricate reality. That is, those who “fabricate the facts” through the scientific method design reality, and this production of reality has clear social and political consequences because facts that are “discovered in nature” typically reinforce existing social strata.25 For example, Thomas Kuhn argues that multiple nonscientific factors, including nationality and autobiography, affect the acceptance of one scientific paradigm over another.26 Bruno Latour points out how a debate between Robert Boyle and Thomas Hobbes exemplifies this point. [Boyle and Hobbes] are inventing our modern world, a world in which the representation of things through the intermediary of the laboratory is forever disassociated from the representation of citizens through the social contract. They are like a pair of Founding Fathers, acting in concert to promote one and the same innovation in political theory: the representation of nonhumans belongs to science, but science is not allowed to appeal to politics; the representation of citizens belongs to politics, but politics is not allowed to have any relation to the nonhumans produced and mobilized by science and technology.27

Thus science itself is deeply rooted within the sociocultural realm, yet the mantle of objectivity has deflected criticisms of science that emerge from political, social, or cultural realms. While religious systems might consciously link values to explanatory narratives, science, too, is a value-laden knowledge system, despite claims of neutrality. Analyzing the metaphoric foundation of fragmented modernity enables us to consider an alternative metaphoric realm for humans and the earth, that of relationship. Viewing agriculture through the trope of relationality provides the imaginative space for us to explore the conditions of this relationship. Changing metaphoric realms opens up new questions and new possibilities in how we understand the body, agriculture, and ecology. Bacon’s and Descartes’s mechanistic metaphor presumes that processes are predictable and controllable; this view excludes emergent properties, that is, unpredictable conditions that arise due to the interactions among parts or processes. The metaphor of a homeostatic organism, by contrast, invokes entailments of regulation, balance, and emergent properties that provide new patterns to shape knowledge about the earth.

38

Growing Stories from India

In The Body in the Mind, Mark Johnson compares the metaphoric realms of the body as machine and body as homeostatic organism and illustrates how these metaphors lead to different results in medical diagnosis. The body-as-machine metaphor induces physicians to understand disease as “the breakdown of a specific part or an invasion by a foreign object or substance,” and this framework results in diagnoses based on presumption of a specific cause or location of the problem. However, physician Hans Selye’s research on stress as a systemic condition led to the metaphor of the body as homeostatic organism, which assumes the features of general adaptive response and balance. The body responds systemically and generally to stress factors, and focusing on a specific body part only addresses a symptom.28 The organic metaphor instead suggests that the constituent parts and processes of an organism operate interdependently; one cannot simply manipulate a fragment of the system without affecting the system as a whole. Diagnosis resulting from the organic metaphor includes investigation into the relationships of the various processes and their interactions, a process that raises new questions. Both Kirschenmann and Johnson note that the machine metaphor forces us to overlook vital pieces of information about our world—information about relationships, interdependencies, and emergent properties—all vital, as it turns out, to economic, social, and ecological sustainability.29 The aptly named organic agriculture and agroecology, however, are structured upon the homeostatic organism metaphor, and practices derive from relationships within the system. As Miguel Altieri wrote: “The behavior of agroecology depends on the level of interactions between the various biological and non-biological components. By creating a functional biodiversity, processes occur that provide ecological services such as the activation of soil organisms, the cycling of nutrients, the enhancements of beneficial insects and antagonists, and so on.”30 The term organic arose in the 1940s to describe the “farm as an organism” in which the parts of the farm are orchestrated into a functioning whole, an alternative to mainstream mechanistic views.31 Yet despite the emergence of the philosophy of organic agriculture and criticisms of industrial agriculture, most agricultural thought and practice are premised upon a mechanistic paradigm.32

Narratives of Agriculture

39

Proponents of industrial agriculture have argued that adopting organic agriculture will lead to an agricultural Armageddon, claiming that only the modern and efficient methods of large-scale agriculture can adequately feed the world’s growing populations. In response to environmental critiques of fertilizer and pesticides, former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz stated, “Before we go back to organic agriculture, somebody is going to have to decide what fift y million people we are going to let starve.”33 Despite attempts to portray organic and alternative methods of food production as inadequate or, worse, unscientific and new age-y, a University of Michigan study demonstrates that such methods produce three times more food per acre, which is sufficient to meet global food needs.34 Similarly, in its publication “Telling Porkies,” the Soil Association, a UK group promoting sustainable and organic agriculture, critiques “the big fat lie” that we must double food production by 2050 and argues that organic farming could feed the world given fairer diets and better food distribution.35 The inflated rhetoric of proponents of large-scale agriculture—who tend to be much better funded than proponents of other approaches to agriculture—has made it difficult to criticize industrial agriculture because these techniques have been depicted as scientific and cuttingedge, and critics are frequently derided as Luddites or hopeless romantics longing for a mythologized agricultural golden age. However, criticism becomes even more difficult when proponents of largescale agriculture couch their arguments in a religious-cultural narrative yet articulate their arguments within a scientific discourse, such as the need to “feed the world” in which agricultural overproduction takes on salvific dimensions. This has two results: first, the feed-the-world discourse silences critique. After all, who is going to argue with “saving millions from starvation”? Despite the prevalence of industrial agriculture, however, hunger remains a global problem. Second, scientific discourse—deemed objective—obscures its own religious, cultural, and narrative dimensions. Understanding the narratives and figures of speech that structure agricultural thought enables us to examine these systems critically and to determine alternatives. Viewing these systems as one of several options indicates that our current system is not inevitable but the result of choices.

40

Growing Stories from India

Such narratives appear so natural and obvious that we might not even think of them as narratives at all: those proselytizing for higher yields and improved seeds or plants to prevent mass starvation appear scientific and objective. For example, in an article entitled “Ending World Hunger,” Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, complains of the “antiscience zealotry” of those who question biotechnology.36 However, scientific discourse obscures both the implicit hierarchies that have social, economic, and political implications (contrast the image of the scientist in the white coat to what is labeled as ethnoscience, science understood through emic perspectives) and the subjective or narrative foundations of these discourses. The narrative of contemporary agriculture emphasizes productivity— that is, high yields (a relative standard)—as the sole measure of value, and progress in the form of improved seeds and inputs such as fertilizers. Recognizing the metaphors that underlie the modern scientific view of agriculture helps us contextualize the stated need for biotechnology products. And where else would we start but the seed? As a metaphor, the seed offers a coherent set of concepts: it suggests regeneration, growth, and potential. In practice, though, seeds are multifunctional; in addition to being planted, they can be eaten, traded, or gifted, and as such they are embedded in social relationships, and their value stretches beyond the monetary. In traditional and indigenous forms of agriculture, seeds and seed trading are embedded within social relationships that are not strictly economic and must be maintained.37 In contrast, the contemporary agricultural narrative relies upon a different seed metaphor—that of the seed as commodity, which presents a different range of metaphoric entailments. As a commodity, the “seed” is an object to be bought, traded, or sold in a monetary economy and is not regenerative—a fitting image for Monsanto’s nonreproducing “terminator” gene. This gene, designated the Terminator by Pat Roy Mooney, Director of the Rural Advancement Foundation International, refers to the gene that inhibits the plants’ production of seed that can germinate.38 This gene was designed so that farmers using this product could not collect and save their seed, a traditional practice, and would need to purchase seed annually from Monsanto. (Due to massive protest, in 1999, Monsanto agreed not to commercialize this technology.) As such, the seed fits into an

Narratives of Agriculture

41

agricultural narrative of the world as a machine that can be controlled by manipulating inputs, whether those inputs are fertilizers or genes, and also fits into another metaphoric realm—that of the war on nature. This worldview is one in which humans can easily manipulate their environment to produce determined results. For example, according to the USDA’s “Transgenics for a Better Tomato,” “In the transgenic approach, we find a particular gene that controls the trait we’re interested in, like early ripening or prolonged shelf life,” [plant physiologist Autar K. Mattoo] says. “Then, using molecular tools, we reengineer the gene, confirm it’s what we want, and introduce it into a plant so it becomes part of that plant’s genome. The plant then possesses the new trait.”39

This statement implies that the input, the gene in this case, leads to a specific—and determined—outcome. The ideology of control and commodification extends throughout the realm of industrial agriculture; plants, animals, soil, and water are objects to be bought and traded and are not themselves understood to have agency. In contrast, Kirschenmann argues that “the world is not a machine that can be precisely manipulated and controlled with our technologies. It is rather a very dynamic, indeterminate system of highly complex, interdependent organisms with incredible emergent properties. Consequently the question we might ask is whether it might not now be time to move beyond the Cartesian paradigm—especially with respect to agriculture.”40 Kirschenmann’s metaphoric description reflects Thomas Kuhn’s argument that scientific paradigms, like metaphors, are “prerequisites to perception,” shaping what we see and, thus, how we know.41 Adopting new metaphoric frameworks literally alters perceptual fields; as evidence, Kuhn cites Sir William Herschel’s identification of Uranus in 1781. Once Herschel established a paradigm that accepted the existence of additional planets, astronomers not only saw Uranus differently (it was previously misidentified as a star), but they also were able to rapidly identify numerous asteroids and small planets.42 Geneticist Richard Lewontin and his coauthor Richard Levins offer such an alternative narrative for agriculture. They critique the notion that the seed, plant, or gene will respond in an absolutely determined fashion and suggest that organisms are codetermined through the dialectical in-

42

Growing Stories from India

teraction of gene, environment, and chance.43 In reality, we cannot absolutely depict how a trait will manifest. Such a view challenges the paradigm of dominance or control that has been pervasive in industrial agriculture. This alternative discourse, in contrast to a mechanistic worldview, offers the plant or seed an agency of sorts and situates it within an organic or holistic context of relationships. Such a view acknowledges that entities such as plants and soil are living beings that exist within a complex matrix of relationships including other plants, soil and water systems, animals, and air. The soil itself, for example, is a biotic community and regulates processes such as water flow and nutrient cycles in ways that are not yet fully understood. Such a dynamic and process-oriented view of the ecology of agriculture includes concepts such as mutuality, adaptation, and partnership, and these qualities—excluded in a mechanized worldview—emerge in my discussion of Balaram and the Yamuna River. Indeed, this relational view of agricultural processes better reflects traditional cropping systems in India, for example, in which agriculture is understood as situated within multiple systems such as forest and soil systems, as well as within social relationships. These traditional cropping systems account for a significant portion of the world’s food supplies, particularly in Africa and Latin America, and these polycultures of small farms typically outproduce yields of monocultures on larger-scale farms.44 With metaphors of commodity and an ideology of control, however, industrial agriculture and eventually biotechnology appear inevitable as the sole solution to perceived agricultural needs. This is not necessarily the case. Clarifying the naturalized and obscured narratives and metaphors in agricultural discourse enables us to be active participants in—and narrators of—our own story. Environmental philosopher Ricardo Rozzi and his colleagues articulate the dialectical relationship between how we know the world and how we inhabit the world, and suggest that when we understand that science is just one way of knowing we are better able to choose among narratives and patterns for our actions in the world.45 Articulating how the scientific realm is situated in a cultural and narrative worldview thus makes choice possible. As Lowdermilk concluded, we can no longer afford to view the land as a commodity; instead, the land “is an integral part of the nation even as its people and requires protection by the individual owner and by the nation as well.”46 I join the many others, including

Narratives of Agriculture

43

Aldo Leopold, Wes Jackson, and Fred Kirschenmann, who have called for new paradigms and have sought alternative relational patterns for agricultural practice.

A New Land Ethic In A Sand Country Almanac Aldo Leopold wrote, “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.”47 Leopold was one of the first to call for a human ethic toward the land, particularly in the context of agriculture. In 1948, he expressed his concerns in “Land Ethic,” an essay in his Sand Country Almanac, when it became clear to him that inattention to the quality of human interactions with the land was responsible for degradation both in wilderness and agricultural contexts. He proposed that the earth and land were proper objects of ethical consideration, and this proposition leads to another of the central questions of this book: How can narrative help us rethink ethical human relationships with the earth and natural world? Leopold’s land ethic is relevant to this discussion because his work presumes active human participation within the biotic community, and he asks how we might improve our participation. He does not presume the Thoreauvian isolation at Walden Pond nor John Muir’s seclusion within the Yosemite wilderness. Instead, Leopold argues that as members of the biotic community, human beings have obligations that should govern human behavior in this community. While interventions take many forms—such as landscape architecture and animal husbandry—I specifically address agriculture because, on the most basic level, we must eat to survive. This need has driven the evolution of contemporary agricultural practice, which has, in turn, had an enormous impact on the global environment. Our food choices and the agricultural systems they sustain make each one of us complicit in the environmental degradation that results from these choices. Eating is a moral act, and food production—the essence of agriculture—lies within the realm of ethics.

Does Agriculture Have a Place at the Table? Any ethic of agriculture must account for sustained human intervention

44

Growing Stories from India

in the biotic sphere. While all forms of life, simply through physical processes, affect the earth, human agriculture is sustained and long-term manipulation of plant and animal ecology. Wes Jackson argues that agriculture is by far “our largest and most basic artifact, that human culture and creation totally interpenetrate.”48 Human agriculture has dramatically altered ecological processes; and new forms of interventions, such as transgenics or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), will have extensive—and as yet unknown and untested—consequences. Agriculture will always be a process of intervention, but the quality of these interventions is critical. In many cases, the dominant motif guiding these interventions is one of dominance and exploitation, and much existing environmental writing equates “use” with “abuse.”49 However, existing indigenous agricultural practices as well as new developments in conservation biology, restoration ecology, and agroecology demonstrate that interventions can be benevolent and beneficial. The presence of people in the landscape is precisely what has relegated agriculture to the margins of environmental discourse. Agriculture is a social, cultural, and economic institution that is practiced in and upon the biotic community. Although it relies on physical and biological processes, agriculture is firmly situated within the human realm, and, as such, destabilizes environmental rhetoric because terms of environmental discourse derive much of their intellectual, rhetorical, and political vigor from themes of wilderness or pristine land. The Wilderness Act of 1964 offers the following definition: A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.50

Much Western environmental thought centers upon idioms of pure land or untainted wilderness, places that no human—or at least very few— have touched, and the interventions inherent in agriculture disrupt these images. Wilderness rhetoric appears primarily in Western environmental discourse. In his critique of this discourse, sociologist Ramachandra Guha argues that most environmental thought arising in India emerges from disputes about appropriate usages of and access to land and resources. Indian environmentalism is less concerned with wilderness

Narratives of Agriculture

45

preservation than how environmental problems affect communities, particularly those already marginalized. Humans and social equity are central to these concerns.51 Agricultural landscapes simply do not have the romantic appeal of the Rocky Mountains or the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska to most North Americans; few people want to lose themselves backpacking amidst rows of corn. While the older model of a diversified small farm has a pastoral, if not mythic, appeal, this idea has not seized the imagination or pocketbook of U.S. environmentalism, as have tropes of wilderness or large mammal preservation. It is necessary to preserve large tracts of land to insure species survival. However, most of our large tracts of land, including national parks and lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), are public lands while agricultural land is private property. The strong, if not sanctified, position of private property in the United States is a constraint that inhibits activism on agricultural lands. Nonetheless, environmentalists and others now must also confront the ecological problems associated with industrial agriculture—and our own complicity in the resulting ecological degradation. Focusing on remote wilderness areas enables us to show environmental outrage without actually having to address our own practices. For example, it is easier to protest drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by writing letters or making financial contributions than it is to change our own practices—including industrial agriculture—that support the oil and gas industry. While Americans overwhelmingly oppose opening ANWR to drilling, proportionately few have adopted the environmentally friendly practices of commuting by bicycle or public transportation. In “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon points out the irony that once wilderness is no longer pristine or gets too close to home, many environmentalists disregard its fate. Few, he notes, idealize the landscape in which they actually live, and Jackson wonders if Earth First! activists can be “as fervent in defending a farmer’s soil conservation efforts” as in saving wilderness.52 Clearly this attitude that any land once “used” is beyond consideration has obvious and deleterious effects for agricultural land. Turning our attention toward the agricultural landscape requires both that we revise the pristine–tainted dichotomy and that we change what we eat. Although it is useful to bear in the mind the difference between wil-

46

Growing Stories from India

derness and agriculture, perhaps the more important distinction is between small, diversified farms and industrial agriculture. While the sterile monocultures of industrial agriculture are toxic environments for wildlife, small, diversified farms, particularly if organic, that use fewer pesticides and herbicides can provide much habitat for nonfood plants and animals.53 Some farmers are ardent conservationists and recognize the importance of fostering biodiversity, and I will discuss some of their stories in Chapter 7, “Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair.” Although some farmers have continually held such views, two relatively recent books by Dan Imhoff, an activist, farmer, and author on agrarian issues, Farming with the Wild and Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature, indicate that farmers are increasingly aware that the fates of “wild nature” and agriculture are intertwined. Farmers such as Wendell Berry have advocated conservation-based farming for many years, but emerging threats, such as the loss of bees, butterflies, and songbirds, have prompted more farmers to rethink the benefits and trade-offs of wildlife. On his own farm in South Dakota, Fred Kirschenmann, for example, balances the benefits of bugand grub-eating blackbirds with their tendency to eat sunflowers and asks, “If we get rid of the blackbirds, what else are we getting rid of?”54 The problems associated with large-scale agriculture have had immense effects on the environment, and these extend far beyond the physical locations of agriculture. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which is decimating bee colonies all over the world, is a case in point: bees are responsible for pollinating crops—particularly crops grown in the monocultures common to industrial agriculture; we eventually eat those crops; and, although the causes of CCD are as yet unknown, emerging pathogens and toxic chemicals are among suggested causes. Monocultural coffee production in Central America has decimated populations of songbirds, and we feel the loss of these birds along their migratory paths. Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, the impact of livestock production on climate change, loss of biodiversity, and commodification of crops: these and other current agricultural issues demand that we create space for agriculture within environmental discourse. This means revising or even creating new stories about our food that take into account how this food was produced and its effects on the biotic community. Further, we must enact our revised stories by choosing foods that are sustainable and that promote social equity.

Narratives of Agriculture

47

While perhaps it has been easier to designate areas of the Midwest as “ecological sacrifice zones” and focus attention on more scenic areas, that strategy is inadequate. It is time to critique our own roles in those agricultural narratives that have enabled this degradation. For example, my purchasing conventionally grown foods is a vote for the existing food production system. Proponents of industrial agriculture tout the abundance and efficiency of these foods, and the bounty of supermarkets makes it difficult to critique that narrative. This difficulty results in part from the cognitive gap between these supermarkets and the production of the food they sell. Standing in a cereal aisle, surrounded by shelves of brightly colored cardboard boxes promising health and vigor, it is extremely difficult to conjure up images of rural poverty and declining productivity. These products and their illusory abundance are designed to promote images of bounty, health, and well-being and rarely invite inquiries into the conditions of their production. In his 1997 book The Spirit of the Soil, Paul Thompson asks why so little has been written on agriculture in the vast literature of environmental thought and ethics.55 Although some in the fields of philosophy and religious studies, particularly within the past five years, have begun to address this issue, many environmental scholars have continued to ignore agriculture. The categorical divisions within environmental discourse become problematic because the broad categories commonly used (pristine nature versus tainted nature) do not offer the tools to evaluate agricultural practice. Most environmental discourse has failed to address the quality of human engagement with the land. The discourse of wilderness may once have been politically, intellectually, and rhetorically appropriate, but now we must investigate our participation in agricultural relations. Eating, food, and food production are intimate topics, and exploring our own role in agricultural relations demands self-examination. Our investigative lens must be turned on our own practices and behaviors; we must consider the social and environmental impact of our next meal. This self-scrutiny requires serious examination of our own—and others’—food practices and an acknowledgment of our own complicity in this food crisis. To address agricultural practice and food production, we must evaluate our participation in the biotic community and reconsider the qualities

48

Growing Stories from India

of our relations. Agriculture, and thus the human–earth relationship, is simultaneously creative and destructive, and recognizing this bifurcation moves us away from a sentimental relationship with the pristine toward one that grapples with the realities of our participation in the biotic community. Doing so allows us to examine themes such as partnership and relationship rather than commodity that guide our attitudes toward, and participation in, the biotic community. Examining existing roles and metaphors reveals both how agriculture fits within the context of social and natural worlds—particularly in terms of ethics—and how stories and practices reflexively shape human relations with the earth in terms of agriculture. Recognizing how narrative provides patterns for these relations by providing familiar roles, characters, and plots suggests possibilities for revising relations through revised narratives.

Narrative, Metaphor, and Ethics Stories and language structure knowledge of the world and guide action. Story provides the imaginative space where humans construct patterns for relations with other humans, with other members of the biotic community, and with the land itself. Stories help us develop and enact the ethical frameworks that then enable us to think through various proper courses of action and depict the consequences of those choices. Martha Nussbaum, in her book Poetic Justice, maintains that the moral and empathetic sentiments that arise from literature are necessary for legal justice because emotions explored through story provide context and depth to a defendant’s actions.56 The deliberations and choices that literary characters make enact the same moral complexities that human beings face. Characters’ choices, for example between family and duty, illustrate the difficulty of navigating between multiple moral allegiances.57 This link between story and morality has been particularly evident in the field of narrative ethics, as represented by legal scholar Martha Nussbaum and philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre writes that moral reasoning occurs within narrative frameworks. Stories and the characters that inhabit them provide the material through which we understand the world and our own roles in it, and these narrative realms, not abstract precepts, provide a basis for us to determine what constitutes moral behavior.58

Narratives of Agriculture

49

The relationship of story to practice is important because narrative and metaphor affect social practices, and the process of moving from story to practice is reciprocal and dialectical. In Moral Imagination, Mark Johnson illustrates how metaphor and narrative structure human moral thought and consequently concepts of how we ought to behave. Metaphors provide the structures through which we understand the world, ideas, and human relationships. Metaphors that appear so commonsensical as to seem trite permeate everyday speech and determine related concepts and images. “Love is war,” for example, reflects and determines the idea that love is a combative relationship, requiring negotiations, liaisons, and concessions. Alternatively, a “love is nourishment” frame suggests instead, for example, that love, like food, is necessary for survival. Indeed, as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson wrote in Metaphors We Live By, metaphors are embedded so deeply in language that we confuse statements of fact with metaphor—and, without close analysis, such terms appear natural.59 In the same way, moral thought is based upon metaphorical structures that frame how we think through moral situations. For example, much moral discussion in the Western world, Johnson argues, falls under the “moral interactions are commodity transactions” metaphor. Some entailments of this metaphor are: • Health is wealth. • Moral balance is balance of transactions. • Doing immoral deeds is accumulating debt. The financial nature of the commodity transaction metaphor suggests entailments such as credit received, debt transfer, and accumulation of debt.60 In this case, reasoning through moral dilemmas is akin to balancing credits and debits. Metaphoric structures, or frames, operate in people on such a deep level that these structures seem natural to them and, as such, appear objective and thus binding. Recognizing these structures might therefore clarify why economic reasons, rather than community or social values, appear so natural in discussions about environmental issues. Moral issues frequently can be mapped in multiple ways, and each mapping structures the moral reasoning and resulting action. “Marriage is a manufactured object,” “marriage is an investment,” and “marriage is

50

Growing Stories from India

an ongoing journey” are variant metaphorical mappings, each of which invokes different entailments and thought processes. Each provides one with a way to think through the concept of marriage and so offers different imaginative scenarios of how to act within a marriage.61 Although unexamined metaphoric frameworks seem natural and inevitable, analyzing how we think through moral scenarios demonstrates the semantic underpinnings of moral reasoning. By exposing the linguistic structures of moral thought, we can then consciously choose which metaphors to invoke and reason through the consequences of different metaphoric structures. So, for example, adopting a metaphor based on community or partnership would invoke different entailments, such as cooperation or kin, that would highlight alternate values. In reasoning through moral dilemmas, we can play roles in narratives that facilitate imagining, in a linear fashion, the consequences of different actions. Various narratives let us envision ourselves as inhabiting different roles within the context of our existing lives. For example, by riding my bicycle as a form of transportation, I see myself as an environmental actor, and dialectically, my role as an environmental actor leads to changed practices premised on my self-identity. Assuming roles is transformative, both cognitively and practically. The stories we tell about the land have consequences for both people and places; for example, according to Ramachandra Guha, indigenous peoples have been evicted from lands that become “sacralized” as wilderness areas and national parks, and feed-the-world rhetoric justifies degradation resulting from large-scale agriculture.62 Historian Edmund P. Russell highlights the dialectical relationship between violence toward insects and violence toward humans that shaped the prevalent war-onnature metaphor. During World War II, U.S. propagandists depicted the Japanese as lice and vermin, thus dehumanizing the enemy. Russell argues that the ubiquity of the war-on-nature metaphor in Western thought, highlighted during the interwar years by agricultural fertilizer and pest control companies, rendered this linkage believable, if not natural. This naturalized metaphor then helped construct a framework of annihilating the enemy.63 Links between the fertilizer and munitions industries became apparent shortly after World War I, when it became easy to convert munitions factories from producing bombs to producing fertilizer. In 1918, Fritz

Narratives of Agriculture

51

Haber won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the Haber process, by which atmospheric nitrogen is fixed to produce ammonia, a critical element of chemical fertilizers.64 Even at that time, critics noted ties between the food and munitions industries, citing particularly how the production of cheap nitrates contributed to German war efforts.65 Ironically, Haber—himself Jewish—developed the cyanide-based insecticide that was converted to the deadly poison gas Zyklon-B deployed in Nazi concentration camps. Using a rhetorical strategy similar to that used by the United States against Japan, the Nazis designated their victims as vermin and used this “insecticide” to murder millions of people—Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals.66 As story shapes practice, we must ask what roles are appropriate for human actors. Seeing ourselves in new roles can transform behavior, as anthropologist Peggy Barlett’s work on campus sustainability has demonstrated. When students made even minor changes in behavior, they saw themselves as “environmental actors,” and this altered self-understanding promoted additional changes in practice.67 Reciprocally, political scientist Arun Agarwal’s work on “environmentality” in Kumoan, India, illustrates how policy changes regarding forest use and the subsequent changed practices resulted in the creation of environmental identities.68 Rethinking human roles can lead us beyond an amorphous “relationship with nature.” A vague and ill-defined relationship with nature provides no guidelines on how to act, and many of the resulting relationships are simply bad. For example, simply “loving nature” is not adequate; those who practice destructive forms of recreation such as riding off-trail ATVs also might “love” nature, and many people build homes in sensitive landscapes because they “appreciate nature.” In the end, practice matters most, but language, metaphor, and story provide options in determining the proper course of action. This presumed link between story and practice has been particularly pronounced in environmental ethics, and rethinking agricultural narratives requires acknowledgment that our understanding of agriculture and our place within the biotic community constitutes a narrative, itself subject to interrogation. Theologian Thomas Berry claims that our old stories no longer provide adequate models for the human presence upon the earth and that we need a new story to shape the human role within the biotic community. Berry states, “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble now

52

Growing Stories from India

because we do not have a good story. We are between stories.”69 Philosopher Arran Gare and environmental ethicists Rebecca Raglon, Marion Scholtmeijer, Anthony Weston, and Jim Cheney join Berry in asserting that we need new stories about human relations with the natural world.70 Raglon and Scholtmeijer write, “It is only by telling new stories about the natural world, that we will eventually be able to find those ‘slippages’ necessary to radically reimagine ‘nature.’”71 Agrarian thinkers such as Wendell Berry and, more recently, Norman Wirzba argue that we need new agricultural stories, and because eating is a daily practice, exploring the links between story and practice in an agricultural context illuminates the process in which stories become enacted in practice. “Eating is an agricultural act,” Berry claims when asked what city folk can do for farmers: urban consumers should consciously consider the origins of their food and the conditions of its production.72 This means asking, for example, whether harsh pesticides were used or whether farm workers have been compensated adequately, then adjusting our food practices accordingly. Knowing the sources of our food also confronts us with the death necessary for survival and demands recognition that not even those who tell and practice the most rigorous stories of nonviolence, such as Buddhists and Jains, escape the violence of existence. The virtual impossibility of complete nonviolence, argues Gary Snyder, demands that we remain humble and show compassion when evaluating the food choices of others, such as, for example, those for whom either cost or geography prevent them from eating in ways that we might view as “moral.”73 Agrarian writers such as Berry, Kirschenmann, Jackson, and Wirzba argue that our contemporary agricultural paradigms are failing; they seek new agricultural paradigms that emphasize social and environmental sustainability over short-term profit. For example, Wirzba writes that agrarianism is a “compelling and coherent alternative to the modern industrial/ technological/economic paradigm” and that this new agrarianism is an ideal model for cultural renewal because it addresses social, biological, and cultural needs.74 These agrarian writers, along with environmental ethicists, have produced a compelling body of work, arguing that revising how we think about the earth will change how we act upon the earth. Existing forms of alternative agricultures and the stories and practices of farmers who have changed their agricultural practices demonstrate that

Narratives of Agriculture

53

this theory—that changed beliefs or changed stories can result in changed behaviors—is indeed correct.

Narrative, Imagination, and Community Although some scholars draw distinctions between narrative and story, others do not, and because these distinctions are not germane here, I use the terms interchangeably. To best explore the role of story in the ecological imagination, I consider the structural elements of story, such as character, plot, and resolution. As Nussbaum argues, illuminating the moral dilemmas faced by characters in a story broadens our own moral imagination, giving us perspective and an empathetic viewpoint as we consider the reasons a character acted in such a way and the alternatives that might have existed.75 Focusing on the relations and interactions between the characters enables us to critique the qualities of these relationships by asking, for instance, “What sorts of agency do these characters display?” and “Are their relationships hierarchical?” Finally, determining how story lines and their resolutions are cast in literary genres such as tragedy or comedy shapes our reception of the story. As Hayden White has demonstrated using historical writing as an example, genres of tragedy, comedy, romance, and irony function like metaphors in that they frame, almost preconsciously, interpretations of events such that these interpretations become normative.76 These literary tropes can help us understand why destructive practices appear normative and inevitable. As I have mentioned, industrial agriculture’s feeding-theworld narrative is framed as romance, wherein heroic actions are necessary to feed the world’s populations, and so their narrative, which emphasizes food production rather than food distribution, is difficult to refute because its narrative reverberates so deeply in many of us—most of us want to feed the world, and we may relate this desire to a moral obligation to care for one another and for members of other communities. In other words, narrative stimulates the moral imagination. Many scholars have written persuasively that story can expand the moral imagination, but story can expand the ecological imagination as well. I construct the term ecological imagination as both a variation and an expansion of the moral imagination and propose it be used as a tool to

54

Growing Stories from India

evaluate human behavior in the context of the greater biotic community. Lorraine Code’s critique of Mark Johnson’s moral imagination can help us grapple with the complexity of what would constitute ethical treatment of nonhuman communities. Johnson’s moral imagination, despite assumptions of universality, operates in the confines of late capitalist liberal presumptions of autonomy and, as such, does not adequately account for the experiences of populations whose experiences do not fit this description.77 The ecological imagination must develop tools to extend across multiple human and nonhuman communities. Perhaps the greatest contribution of story to the ecological imagination is the focus on specifics and particularity, because this focus links story to practice: engaging the moral imagination through story demands that we think through the specifics of a situation. While it is easy to make a broad statement such as “I am an environmentally responsible person,” placing myself in the context of a story requires that I consider my responsibility in the context of a specific situation, such as choosing what foods to eat. This attention to specifics forces me to reevaluate my perception of myself given my likely action in a specific situation and makes it more difficult for me to render harsh judgments on others. Further, this iterative process helps me revise my own actions and practices. For example, when I ask myself how my food choices affect the nonhuman biotic community, I am likely to be more thoughtful about the food I choose. In discussions of food and agriculture, the specifics of story are particularly important in two ways. First, food is grown in specific biophysical environments and according to specific cultural and community needs. Just as landraces are species developed according to specific material and (often less acknowledged) cultural conditions, our stories about food and agriculture emerge from, and consequently shape, the particulars of engagement with the land and food production. Second, we tell ourselves food stories daily, with every meal; even the absence of story is a story of sorts—perhaps that food is constant and will always be there. This particularity is a critical element as we revise our stories about food because, as we will see, a pastiche of locally adapted solutions seems more palatable than standardization and homogeneity. My discussion of the ecological imagination, story, and the pastiche of local solutions evokes the concept of community because when we tell stories about food and agriculture, we are talking about multiple commu-

Narratives of Agriculture

55

nities: the human community and the biotic community. The biotic community includes human and nonhuman organisms that share an environment, and they are interdependent: each is affected by the behavior of the others. Although the term biotic community often functions as an idealized metaphor, on the most basic level it literally describes reciprocal biological relations. An adequate depiction of the biotic community acknowledges trophic relations, such as predator–prey, that do not appear in metaphorical or theological descriptions of the biotic community, as environmental ethicist Lisa Sideris argues. This biological reality means that our ecological imagination—in which we consider our participation in the biotic community—must acknowledge that we eat our neighbors. (Fortunately, we do not seriously consider such possibilities within human communities.) So, what does reciprocity mean in this situation? In addition to its metaphoric resonances, the literality of the biotic community— that this concept invokes food, survival, and human need—helps us avoid idealized depictions of this community and instead helps us focus on human relations with and within the biotic community that acknowledge our dependence on, and use of, fellow community members. The following chapter introduces the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River. This story offers an honest reckoning with human dependence on the earth for sustenance and human entitlements to the earth’s production. It helps us recognize how a disconnect with the origins of our food both enables and results from assumptions—whether conscious or not—of entitlement to the earth’s resources. Balaram’s story can help us work through both our human frustration at the illusions of control and recognition of the competing responsibilities of farmers, who must both provide food and protect the earth’s fertility. They—and we—must grapple with these competing responsibilities.

Chapter 3

Balaram and the Yamuna River Entitlement and Presumptions of Control

The previous chapter, by illuminating the storied nature of food production and industrial agriculture, revealed that these systems are not inevitable but result from human choices. Overloaded restaurant menus and abundantly filled shelves in the grocery store suggest to us in the West that we have more than enough food, an illusion of plenty that assuages any fear that food provision could be a problem. Our clean and colorful supermarkets enact a modern narrative of efficient and abundant food production. As the previous chapter illustrated, however, this cornucopia of packaged foods masks a reality of environmental degradation and rural poverty and obscures the real costs of producing this food. In addition, the endless array of choices offered in these stores offers no hint that farming is relational, a form of negotiation between farmers and the earth. Narratives of industrial agriculture presume human control over and entitlement to the earth’s resources. This chapter challenges these narratives by presenting the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River. Reflecting on this story provides an opportunity for us to honestly assess our existing attitudes and to explore alternative relations for agricultural practice. Exploring the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River helps us work through the human frustration at the illusions of control and recognize the competing responsibilities of farmers who must both feed populations and protect the earth’s fertility. Balaram’s multiple obligations to the earth, his family, and his subjects render him an appropriate figure through which to ask one of the central questions of this book: How can we balance the human need for agricultural production with the needs of the broader biotic community?

Balaram and the Yamuna River

57

Although Balaram’s devotees emphasize the agricultural and protective aspects of this story, its complexities express the social and ethical dilemmas inherent in agriculture. This story is not unique within Hinduism; the fact that its narrative structure parallels other Vaishnava stories of protection, anger, and intoxication suggests that this story provides conceptual tools to illuminate relational patterns that have long influenced agricultural practice. The metaphors and entailments behind the interactions between Balaram and the Yamuna River help us focus on the relatedness of agricultural processes and illustrate tensions stemming from human need for control of these processes. I include relationships among humans in this discussion because relations between humans and the earth reflect—and are structured by—relations among humans. Further, the constant retelling of Balaram’s story in the context of agricultural need reflects the ubiquity of our own agricultural narratives, such as the justification of industrial agriculture to feed the world. Investigating the social role of this story in turn illuminates social and economic hierarchies that have been naturalized by stories of agricultural need. So that we can understand how the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River reflects existing agricultural relations, I situate this story in its geographical, agricultural, religious, cultural, and social contexts. These contexts help us understand the story itself as well as local interpretations of it. For example, local temple priests and devotees explain Balaram’s actions in terms of his role as a king and as one who maintains dharma, or morality. These explanations that valorize Balaram as protector and guardian of the earth’s fertility offer insight into why agricultural narratives that emphasize control and stability have proven so compelling, both in India and in the contemporary United States. When I first arrived in Baldeo, I intended to focus on the hierarchical relationship between the brothers Balaram and Krishna, to see how a complementary pairing of responsibilities emerged in practice. Text and practice render Balaram subordinate to his popular younger brother Krishna, and the geographical spread of Balaram devotion reflects this subordination. One can see posters and references to Krishna throughout much of India, for example, but this is not the case with Balaram. Balaram’s story and related devotional practices are much more localized within the Braj context, and Krishna figures more

58

Growing Stories from India

prominently in the Hindu religious imagination. I wondered if Balaram’s strong attachment to place, his connections to fertility, and his drunken diversion of the Yamuna River, in contrast to Krishna’s pastoral, romantic nature, offered clues to this pattern of subordination. I wanted to understand the puzzling question of Balaram’s intoxication in part because the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River is ubiquitous in Baldeo. Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River occurs in a context of a homecoming. Krishna and Balaram had gone to Mathura to slay the demon Kamsha and had promised to return in a week. Krishna never returned to Braj, but Balaram—the elder brother—did return during the springtime festival of Holi. His return makes all the difference: it demonstrates to devotees his commitment to, and protection of, Braj. Virtually every ritual performed in Baldeo is accompanied by a mantra —a sacred verse—that reiterates the Hindu deity Balaram’s trademark act during Holi: Balaram rent the earth with his plow and dragged the Yamuna River to his feet. Balaram’s root mantra (mul-mantra) is Om, klim kalindi bhedanaya Sankarshanaya svaha. Om, the Kalindi, split by Samkarshan, svaha!

The Kalindi is another name for the Yamuna River, but Yamuna is the name most commonly used, in text and orally. Ritual service, or seva, for Balaram is performed in homes and temples in daily and annual cycles, typical of Hindu practice. Each day is divided into eight periods, so this ritual cycle means that some devotees hear this verse up to eight times a day. Although not all devotees visit temples or perform their own seva for each of these eight periods, in Baldeo, the temple priests and guides attend almost all ritual services. Other village residents attend seva in the morning and evening, so life in Baldeo generally revolves around the temple and serving the many pilgrims who arrive each day. I was struck by the materiality of this mantra, particularly as I considered the obvious need for water in this region. Balaram is both the king of Braj and a deity related to agriculture, fertility, and protection. Devotees and temple priests consistently told me that Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River was related to irrigation, an interpretation that makes sense in a region that has become increasingly desertlike

Balaram and the Yamuna River

59

over the past several hundred years. So while this local interpretation is probably not the historical meaning of the mantra, it does reflect local conditions and needs. As such, this story has much to tell us about the relationships between violence, agriculture, and human need, and particularly its gendered implications. For example, when the earth and the female body are viewed as property and resources to be exploited, they become commodified and viewed solely in terms of production or the capacity to fill others’ needs. Further, it became clear that Balaram plays a critical balancing role in Braj devotional practice. Krishna’s pastoral persona occupies center stage in Braj; but, as I explored text and practice in what is perceived to be the periphery—for example, villages and practices dedicated to Balaram, forms of the goddess, and localized semidivine beings such as serpents, or nagas, and tree spirits, or yakshas—I realized that these practices provide the structural support for Krishna’s pastoral realm through their emphasis on agriculture, sustenance, and health.1 Krishna’s subordination of Balaram parallels the marginalization of agriculture in multiple contexts, ranging from Braj practice to environmental ethics. The story of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River is situated in north India, in a region southeast of Delhi that is significant agriculturally and mythologically. The predominant religious expression of this area is a form of Hinduism that emphasizes devotion to the deified brothers Balaram and Krishna. The brothers live in a landscape populated by beings such as trees and serpents, which are themselves actors in this cosmic drama and reflect a Hindu cosmology imbued with agrarian concerns.

Geographical and Agricultural Context of Balaram’s Story Balaram’s story illustrates the human failures that have led to a global agrarian crisis. Places I am most familiar with—the midwestern United States and north India—are both grappling with rural depopulation, degraded landscapes, and rivers polluted with agricultural runoff. For example, the agricultural chemicals that drain into the Mississippi River —once the lifeblood of the Midwest—have created a biological disaster. The Yamuna River’s flow—which once nourished the plains of north

60

Growing Stories from India

India—is diminished by upstream dams and irrigation channels that have resulted in salinization and later desertification; the remaining flow carries toxic effluent from agriculture and textile mills. Over the fifteen years since I first went to north India, I have observed the growing degradation of the region. David Haberman’s River of Love in an Age of Pollution describes the many programs working to restore the Yamuna River, and these efforts do offer hope. My work complements Haberman’s and abstracts critical questions and tropes from Balaram’s story so that we can use this narrative to think through complexities, asking how we should balance the need for sustenance and equity, for humans as well as fellow citizens in the biotic community. The discrepancy between mythic depictions of the land and its current condition suggest that we should investigate alternate readings of Balaram and the Yamuna River. Balaram’s agricultural role as a provider of water seems clear: he procured water for his region and ensured prosperity. However, it is important to scrutinize Balaram’s diversion of the river and his justification for this diversion because this justification parallels narratives that legitimate industrial agriculture. For example, large-scale agriculture promises substantial benefits, but often results in environmental degradation and centralized control of resources; yet the feed-the-world narrative of efficiency and beneficence continues to hold pride of place as the central food narrative in many circles. So, we might step back to ask: Which story gets told, and whose interests does this story represent? Reflecting on these questions illuminates processes by which inequitable social relations and practices come to appear natural and even altruistic. Balaram’s actions also manifest a theme of male aggression over female earth- and river-related deities, which is reiterated in Vaishnava agricultural narratives. His demand for resources and productivity reflects human attempts to control the earth’s productivity, and this dimension of agriculture is gendered, a subject I explore in the next chapter. Although large-scale agriculture does produce vast amounts of food, its demands on the earth are unsustainable and have led to immense environmental degradation, even in the once fecund area where Balaram’s story is situated: the village of Baldeo in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Today, Baldeo is the center of Balaram devotion and pilgrimage and home to the Dauji temple, Balaram’s temple; devotees

Balaram and the Yamuna River

61

Baldeo and India. (Map by Ken McMurray)

flock to this otherwise sleepy village on festivals that are significant for Balaram. The temple guides, the Pandas of Baldeo, are Ahivasis, a priestly caste with an agricultural heritage. Although most of the Pandas are not actively farming, their agrarian heritage shapes their understanding of Balaram. One Ahivasi Brahman-farmer, Vikram Pandey, stated that Balaram—or Dauji, Krishna’s elder brother—is the farmer’s god; Ahivasis always have land, and he farms because that is what Balaram does. The village of Baldeo seems far removed from the urban centers of India. Just east of an oxbow on the Yamuna River, it lies 18 kilometers downstream of Mathura, a holy city located approximately 50 kilometers north of Agra—reputed to be the birthplace of Krishna—itself over one hundred kilometers downstream of Delhi (see map). Baldeo lies in a primarily agricultural district, and the roads to the village are lined with fields of mustard, wheat, and barley. Supplying water for agriculture in this area is a critical concern. While the Yamuna River runs high during the monsoon, her waters become considerably scarcer during the dry months, and water shortages are common in May and early

62

Growing Stories from India

June, just before the monsoon. This rural agricultural region abuts the desert state of Rajasthan, and residents are concerned about encroaching desertification. Sadly, once lush forests have given way to scrub land with few trees, and the Yamuna River has become polluted with sewage and industrial wastes. Despite idyllic depictions of Krishna and Balaram’s Braj in text and the arts, this sacred land has become a degraded landscape.

Religious and Cultural Context of Balaram’s Story Although India is religiously diverse, approximately 85 percent of Indians identify as Hindu, and the Braj region hosts a significant portion of Hindus who are devotees of the cowherding brothers Balaram and Krishna. This population and their religious orientation so strongly influence the culture of the area that it is crucial to understand some basic elements of Hinduism. In what follows, I first illustrate the Hindu moral universe and outline the reciprocal obligations of humans and deities necessary to sustain that universe. Then, I delineate how divine beings that are important to this analysis, such as Balaram and nagas, fit into a Hindu cosmological context. Finally, I explain those Vaishnava concepts that emerge in the telling of Balaram and the Yamuna River’s story.

Sustaining the Universe: Rta and Dharma Text and local lore interpret Balaram as one who upholds dharma, and as such, his actions help sustain moral, physical, and cosmic realms. The Hindu concepts of rta, cosmic order, and dharma, moral or social order, are fundamental for Hindu ethics and practice and provide the basis for understanding the links between social and agricultural health. These links are based in common sense; that is, societies experiencing hunger or famine are not stable or healthy. These linkages do not exist only in Hindu cosmology; for example, this linkage of agricultural, social, and moral health also has significant parallels in Aztec religion. As religion scholar Kay Read notes in Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos, in Aztec religion the death and decay necessary for regeneration of life is emphasized over a meditative spirituality that is not relevant to everyday life. This distinction is important because Balaram’s

Balaram and the Yamuna River

63

association with these fundamental concerns about fertility and protection renders him anomalous to the Braj pastoral idiom.2 However, my analysis reveals how linkages between social and agricultural health—and the resulting obligations of kings and guardians to provide, protect, and maintain order—emerge in a heroic, romantic narrative that shapes social relations. According to the Hindu understandings of rta and dharma, the universe functions in a predictable, cyclical order. That is, when things go well, seasons change, the sun rises and sets, and crops grow and later die. The moral, social, and cosmic orders are linked, and maintenance of the moral and social orders determines, in part, the continuation of the cosmic or natural order. When the moral order disintegrates, the physical landscape deteriorates. This linkage persists in contemporary explanations for environmental degradation. For example, Ann Gold and Bhoju Ram Gujar’s interviews with farmers in Rajasthan revealed their perception that “no dharma, therefore no rain.”3 The farmers connected the degraded landscape to the greed and moral decay of the contemporary era. Rta and dharma provide theoretical and metaphorical structures for human relationships to the world and to the divine. While both terms translate loosely as something like “moral order,” both connote the active realization of truth and indicate the action of striving for, or performing, the truth.4 Rta is the older concept, particularly important in the Vedic period (approximately 1500–500 b.c.e.), when Hindu religious practice centered on hymns and rituals presented in the Vedas. Numerous Vedic hymns celebrate natural forces and elements, including rain and soil, and personify these forces as deities, revealing continuities between the natural realms and humans.5 The term rta appears first in the earliest of the four Vedas, the Rig-Veda (circa 1200 b.c.e.), and refers to the earth’s cyclical processes, such as the changing seasons that regulate agriculture and the constancy of day and night.6 These cycles are necessary for the continued existence of all beings of the natural world, including humans. What is particularly distinctive about the concept of rta in Vedic thought and practice is that it incorporates human obligation. Humans and deities exist within the cosmic order and are bound through mutual obligation.7 This thread appears explicitly in the agricultural narratives of Balaram and Prthu, but the seeds of this mutuality lie within

64

Growing Stories from India

the earliest manifestations of Hinduism. Brahman priests carry the tremendous responsibility of performing rituals to maintain the cosmic and social order according to the Brahmanas, the ritual sections of the Vedas. As the goddess Prthvi, the earth is understood as a living organism, and Vedic ritual maintains and replenishes the earth and cosmos with life and energy.8 The earth’s continued fertility relies upon the input of male potential. Priests perform rituals to ensure cosmic and social order, and most of the rituals in the Vedic texts have concrete goals, such as a good harvest or many sons.9 The concept underlying these rituals is one of mutual obligation, and gifts to the deities are part of a continuing cycle of exchange.10 Continuous gift exchange between humans and deities structures the relationships between Balaram and the earth and between humans and the earth, and the ideas of mutual obligation and gifts emerge in narratives about both Balaram and agriculture. These relations and reciprocities reflect the Upanishadic edict, a core principle of Hinduism, that food is god (annam Brahman). The Vedic rituals ensure that the cycles necessary for human, plant, and animal existence would continue and would link the social and cosmic order; so, in that way, social health is tied to agricultural health. The priests’ obligations lie in performing these rituals according to the complicated directives in the Brahmanas. The directives are specific because the deities were obliged to fulfill the requests if the priests performed the rituals correctly. The priests then function in relationships of obligation and power with the divine and the natural world: if the priests correctly perform the rituals, the results are essentially assured, and social and cosmic order, dharma, is upheld.11 Dharma subsequently eclipses rta and becomes the basis for ethical decision making within the Hindu tradition. Dharma is a nominalization of the verbal root dhr, meaning “to sustain,” and it maintains the protective and sustaining aspects of rta. The moral, social, and physical realms are linked, meaning that moral and righteous behavior is necessary to sustain agricultural processes. While the concept of dharma is the subject of much theological and philosophical discussion, the most common use of the term indicates the duties incumbent on individuals, fulfillment of which holds together the physical and moral fabric of so-

Balaram and the Yamuna River

65

ciety.12 O. P. Dwivedi, who has written broadly on environmental stewardship in India, notes that “dharma can be considered an ethos, a set of duties, that holds the social and moral fabric together by maintaining order in society, building individual and group character, and giving rise to harmony and understanding in our relationships with all of God’s creation.”13 Dharma includes not only duties and obligations within the social realm, but also those within the biotic community; thus, all beings are subject to moral consideration.

Hindu Cosmology: Nagas, Agriculture, and Protection Hindu cosmology includes a range of semidivine beings (devatas) that interact with humans and influence human affairs, including serpents (nagas), celestial musicians (gandharvas), and tree spirits (yakshas). Hindu folklore is replete with tales that recapitulate the interactions of yakshas, nagas, and humans, and contemporary ritual practice acknowledges the influence of these beings. For example, supplicants typically invoke nagas for protection of some sort, such as for healing or protection from illness or mental disturbance. Traditional Indian lore about nagas—as well as common knowledge about snakes—reveals the naga’s responsibility for agricultural health and further indicates that the naga’s association with kingship and protection extends to the agricultural realm. Nagas have a special connection to agriculture and fertility because they control the rains and water, a connection that emerges in ritual practice. Serpents live under the ground, within the earth, and their burrowing, tunneling actions reveal a visual analog to the plow. Nagas draw water down to their underworld abodes and return this water during the dry season, so their importance to agriculture is critical.14 They control hydrological cycles that enable agriculture. Nagas, however, are notable for their fondness for drink and are capricious and easily angered, so farmers and others must take care to remain in their good graces. For example, nagas not only send gentle, life-sustaining rain, but also send hailstorms that destroy crops.15 Thus, maintaining good relations with nagas is important for human society and for survival. As kings and protectors, nagas are typically responsible for specific areas and the sustenance therein. For example, kings are obligated to

66

Growing Stories from India

sustain a land’s fertility and to protect its resources, such as rivers and trees. Popular folktales from the Buddhist tradition highlight the relationship of guardianship to the protection of agricultural bounty and further demonstrate the correlation between righteousness and rain.16 The causal connection between virtue, or adherence to dharma, and productive agricultural cycles has become an enduring idiom in India. Serpents mediate these concerns about water and agrarian fertility, and contemporary ritual practice directed toward serpents enacts popular beliefs about serpent control over water and fertility. The Nag Panchami (Snake’s Fift h) festival provides an example. Ritual practice during Nag Panchami makes peace with snakes on the fift h day of the dark half (the fortnight in which the moon is waning) of the lunar month of Shravan (August–September). Shravan falls within the rainy season, when most of India is lush and green. On Nag Panchami, farmers do not plow the land to avoid inadvertently harming a snake. They offer snakes milk and crystallized sugar—known favorites—to avoid being bitten by a snake for the coming year.17 This reflects the reality both that snakebite is a significant cause of death in India and that agricultural activities such as plowing can harm or kill snakes. Many lakes or ponds have a resident naga deity to whom propitiatory peace offerings can be made when necessary. Although nagas are typically protective, they are also known to be petulant and can withdraw their favors as quickly as they bestow them. Supplicants leave offerings such as milk at ant hills because ant hills are believed to be the entrances to serpents’ dwelling places. Although nagas are a pan-Indian phenomenon, naga lore and practice tends to display strong regional idioms because of the naga connection to fertility and kingship. In the Braj region, traditional knowledge about nagas exists alongside that of Krishna and Balaram as tightly coupled systems that can be difficult to disentangle. According to Vaishnava theology, Vishnu and Shesh have repeatedly taken form to rid the earth of demons and tyrants, and on one occasion Vishnu and Shesh descended to the earth and took birth as Krishna and Balaram. For Vaishnavas, those Hindus who worship Vishnu and his earthly descents, Balaram’s identity as naga is a fundamental theological assumption, and Balaram’s naga identity provides a means to mediate concerns about water, fertility, and agriculture.

Balaram and the Yamuna River

67

Vaishnava Concepts Specific to Balaram’s Story Balaram is best known in association with his popular younger brother Krishna, and devotion to Krishna and his elder brother Balaram is a primary religious focus of the area. Braj is both a mythologized land as well as a real geographic entity that is defined by its cultural and linguistic characteristics. Textual and iconographic evidence indicates that the pair has been worshipped in some form since at least 300 b.c.e.; but most devotees recognize them as carefree, cowherding boys of Braj, a motif that spread throughout north India in the sixteenth century. Scripture and poetry sing the virtues of this verdant land, filled with plants, animals, and birds all devoted to Krishna and Balaram. This landscape is dotted with temples and sites sacred to the brothers, and the physical site of these mythical activities correlates to a sacred geography. According to Vaishnava theology, while Balaram’s activities occur eternally in an endlessly repeating cosmic drama, Balaram and Krishna also walked this earth five thousand years ago. In the sixteenth century, leaders of the major Braj devotional movements discovered sites in the Braj landscape where Krishna and Balaram’s mythic activities occurred, and to this day pilgrims visit these sacred sites.18 Devotees walk barefoot so they can feel the very dust upon which Krishna and Balaram once trod. Sacred text is mapped onto a sacred geography, and the land itself—once touched by the feet of the gods—plays a critical role in devotional practice. Devotees know Balaram as the patron of agriculture and the king of Braj. Sanskrit texts, such as the epic Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana, and popular lore are replete with stories about Balaram, and devotees who hear these stories know about Balaram’s commitment to protect his region. For example, devotees who would likely be familiar with the stories about Krishna and Balaram in the Bhagavata Purana know that Balaram helped Krishna rid Braj of multiple demons. Visitors to the temple in Baldeo immediately see a large portrait of Balaram painted on the wall that depicts Balaram holding his trademark plow and mace (see photo). Balaram carries the plow and mace to destroy depravity in the world in addition to his agricultural duties. Balaram himself is an incarnation of Shesh, the cosmic serpent, and his serpentine characteristics are definitive of his persona. Shesh is routinely depicted as the supporter of the earth; and, to illustrate

68

Growing Stories from India

Picture of Balaram painted on a Dauji Temple wall. (Photo by author)

Shesh’s grandeur, image and text portray the earth perched upon one of Shesh’s thousand heads as if the earth were a mustard seed.19 (Shesh’s majesty is reflected in his other name, Anant—“one without limits”—but, for consistency, I will use Shesh throughout.) Devotees of Balaram hail him as

Balaram and the Yamuna River

69

the king of Braj, and Balaram’s identity as Shesh underscores Balaram’s identity as a king and protector, particularly in regard to agriculture and fertility. As protectors of bounded areas, nagas and kings assume responsibility for sustenance and agricultural production, and as a naga, Balaram controls the waters—and thus fertility—by shifting the waters from subterranean oceans to the earth’s surface as needed within the agricultural cycle. In Baldeo, Balaram’s control of the waters is understood in an agrarian context and demonstrates that he fulfills his responsibilities. The Yamuna River, however, is not just a river, and its role in this story—and in Hindu thought—illustrates Vaishnava theology about the goddess and a cosmology in which nature has agency. The idea of agency accords with Hindu understandings of the cosmos as a living organism; the cosmos is not inert, as in mechanistic worldviews. In Hindu theology, all goddesses—including the earth, the Yamuna River, and the goddess Mahasvarasvati—are aspects of one goddess, Devi. The goddess as the Yamuna River and in her other aspects displays close familial ties with Balaram. For example, the goddess Yogamaya is the personified aspect of the divine responsible for creation and is also Balaram’s sister, so their relationship is both familial and bound by obligation and reciprocity, as between a deity and devotee.20 In addition, the goddess Yamuna is sometimes understood to be Krishna’s wife and thus Balaram’s sister-in-law. Further analysis of Balaram’s multiple relationships with the Yamuna River shows how these competing obligations reflect the multiple responsibilities that agriculturalists face.

Balaram’s Idyllic Childhood Balaram descended to earth in response to the earth’s pleas for help. The tyrannical King Kamsha ruled in the nearby city of Mathura, and his despotic rule created an enormous burden for the earth and the people of Braj. In desperation, the earth took the form of a cow, an animal that is venerated in the Hindu tradition, and appealed to Vishnu, who at the time lay sleeping upon the serpent Shesh in an ocean of milk. The earth begged for Vishnu’s help. To preserve justice on the earth, Vishnu and Shesh would take birth as the sons of Devaki and Vasudeva, the rightful rulers of Mathura. Vishnu took birth as Krishna, who is easily recognized by his blue skin and his iconic yellow clothing and ubiquitous flute, and Shesh

70

Growing Stories from India

assumed the form of the elder brother, Balaram. This process became complicated, however, because the sage Narada had warned Kamsha of his impending destruction. In response, Kamsha jailed Devaki and Vasudeva in Mathura and killed their first six children. The seventh and eighth children would be Balaram and Krishna, born to their jailed parents, and the wizardry of the goddess Yogamaya ensured their survival. Shesh knew the fate of the earlier children and called upon the goddess Yogamaya, who responded immediately to his urgent appeal for help. Yogamaya transferred the embryo of Balaram from Devaki to Rohini, so that he could be born in the safety of rural Gokul, a village that lies across the Yamuna River from Mathura.21 Rohini, Balaram’s birth mother, was a wife of the cowherd Nanda, and the cowherding settlement of Gokul provided sanctuary from the murderous Kamsha. Krishna later took birth from Devaki as her eighth child. After Krishna’s birth, the goddess Yogamaya used her powers to temporarily blind the residents of both Gokul and Mathura, so that Devaki appeared with a dead female child and Yashoda, another wife of the cowherd Nanda, awoke with an infant son by her side. Iconographic representations of Krishna’s escape from Mathura reveal the serpentine protection and support of Vishnu-Krishna. Shortly after Krishna’s birth, in the dark rainy night, Vasudeva carried his son Krishna across the Yamuna River, and Shesh shielded the infant from the storm with his many hoods. Although the boys would be raised in the cowherding settlements across the river from Mathura, their destiny lay in their regal and martial heritage. Garga, the priest of the Yadus, performed the rituals appropriate for boys of the twice-born castes and named the sons of mothers Yashoda and Rohini. Garga declared that Rohini’s son would be known as Bala for his strength, Ram for his ability to delight others, and Samkarshan for his ability to draw together the divided Yadus, Balaram and Krishna’s clan. The name Samkarshan also denotes the dragging of the embryo from one womb to another.22 Then Garga declared that Yashoda’s son would be known as Krishna for his dark complexion and as Vasudeva because he had previously been born in the house of Vasudeva. The two boys grew up as the adored sons of Nanda, Yashoda, and Rohini. They spent their youth in the idyllic Braj, roaming the forests, herding the cows, and enjoying the simple pleasures of the countryside. The residents of Braj were rarely aware of the boys’ divine status. The boys ap-

Balaram and the Yamuna River

71

peared especially delightful to the residents, but unbeknownst to them, Krishna and Balaram routinely destroyed the demons Kamsha sent. The threat of the occasional demon (most of which, such as the donkey demon Dhenukasur and Pralamba, were dispatched with relative ease) is one of the few elements that threaten the pastoral idyll of Braj. In this idealized Braj, no serious threat exists, all human needs are met, and the realities of production and agriculture have no role. I discuss Balaram’s incongruous relationship with the pastoral in more detail in Chapter 6; at this stage, it is sufficient to note that Balaram’s persona represents an intrusion into an idealized landscape, the landscape where Balaram’s story develops.

Krishna Defeats the Naga Kaliya Braj lore depicts Balaram as Krishna’s erstwhile companion, but one episode—that of Krishna’s submission of the serpent Kaliya—is particularly notable because of Balaram’s absence. This story is important to Balaram devotion for two reasons. First, it figures in the lineage of the temple priests of Baldeo, the center of Balaram pilgrimage; and second, the story illustrates Krishna’s conquering of a naga. Braj tradition typically designates the Yamuna River as one of the sites of Krishna’s and Balaram’s adventures. The banks of the Yamuna provided the romantic backdrop for their amorous adventures as youths, but as children, Krishna and Balaram played in the river along with other Braj boys. Once, though, when Krishna was playing in the Yamuna, he realized that the river’s waters were tainted by a poison that killed anything that came in contact with this water. The serpent Kaliya dwelled in a pool in the Yamuna River and was responsible for this poison. Krishna became angry at the poisoning of the river and leapt into the Yamuna’s waters. Kaliya thrashed, and the serpent’s thrashing created a whirlpool. Amidst the swirling waters, Kaliya wrapped Krishna in his coils. At this time, Balaram was nowhere to be found, and the other Braj boys feared that Krishna was dead. Hearing of this disaster, Krishna’s friends and family gathered in shock at the riverbank. While the serpent tired itself out, Krishna waited—for what seemed like an eternity—then stepped upon the great serpent’s head and danced in victory. Krishna danced on each of the serpent’s five heads, and his devotees briefly glimpsed him in his cosmic persona as Vishnu resting

72

Growing Stories from India

upon the coiled Shesh. Kaliya sought refuge in Vishnu, and the serpent’s many wives appealed to the supreme deity for mercy. Krishna did not kill Kaliya, but banished him to the ocean. In subduing the serpent, he rendered the Yamuna River’s waters safe and free from the danger of serpents and poison. This episode is anomalous in the boys’ typically idyllic Braj childhood because it reveals the nagas as dangerous. Some contemporary readings of this story interpret this story in an environmental context, viewing Krishna as an eco-hero, defeating the pollution-producing Kaliya.23 Although I have heard this explanation offered multiple times in Braj, not surprisingly, I never heard this interpretation in Baldeo, probably because Balaram is so closely identified with serpents. Although Krishna’s victory represents a clear submission of Kaliya, this conquest also freed Kaliya and his family from the danger of the serpent-eating Garuda.24 Garuda is an eagle and the vehicle, or vahana, of Vishnu; each Hindu deity has a vehicle, or animal associate, and the enmity between Garuda and the serpents is notable, despite the fact that they are cousins. Previously the nagas and Garuda had an agreement: each month, the nagas would offer to Garuda a portion of the offerings given by serpent worshippers. On the new moon day, the serpents would leave this share at the base of a tree in Ramanaka, the serpents’ traditional abode. Snakes are the natural prey of eagles, so this arrangement represented a truce of sorts in the animal kingdom. Kaliya, however, ate Garuda’s payment and, fearing Garuda’s anger, took refuge in a pool of the Yamuna that was inaccessible to Garuda. The sage Saubhari had banned Garuda from this pool because he was depleting the pool of fish and other water creatures. Saubhari felt compassion for the fish’s fear and pronounced that Garuda would die if he ate fish from that pool.25 This sage, the great protector of serpents, is the ancestor of the Pandas, the temple priests of Baldeo; my discussion of the Holi festival in Chapter 5 will show how the Pandas understand and enact protection in terms of social, physical, and agricultural health.26

Balaram and Krishna Pin the Demon Kamsha As Balaram and Krishna grew, they dallied with the cowherding girls, or gopis, who adored them. When the boys were in the prime of their youth, they were called to fulfill their birthright. Kamsha had heard of the boys’

Balaram and the Yamuna River

73

prowess in defeating demons and called the boys to Mathura for a wrestling match. When, to everyone’s delight, the boys won the wrestling match, they were reinstated as the rightful heirs of Vasudeva and Devaki. Garga, the family priest, invested Balaram and Krishna with the sacred thread of the twice-born castes, and the brothers then began their study of the Vedas. Even today when boys begin their studies of the Vedas (signifying a second, or spiritual, birth), they don a sacred thread that they wear throughout their lives. To the anguish of their adoring gopis in Braj, Krishna and Balaram headed west for Dwarka, the westernmost point on the Indian subcontinent, to assume their adult responsibilities. Krishna never returned to Braj, but Balaram did return; and, for devotees, Balaram’s homecoming signified fulfillment of his promise to return. Krishna married Rukmini, King Rukmin’s sister, and Balaram married King Revata’s daughter.27 The Bhagavata Purana provides a short account of this marriage; the Garga Samhita provides greater detail. Devotees know King Revata’s daughter as Revati, which means “prosperity,” but she was known as Jyotishmati in an earlier era, as detailed in the Garga Samhita. The marriage between Balaram and Revati illustrates the importance of Balaram’s strength and righteousness, but his “downsizing” of his new wife foreshadows his treatment of the insolent Yamuna River.

Balaram’s Marriage to Revati According to the Bhagavata Purana, King Revata, a king skilled in dharma, had one daughter, named Revati, and sought the deity Brahma’s advice about a groom when the time came for her marriage. Brahma, however, lamented the fact that those suitors—and their sons and grandsons—had been swallowed by time long ago because twenty-seven revolutions of the four cosmic ages had since passed. Brahma announced that the best remaining candidate was Balaram.28 What had happened to these suitors? While seeking Brahma’s advice, Revata sat in Brahma’s hall and listened to the music of the celestial musicians. When Brahma and Revata resumed their discussion, Brahma replied that many eons had passed during the concert. Unfortunately, during this period, conditions had deteriorated, and in the current era of declining morality, Brahma stated that only two suitable kings existed: Krishna

74

Growing Stories from India

Picture of Revati painted on a Dauji Temple wall. (Photo by author)

and Balaram. Brahma thought that Balaram would be the better of the two because of his strength. There remained one problem: Revati was much bigger than Balaram. She had been born in the previous era, when people and deities had greater stature. Balaram solved this problem with his plow: his powerful arms placed his plow on Revati’s shoulder, and he

Balaram and the Yamuna River

75

pulled her down to a stature equal to his. This act parallels Balaram’s subsequent diversion of the Yamuna River; in both cases, his plow is the instrument by which an uppity female is tamed and made malleable to male desire. While the Bhagavata Purana offers the basic framework of the story, the Garga Samhita illustrates Revati’s great efforts to gain a husband who has Balaram’s strength. This story takes us back to Revati’s previous birth, when she was known as Jyotishmati. In the previous era, she declared that she wanted the most powerful of all as her groom. The king inquired among the wind, rain, and earth as to which was the strongest, and the earth, the strongest among them, declared that only Balaram as the limitless serpent Shesh might best them.29 Jyotishmati-Revati retreated to the Vindhya Hills to perform austerities to gain Balaram as her husband. For hundreds of thousands of years, out of love for Balaram, she sat amidst fires in the summer, bathed in the river during the rainy season, and submerged herself in cold water during the winter. As she sat in penance, however, other deities asked her why she carried out such austerities. Jyotishmati-Revati replied that her penance was for the one thousand–headed lord, and immediately the others tried to change her mind. Their attempts infuriated Jyotishmati-Revati, and her anger shook the earth to its depths. She cursed the gods, and the deity Indra responded: he cursed her to have no sons.30 Brahma released Jyotishmati-Revati from her austerities and allowed her to choose her groom. She chose Balaram, but Brahma said that Balaram would only be available after the passing of twenty-seven eons. Jyotishmati-Revati’s ire rose yet again, and she threatened to curse Brahma as she did the other gods. Brahma then relented, telling her she could take birth as King Revata’s daughter and that the twenty-seven eons would seem an instant. When King Revata asked his daughter about her groom, Revati restated that she wanted to marry the strongest of all. King Revata, his wife, and Revati took their chariot to Brahma’s abode to search for this groom, and indeed the twenty-seven eons passed as a moment.31 This narration of Balaram’s marriage to Revati makes central Balaram’s naga identity as well as his great strength. In addition, his wife’s pique and her dedication to morality parallel those attributes of her husband. Similarly, as Alan Entwistle notes, given Balaram’s links to agriculture and fertility, it should not surprise us that his wife has links (even if

76

Growing Stories from India

they are negative) to the welfare of children. The Mahabharata identifies Revati as a matrika, a goddess connected with children’s diseases, and both Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana list Revati as one of the evil spirits, or witches, that trouble young infants and children until the age of sixteen.32 Much devotion toward Krishna and Balaram—particularly the tradition that began in the sixteenth century—focuses on Krishna and Balaram’s boyhood adventures in Braj. Devotees of Balaram, however, view Balaram as a protector and teacher of morality (dharma) and emphasize his well-known strength and moral propriety, which are demonstrated well in Balaram’s exploits after he left Braj. These characteristics shape how devotees know and worship Balaram in Baldeo and bring these later years into greater prominence for devotees there. In Baldeo, for example, devotees frequently invoke Balaram’s adult activities as described in the Mahabharata when describing his characteristics. After all, Balaram does return to Braj during the springtime festival of Holi, and, at this time, performs the act he is best known for: diverting the Yamuna River. Devotees in Baldeo interpret Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River in an agricultural context because his actions protect the region’s fertility. While we might read these actions as protective and heroic, they also raise questions about human entitlement to the earth’s resources and how such entitlement affects human social relations, questions also germane to U.S. agricultural practice. My analysis of this story in its broader social and ritual context helps us understand how the relationship between agricultural and social stability, or the “need for productivity,” establishes and maintains social hierarchies, and why the narratives of industrial agriculture remain dominant.

Holi: Ritual and Social Context The story of Balaram diverting the Yamuna River is situated within the springtime agricultural festival of Holi. While in much of North America, spring is a planting season, in north India, spring is when the winter crops are harvested as well as a time for new life. Holi is celebrated—or “played”— throughout India at the start of spring, and ritual elements of Holi, such as the throwing of color, the bonfire, and the temporary abandonment of behavioral codes, bear structural similarities to other historical and con-

Balaram and the Yamuna River

77

temporary harvest festivals. Celtic agricultural traditions, for example, also include a bonfire and the burning of a straw man.33 Devotees in Baldeo describe Holi as a time to reaffirm community ties and to celebrate the promise of spring. These two concerns are intimately related because agricultural success and prosperity underlie social connections and harmony—and vice versa. The stories and practices associated with Balaram in Baldeo reaffirm his status as a protector—as both the king of Braj and as the premier agriculturalist. These stories and practices also raise significant questions regarding the extent to which human need overrides ethical concerns. Understanding how participants interpret Balaram as a protector of agricultural fertility helps us understand human attitudes of entitlement to the earth’s productivity. Most devotees play Holi over a weeklong period; they travel throughout Braj to enjoy Holi on different days in villages where Krishna and Balaram are particularly significant. On the full moon day of the lunar month Phalgun (February–March), devotees arrive in Balaram’s village, Baldeo, to play Holi with Balaram. The Holi season lasts for approximately six weeks, starting on Vasant Panchami, the fift h day of the bright half of January–February (Magh). Vasant Panchami is considered the start of spring, and from this day on the temperature begins to rise, signaling the end of the cold winter months. Like most Indian festivals, the dates of Holi are determined according to the lunar calendar, so the dates shift by a few days each year. Each month has a dark half (when the moon is waning) and a bright half (when the moon is waxing). Thus, festivals are intimately linked with natural and agricultural cycles. Devotees and others play Holi by exchanging color with fellow players, and crowds of devotees attired in newly dyed clothing render this festival visually distinct and exciting. The color takes the form of colored powder or colored water, and methods of exchange range from tenderly applying color to another’s cheek to dousing crowds with buckets of colored water. In Baldeo, families and friends visit each other’s homes to play Holi together. Many devotees explained to me that exchanging color is a means to renew social bonds, and I experienced this when friends in Baldeo made a point to play Holi with me.34 Balaram’s relationship to Holi is significant for two reasons: first, Holi is the time when Balaram (unlike his popular younger brother, Krishna, who never returned home) arrives home after a long absence; and second,

78

Growing Stories from India

it was during the festival of Holi that Balaram altered the Yamuna River’s course with his plow. These events—the fact of Balaram’s return and his diverting the Yamuna River—shape the way in which devotees understand Holi because these actions demonstrate Balaram’s commitment to Braj both in social and agricultural terms. Balaram’s return home demonstrates his commitment to his community, and his diversion of the Yamuna River is understood as the provision of water for agriculture although, as stated earlier, Balaram’s actions also reflect the naturalization of human entitlement over the earth’s resources and the naturalization of male over female.

Balaram and the Yamuna River The story of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River appears in two sectarian Hindu texts that are particularly important for Vaishnavas. Both the Bhagavata Purana and the Balabhadra Mahatmya (a chapter of the Garga Samhita) recount the story of Balaram’s return to Braj during Holi.35 According to the Balabhadra Mahatmya, which offers more detail than the Bhagavata Purana, Balaram’s return satisfied a promise he made in a previous life, when he took the form of the serpent lord Shesh. The serpent lord announced that he would take birth as Balaram to assist Krishna in liberating the earth from the tyrannical Kamsha. Shesh reigned over the underworld kingdom that is the traditional abode of nagas. The serpent princesses who served in his underworld court were eager to join him in Braj (as were all those attending in the court), and as a result of their devout asceticism the serpent princesses received the boon of rebirth as the gopis. Shesh promised, “I will dance with you on the banks of the Yamuna River and fulfill your desires,” and they later danced and frolicked with Balaram when he returned to Braj at the time of Holi. In contrast, the Bhagavata Purana simply states that Balaram missed his friends and family and decided to return to Braj, his childhood home; after this, the textual accounts are in accord. His family and friends were overjoyed to see him; they greeted him with tears of joy and warm embraces. Balaram remained for the two spring months in Braj—the lunar months of Chaitra and Vaishakha—and frolicked with the gopis every night. Balaram’s last night in Braj before he and Krishna left for Mathura to defeat Kamsha is memorable to devotees because, on this night, the night

Balaram and the Yamuna River

79

of the romantic October full moon (Sharad Purnima), Krishna danced with the gopis who adored him. In this dance, called the Maharasalila, Krishna multiplied himself 16,000 times, so that each and every girl thought that she alone was dancing with Krishna. These girls abandoned their chores and homes, such was their love for Krishna. Balaram, however, the elder brother, was not invited to dance. While Krishna and the gopis danced under the moonlight, Balaram hid behind a rock and watched.36 This image of Balaram watching from behind a rock encapsulates the theme of Balaram’s exclusion from Krishna’s pastoral games; Balaram’s earthiness in contrast to Krishna’s pastoral nature suggests parallels for understanding how agriculture fits into a broader narrative of humans and the biotic community. The next day, Krishna and Balaram left for Mathura, but they promised to return in a week’s time. Krishna, however, never returned, and the trope of this lengthened separation from Krishna is the basis for many devotees’ emotional stance toward Krishna. (Despite Krishna’s prolonged absence from Braj, most devotees of Krishna presume that he is always at play in this beloved landscape.) Balaram did return, and this return makes all the difference: Balaram is the king of Braj. Devotees in Baldeo note that Balaram’s homecoming reflects his protection of, and commitment to, Braj. On one particularly romantic night of spring in Braj, the night of the full moon, Balaram had his own Maharasalila dance with the gopis, and the repercussions of this event are critical to understanding Balaram’s responsibility for Braj’s agrarian fertility. On this night the deity Varuna, sovereign of all waters, dispatched his wife Varuni, the goddess of wine, to Braj. Ambrosia flowed from the hollow of a kadamba tree, and its fragrance permeated the forest. Enticed by the scent, Balaram and the women found the honey-beverage and drank. After drinking his fill, Balaram regaled the women with song and staggered through the forest, unable to focus his eyes. It is at this point that Balaram diverts the Yamuna River. This action is reiterated in every ritual in Baldeo, and it underscores his role as the patron of agriculture. Balaram has an interesting, if not paradoxical, relationship with the Yamuna River. His forcible diversion of the Yamuna demonstrates his power over her, yet the Yamuna River is also Balaram’s family goddess, and it is his family duty to worship her. Further, Balaram

80

Growing Stories from India

has an even closer relationship with Mahasvarasvati, the goddess associated with wisdom, who bestowed upon him his strength; this combination of strength and wisdom helps him fight evil. Balaram’s worship of the goddess is proper, maryada, both because it fills his familial duty and it gives him the necessary strength to fulfill his social duties. Nonetheless, after their evening of dancing and drinking, Balaram and his friends wanted to play in the water. The Yamuna River had not come near or watched Balaram’s games. Balaram demanded that Yamuna approach him so that he could play in her waters. She hesitated. Frustrated and puzzled in his intoxication, he interpreted her hesitation as contempt. It is important to note that this was a reasonable assumption on Balaram’s part: typically when a devotee calls upon a deity, he or she appears. He then thrust the pointed edge of his plow into the earth and dragged the Yamuna to his feet. He rebuked her: “Oh, you sinner! You scorned me. I summoned you, and you delayed. Now you will flow in one hundred directions!” The terrified Yamuna lay prostrate at his feet and implored him to show mercy. She praised his majesty and his immense strength and begged him to free her. Satisfied, Balaram released her. That he forever changed the Yamuna’s course testifies to Balaram’s infinite potency, one of Balaram’s definitive characteristics. Today, the Yamuna River bends near Baldeo; from above the river it looks like it was indeed pulled off course. Balaram then entered into the river and bathed, cavorting with the gopis. According to Vaishnava tradition, when Balaram emerged from the water, the goddess Kanti gave him the blue clothes that he typically wears. She further adorned him with precious jewels and a dazzling golden necklace. Kanti, which means “lovely,” is a name for the goddess Lakshmi, who is the consort of Vishnu and the deity associated with the home and wealth. Kanti, interestingly, is also associated with Durga, a warrior goddess who—like Balaram—is fierce in her protection of the world.

Balaram’s Story in Practice The story of Balaram and the Yamuna provides the background against which Holi is played and interpreted in Baldeo. Residents of Baldeo emphasize that Holi is a time of social renewal because this is the time when Balaram returned home to renew his bonds and to fulfill his promise to the serpent princesses. (Krishna, however, never returned to Braj, and

Balaram and the Yamuna River

81

devotees emphasize this difference.) Holi rituals also demonstrate an important link to agriculture and fertility because serpents are typically associated with water and fertility. Balaram and the cowherd women are incarnations of the serpents, and this convergence of serpents, fertility, and agriculture shapes devotees’ understanding of Holi texts and practices. Balaram’s Holi activities embody the nexus between society, water, agriculture, and fertility. Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River is central to Holi, and the importance of this deed to Balaram devotion cannot be overstated: Balaram’s root mantra (mul-mantra), as mentioned earlier, is Om, klim kalindi bhedanaya Sankarshanaya svaha. Om, the Kalindi, split by Samkarshan, svaha!

This verse—which literally restates that Balaram split the Yamuna River— is recited every day, in every ritual, for Balaram in Baldeo and specifically uses Balaram’s epithet “Samkarshan,” which refers to creating a furrow. The verse encodes the story of Balaram’s diverting the Yamuna to provide water for Braj, and its continued recitation means that Balaram’s agricultural connections and his relationship to the river goddess are consistently made central to Baldeo practice. Baldeo ritual practice highlights the point that Balaram’s relationship with the goddess Yamuna—referred to as Kalindi in the verse—is integral to his persona and his worship.

Borrowing Balaram Although the story does not depict an egalitarian relationship, priests at the Dauji temple in Baldeo constantly reminded me that Balaram and the Yamuna River’s relationship is one of mutual obligation and reciprocity. Even though I understood how this explanation made sense in a desertlike agricultural region, it still bothered me because it normalized patterns of entitlement to the earth’s—and women’s—fertility and productivity that are enacted in multiple agricultural and social scenarios. Explanations that valorize idioms of protection, in which aggressive action is deemed necessary for social stability, obscure how such actions render inequitable social hierarchies as inevitable and natural. Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River and the festival of Holi (and similar agricultural festivals) have been read as comedic narratives—that is, as narratives of reso-

82

Growing Stories from India

lution in which social stability is restored. For example, Balaram’s entering the river to bathe can be read as integration or resolution, in which both parties move past the original conflict. However, focusing on conflict resolution, integration, or social stability deflects attention from the root causes of these social tensions and appears to condone the behavior that produced the conflict. Local interpretations of this story highlight Balaram’s contribution to agricultural stability, and the obvious need for water in the region provides this argument a certain commonsense truth. However, I have consistently been troubled by this explanation because it rationalizes exploitation under the rubric of need; and as I stepped back to reflect on how this story fits into broader narratives of human need and relations with the biotic community, I realized that this narrative parallels existing justifications for industrial agriculture. In both cases, a narrative of human need justifies aggressive or even exploitive relations with the earth. Balaram’s story therefore helps us examine agricultural relations on two levels: first, it reflects human behavior within the biotic community; and second, this story and its prominent, explanatory role suggest why this story holds the pride of place in Balaram devotion. The story of Balaram and the Yamuna River frustrated me for many years because it reflects deeply embedded assumptions of human entitlement and control over the earth and over women that appear in so many cultures. I have come back to it again and again because it has much to tell us about agricultural relations between humans and the earth and the social conditions that render “natural” existing extractive practices. Although Balaram’s story is situated in a South Asian milieu that might appear distant and perhaps irrelevant to those who are not familiar with this context, the salient features of human need and dominance are relevant beyond South Asia. We are all suffering the severe consequences of the dominant agricultural narrative illustrated by this story. Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River and this story’s prominent role in Balaram devotion demand that we confront how humans have assumed entitlement to the earth’s produce and how frustrated they have felt when control is not possible. Given the severity of the problems caused by industrial agriculture, we must explore stories that have justified existing agricultural practices and then begin to revise them.

Balaram and the Yamuna River

83

First, however, we must understand why Balaram’s story has had such staying power. In the year I spent in Baldeo, the theme of Balaram’s morality and responsibility as a protector emerged again and again, and my conversations with the Pandas and others revealed the mythic and cultural contexts for these interpretations. While I was intrigued by the anomalous aggression of Balaram’s actions in the context of the gentle and pastoral Braj, the continually emerging themes of serpents, protection, and the wisdom of intoxication helped me put Balaram’s drunken rage into context, and also provide a context for my critique of the disquieting relationship between protection, dominance, and exploitation. Balaram’s actions reveal the gender and power dimensions that exist both in agriculture and society, which is precisely why this story is an effective means to assess human relationships with the earth. This story does not depict a Disneyfied pastoral of a harmonic relationship of humans and nature; instead, Balaram confronts us with the violence inherent in most agricultural practice. Applying Martha Nussbaum’s analogy of legal justice can help us contextualize Balaram’s actions and, by extension, human behavior in the biotic community. Similarly, using Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of narrative ethics, we can see how these characters provide a standpoint from which to assess our actions and their consequences. Devotees in Baldeo interpret the story of Balaram and the Yamuna in a Vaishnava context, in which deities and humans, males and females, and humans and the earth are embedded in reciprocal—though unequal—relationships of protection and obligation. Investigating the narrative dimensions of human-earth relations as exemplified in this story illuminates the social dynamics, such as class and gender, that are embedded in these narratives—dynamics that encode human behavior toward other human beings and, I suggest, toward the biotic community.

Local Interpretations Ghanashyam Pandey, founder of the Baldev Research Institute in Baldeo, and other devotees in Baldeo emphasized to me the agricultural implications and interpretations of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna. As we walked through fields planted with rows of corn, they explained that Balaram brings the water that makes these crops possible. Devotees wor-

84

Growing Stories from India

ship Balaram as a guardian and protector of sustenance; diverting the Yamuna River provided water for a desert-like agricultural region. Interestingly, the rendition of this story appearing in the Hindu narrative Harivamsha states that Braj had become barren since Balaram and Krishna’s departure and that Balaram returned to restore its fertility.37 I do not want to overstate the agrarian interpretation of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River because many devotees, particularly those who live outside of Baldeo, emphasize Balaram’s desire to worship the river. Nonetheless, the Pandas’ Ahivasi agrarian heritage is foundational for their understanding of Balaram, and their views are broadly disseminated among residents and visitors alike. Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River reflects the frustrating reality that natural forces such as rain are capricious and that nagas also are known to be capricious. In fact, because we are dependent on rain and other apparently unpredictable elements of nature, Balaram’s attempt to control the water seems to embody human frustration, perhaps even rage, at our lack of control over these forces, personalized as Mother Nature or the Goddess in the Hindu tradition. Pandey’s understanding accords with traditional concepts of the relationship between a male deity and the feminine waters, that the Goddess, embodied as the Yamuna River, performs a protective function through releasing life-giving waters to the earth. These relationships between the deity and the waters are situated in Vaishnava context of protection, but this context raises questions about the connections between agricultural productivity, aggression, and gender. Illuminating these questions in Balaram’s story is a means to investigate how these dynamics emerge in the U.S. agricultural context. For example, why has the war on nature—the necessity to vanquish the agency of Mother Nature—rather than an idiom of cooperation or partnership become the dominant idiom for agriculture? Balaram’s relationship with the Yamuna River is complicated because it has multiple dimensions. After Balaram danced with the gopis, he wanted to worship the Yamuna; this is a pattern that appears several times in the Bhagavata Purana. Krishna also danced and then worshipped the Yamuna, and, in both cases, their dances followed Navaratri, a festival honoring the Goddess that is celebrated in both spring and fall. Both Balaram and the Yamuna embody the concept of propriety and so uphold social norms, which is consistent with Balaram’s assuming that Yamuna would

Balaram and the Yamuna River

85

respond to his invocation. In any worship (puja) ceremony, a devotee invokes a god or goddess, and the deity comes in response to the devotee’s summons. In addition, the Yamuna River is also Balaram’s family goddess, so by worshipping her, he observes his familial duty. Yet Balaram appears to dominate the Yamuna. He forcibly diverts this river and demonstrates his power over her. That Balaram is obligated to worship the Yamuna complicates their relationship, and as such the deities Balaram and the Yamuna do not fit into a clear hierarchical pattern. The Pandas offered two explanations of why the Yamuna River did not respond to Balaram’s call; first, the Yamuna River saw that Balaram was intoxicated and, given this state, she thought she was not obligated; and second, the Yamuna River wanted to dance only with Krishna. One elderly Panda told me that Balaram had assumed Krishna’s dark form to appease the gopis who were pining for Krishna. In any case, given the familial as well as the deity-devotee relationship, the Pandas thought that the Yamuna was obligated to come to Balaram. The relationship between Balaram and the Yamuna River reflects ritual patterns of obligation and reciprocity, and this framework structures ritual practice and the relationship between devotees and the divine. Vedic ritual scholars Stephanie Jamison and Michael Witzel note that Vedic ritual—which provides the prototype for subsequent Hindu ritual patterns—can be likened to a contract, or at least a form of mutual obligation, designed to sustain the universe. That is, the human performance of the ritual obligates the deity to provide results, and ritual becomes a mode of mutual exchange.38 In this way, Balaram and the Yamuna are also bound by ties of mutual obligation: Balaram is obligated to worship the Yamuna, and the Yamuna is obligated to appear and provide water. This obligatory relationship is not equal, but it does replicate the power dynamic between humans and the divine as demonstrated in Vedic ritual, which revolves around the fundamental concepts of rta and dharma. Balaram himself embodies this connection between the moral and cosmic orders: as a deity, he defends morality, or dharma; and as a naga, he controls the rains and fertility. This discussion of dharma focuses on Balaram as the preserver of dharma because exploring how Balaram protects reveals much about the dynamics of protective relationships. For example, the violence that emerges in his protection of sustenance and the moral order parallels agriculture as a form of violence both in the biotic

86

Growing Stories from India

community and potentially as an impulse to violence in human relations. In the discourse of industrial agriculture, the need for productivity is used to obscure, if not justify, damage wreaked upon human and nonhuman communities. For example, herbicides deemed necessary to kill weeds also affect bird and animal habitat and can damage human health. Stories from texts such as the epic Mahabharata and the tenth-century Bhagavata Purana illustrate how Balaram preserves dharma. Devotees of Balaram know these stories, and they hear them repeatedly in conversation with the temple guides. Balaram’s reputation for righteousness and the concept of dharma frames how devotees understand him as a guardian of morality. Balaram’s role as a guardian of morality is further contextualized by stories and images of Balaram as a naga, and this persona explains why his inebriation and anger demonstrate his commitment to protection and sustenance. The temple priests and guides in Baldeo explicate Balaram’s actions through his persona as a king and protector of the region’s fertility and as a naga. While Balaram’s intoxication and rage might appear egregious and anomalous within the devotional pastoral Braj context, the temple guides explain Balaram’s behavior as necessary to protect the region. The temple guides cite multiple examples of Balaram’s continuing protection. For example, in one often-repeated story, when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s soldiers came to destroy Balaram’s image, Balaram sent a swarm of bees, and Aurangzeb immediately realized that this village was protected by the divine. While many devotees and visitors are familiar with the stories, the Pandas hold a repository of knowledge about Balaram and Braj lore and pass along this information to visitors to Baldeo through stories, temple pamphlets, and poetry.

Intoxication and Propriety For Baldeo temple priests, Balaram’s actions depict him as an exemplar of maryada, which translates best as ethical propriety or decorum and is applied to a righteous and upstanding person; the Pandas use this quality to mark the difference between Balaram and Krishna. Prem Pandey, a temple guide, explained to me that Balaram “lets Krishna be Krishna,” meaning that Balaram’s protection of and attachment to Braj enable Krishna’s more playful activities. Balaram’s anger and intoxication are never direct-

Balaram and the Yamuna River

87

ed at devotees, but are understood to be in service of them. Discussions of Balaram’s strength and power reinforce the idea that he functions as a “deity of place,” a local deity who takes care of those within his territory. The concept of maryada represents a devotional and hierarchical distinction, articulated in the theologies of both Gaudiya Vaishnavism and the Vallabha Sampradaya, the two major devotional communities of the sixteenth century. Maryada connotes a devotion that upholds social norms. This contrasts with pushti, a term which literally means “grace” or “nourishment” but connotes the ecstatic devotion that transcends social norms. Both devotional groups utilize these characteristics and the attribute maryada to establish a hierarchy with Krishna, who is associated with pushti, as dominant. Righteousness and propriety have no role in the pastoral landscape, wherein Krishna is lauded for his irreverence and capriciousness. Balaram’s maryada persona, however, establishes him as a guardian and protector of Braj and his devotees. These qualities are important for a protector or guardian such as Balaram, and devotees praise Balaram for his righteousness as a warrior in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. For example, on numerous occasions, Baldeo temple priests pointed to an episode in the Mahabharata as illustrative: Toward the end of the great war between the Pandavas and Kauravas, mortal enemies and cousins Bhima and Duryodhana (Balaram’s student in methods of combat) were engaged in battle.39 Krishna provoked Bhima’s rage to the point that Bhima smashed his mace down upon Duryodhana’s thighs and shattered them. According to notions of martial propriety, however, the mace should never be struck below the waist. Balaram saw this illegal blow and censured Bhima and Krishna for breaking the rules of fair combat. In this story, then, Balaram is portrayed as an exemplar of fair play, as one who maintains the rules, even in combat. At the same time, Balaram is fond of intoxicants, and he is aggressive, in this case, related qualities that are also deemed to be maryada because Balaram uses them in the service of righteousness and protection. Similarly, scholar Lindsay Harlan notes the connection between lust, wine, and strength in the Rajputs, the martial class in Rajasthan, India. Meat and wine are important for male Rajputs warriors because they build lust and strength, important traits for professional warriors and kings.40 While many Hindus abstain from both wine and meat, these substances are deemed necessary for upholding dharma in these specific martial circumstances.

88

Growing Stories from India

According to Hindu tradition, nagas are fond of intoxicants, and temple priests gratify Balaram’s desire on a daily basis. Every day at 3:00 p.m. Balaram—and the male temple priests who serve him—receive bhang as prasad in his temple in Baldeo. Bhang is a preparation of cannabis that is typically drunk. However, taking bhang is particularly emphasized at Holi because Balaram himself did so at Holi. Although residents note that Balaram takes bhang mostly for the same reasons anyone does, his propensity for bhang endows him with the strength and power to fight enemies. While Balaram becomes intoxicated to achieve power and strength, this linkage evokes the intoxicating effects of power and domination. The accumulation of money or other symbols of power becomes necessary to maintain this state, and this link between power, intoxication, and domination becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. This concept of inebriation in the service of righteousness is well represented in narratives about Balaram, and while this linkage explains why intoxication is necessary to uphold the social order, several incidents raise the question of scale: that is, what level of aggression is necessary for sustenance? The Mahabharata depicts the story of Balaram’s killing of Rukmin, which is instructive on this point. During a wedding party, several kings conspired to defeat Balaram in a game of dice. They reasoned that, although he was not particularly good at it, Balaram was addicted to gambling and was therefore a perfect mark. After continued losses to the (cheating) King Rukmin, Rukmin mocked Balaram, saying that dice was a game of kings, not cowherds. Enraged by this insult, Balaram killed Rukmin with an iron bar and knocked out the teeth of another king who had insulted him; the rest of the kings fled in terror.41 While this episode depicts Balaram’s attention to propriety as well as his quickness to anger, it presents a problem of scale. Balaram is known as one who adheres to propriety and takes seriously threats to his social status, but it is difficult to account for the magnitude of his response to this insult. This issue of scale ties in with local understandings of Balaram’s intoxication and inebriation in that his anger reflects the aggression that is necessary to function as a protector. In addition, Balaram’s destruction of the monkey demon Dvivida demonstrates Balaram’s wrath in the defense of the earth and agriculture. This demon had uprooted the hills, drowned the coastal areas with tidal waves, and destroyed the trees of the local hermitages. One day, however,

Balaram and the Yamuna River

89

Dvivida saw Balaram cavorting with the local women, drunk on the wine of Varuni. The monkey insulted Balaram and the women; he broke Balaram’s pitcher of wine and tore at the women’s clothes. Finally Balaram grabbed his mace and plow and set out to destroy the monkey. The pair fought with trees, and during the battle Dvivida uprooted an entire forest. When Balaram finally killed the demon, the mountain shook with relief, and the deities and sages shouted their congratulations.42 Thus, in his inebriation and anger, Balaram protected the earth and the women’s propriety and upheld order. This story exemplifies Balaram’s wrathful and inebriated response to impropriety and foreshadows his later diversion of the Yamuna River.

Shesh, the Philosopher-King Balaram’s intoxication is also understood as the intoxication of wisdom, and his role as a philosopher-king is best seen in the underworld kingdom where the naga Shesh held court prior to taking birth as Balaram. Nagas typically reside in the lowest of the seven watery subterranean regions known as patalas. This underground patala should not be confused with concepts of hell or a dreary underworld; the serpents’ abode is depicted as lovely and habitable. Enthroned deep below the earth’s surface in Patala, Shesh reigned over the serpents and dispensed wisdom to other deities and semidivine beings such as the wise siddhas and gandharvas.43 As the philosopher-king, Shesh receives devotions from supplicants and requests for blessings from the lovely serpent maiden-princesses. Naga youths, both males and females, are known for their beauty, and numerous folktales depict amorous relations between nagas and humans.44 Shesh’s wisdom, however, is tied to his fondness of intoxication. While giving his learned discourses, Shesh’s red eyes swim in inebriation; Balaram manifests this red-eyed inebriation when he pulls the Yamuna River toward him. Shesh’s inebriation, however, is no ordinary drunkenness, because his wine is the wine of wisdom, and the Bhagavata Purana denotes this intoxication as the self-delusion necessary for creation. As the partial manifestation of the supreme deity, Shesh is the jiva, or the ego, that creates the perception of the I, the individual. The delusion of the ego is necessary to create the appearance of multiplicity, or phenomena. Shesh, then, incorporates the seemingly diverse qualities of wisdom, inebriation, and wrath in service of the moral and social order.

90

Growing Stories from India

Questioning Balaram Temple priests and devotees laud Balaram for his ability to protect his region. Devotees cite multiple stories that portray Balaram as one who upholds morality, and they particularly praise his commitment to maintain the region’s fertility. This responsibility is critical for the survival of his subjects and is a crucial duty of any ruler. President Barack Obama, for example, like his predecessors, must consider food production policies that ensure the agricultural success of the United States, and every five years Congress and the president pass the Farm Bill, which shapes agricultural policies and subsidies for the next five years. As Congress debates which farmers, foods, and policies to support, they, too, must choose which agricultural narrative is most compelling—an industrial agriculture narrative of high productivity and efficient monocultures, or a narrative emphasizing reciprocity and interdependence in the biotic community. The state of contemporary agriculture in the United States makes clear which narrative has remained dominant in both government and financial circles. Narratives of modernity and high productivity have remained plausible solutions to the world’s hunger. As I reflected on these parallel narratives of power and dominance, I wondered why these narratives remain so central and powerful. Their staying power raises questions about which stories get repeated and which become the dominant paradigm. Considering which competing narratives have been shuffled aside or overlooked raises questions about whose narratives become part of the canon and thus are passed on as tradition. For example, Laura Jackson explores competing agricultural narratives in Iowa and cites resentment and resistance to Iowa State’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture emerging from large-scale farms as well as industry representatives. When one Iowa State University scientist calculated that Iowa’s population could be fed on 3.5 percent of Iowa’s agricultural lands, the dean of the College of Agriculture responded, “What are we going to do with the other 24 million acres?”45 I never heard questions raised about alternate narratives in Baldeo (such as, for example, what if Balaram had not responded with anger and violence?), but I suspect that narratives of resistance do—or have—existed. Today, in India and the United States, farmers and consumers seek alternatives to food produced by industrial agriculture. Resistance to the

Balaram and the Yamuna River

91

dominant paradigm has produced growing numbers of farmers’ markets, CSAs (community-supported agriculture arrangements), and kitchen gardens, efforts that are dismissed as quaint until they become large enough to pose a real economic or social threat. In India, scholars such as Ann Gold and Bina Agarwal have documented women’s songs and practices of resistance to male authority and property ownership. Gold notes that she, among other scholars, has observed women’s resistance to their scripted roles, but that these women’s practices—and research documenting them—are marginalized in social and academic contexts.46 Back home in Iowa, Jean Eells’s ethnographic work with women farmland owners reveals that women and their interests “were invisible to agricultural conservation programs” because these organizations could not hear the language through which women expressed their desires for conservation.47 It has been easy to overlook these social and gendered critiques, particularly if these critiques are primarily oral or local. In an August 2009 New York Times article, Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, in critiquing their own field of journalism, wondered why journalists consistently ignore large-scale human rights violations against women, not “considering these to be news,” while the arrest of a single dissident becomes headline news.48 The case of Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, who insisted that uneducated women were the key to protecting forests, is instructive: her persistence and that of her followers demonstrated to her fellow Kenyans and the international community the existence of an alternate narrative for women and the natural world. An agricultural reading of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River reinforces existing presumptions of human—and male—entitlement and suggests that aggressively controlling the earth is necessary for human survival and is perhaps the only way of ensuring survival. Balaram’s central and oft-repeated action in text and devotional practice prods us to ask, at one level, why this narrative of agricultural dominance and control has remained central in both Braj devotion and contemporary agriculture, and, at another level, what alternate narratives exist. A normative reading of this story emphasizes—like comedy—resolution. That is, Balaram enters the river and bathes. End of story. Asking whether Balaram’s actions were the only way to ensure survival and what costs are associated with his actions, however, opens the way to additional lines of questioning. Wondering whether Balaram could have coaxed the Yamuna River using alternate

92

Growing Stories from India

methods prompts us to wonder whether we can coax food from the earth without fertilizers and pesticides derived from toxic chemical weapons. What would happen if Balaram had not diverted the river? Didn’t Balaram take the action required for survival? Framed this way, Balaram took the necessary course of action; but framing the question this way closes off possibilities of exploring alternative means of obtaining water. Similarly, the rhetoric of industrial agriculture that asks “Which people do you choose to starve?” also frames discourse so that alternate forms of agriculture and food production appear cruel and misanthropic. Changing the frames to investigate alternative agricultural tropes and practices helps move us beyond continued replication of the Western feed-the-world mantra with all of its entailments and ramifications. My analysis of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River demonstrates why devotees and temple priests interpret this story as an agricultural narrative; as a king and protector, Balaram made the difficult choices that ensured the continued fertility of his region. In exploring this story and its prominent role in Braj devotion, we can extract themes that make this story relevant to a broad audience, and ask, for example, whether agricultural practices are—or ought to be—considered reciprocal or extractive. Local understandings of Balaram and his role in Hindu text and practice provide devotees a foundation for their interpretation, in which human need justifies aggression and entitlement to the earth’s productivity. The following chapter explores the social and gender dimensions of these tropes of protection and productivity. Borrowing Balaram’s story helps us consider how narrative legitimates destructive interventions and normalizes hierarchical social relations, such as, for example, how tropes of protection and entitlement justify inequitable social relations, particularly gender relations. Balaram’s story enables critique of these narratives, but also includes themes that lay the foundation for agricultural practices that are beneficial for multiple communities.

Chapter 4

Borrowing Balaram Alternative Narratives

The previous chapter explained why devotees view Balaram as a protector and explained the cultural context in which Balaram appears. This chapter moves beyond this context to examine how concepts such as protection are used to justify inequitable practices and social relations. Here I borrow Balaram’s story to show how narrative can legitimate destructive interventions and normalize hierarchical social relations, particularly gender relations. In addition, I ask how concepts such as reciprocity, obligation, and even protection might become the foundation for revised relations in the biotic community. Looking at Western agriculture through Balaram’s story facilitates critique of existing narratives and at the same time exposes themes that could lay a narrative foundation for more beneficial agricultural practices. Although Balaram’s actions are aggressive and parallel contemporary industrial agricultural practices, his behavior is embedded in a set of social and familial obligations that emerge in both text and ritual practice in Baldeo. These obligations locate Balaram and the Yamuna River in a relationship of reciprocity, and themes of mutual obligation and reciprocity that govern this reciprocal relationship provide material conducive to rethinking human relations with the biotic community. Exposing the social implications of these themes is the first step to designing alternate narratives and systems that are socially equitable and environmentally sustainable. What can Balaram’s story tell us about reciprocal relations with the earth? Balaram’s response to the Yamuna River’s agency replicates human frustrations that result when the earth does not respond as we had planned. Nonetheless, perhaps the more important lesson is that the

94

Growing Stories from India

Yamuna River has agency, and accommodating that agency—that is, adopting a stance of mutuality rather than dominance—could prove beneficial. Such a lesson reflects research by agronomist Miguel Altieri and biologists Catherine Badgley and Ivette Perfecto and their colleagues, which shows that reciprocal and responsive methods practiced on small, diversified farms provide more food per acre than more intensive practices of industrial agriculture.1 I contend that metaphors of agency and reciprocity, as seen in these smaller, diversified systems, might provide better frameworks for food production than those of domination and control, as seen in large-scale agriculture. Balaram’s story has important parallels within the Hindu tradition and, as we have seen, resonates with the Vaishnava context of responsibility for and protection of the earth. It also shares similar assumptions with other Hindu agricultural narratives about the relationship between society and agriculture. For example, Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River parallels the story of the deity Prthu, another incarnation of Vishnu, who was responsible for the introduction of agriculture and settled culture upon the earth.2 In addition, Prthu embodies the same connections to protection, anger, and fertility manifest in Balaram.3 Texts of the Vedic and classical period depict Prthu as an ideal king whose concepts of kingship and royalty include protecting the food supply. Prthu’s father, King Vena, was a wicked despot who prohibited devotion and the rituals of sacrifice that are necessary to uphold dharma. After Vena’s death, Prthu was a righteous king known as the protector of earth and humanity. The earth, however, had been withholding her bounty on account of Vena’s violation of dharma. Prthu became angry at the earth because she had been receiving the goods of sacrifice, and this receipt placed her within an obligatory or contractual relationship. His subjects begged for help, and Prthu threatened the earth with his bow. The earth took the form of a cow and fled, but was unable to escape. She begged for mercy and agreed to produce if she were given a calf. In return she offered her yield in the form of plants, seed, and animals for the denizens of the earth. As Prthu weds Prthvi, the earth goddess, the relationship between kingship and the earth incorporates the sustenance of fertility. Prthu levels the earth with his bow to make cultivation possible.4 The parallels with Balaram are clear: a male pro-

Borrowing Balaram

95

tector king—Balaram and Prthu—becomes angry with the female river/earth goddess—the Yamuna and Prthvi—for not producing or making available the goods necessary for sustenance. In both stories, the conflict is resolved using the negotiation points of obligation and reciprocity—with either real or imagined violence—such that the production of food is made possible. Like Balaram, Prthu’s response recapitulates human entitlement to the earth’s produce; yet we might also draw similar lessons regarding mutual obligation without the necessity of violence. It is important to understand the obligation of agricultural production within the specific narrative context of mutuality and reciprocity. Otherwise the need for production can be used to justify overriding ethical concerns. In addition, the gendered aspect of agriculture gives these concerns resonance in terms of male-female relationships.

Gendered Agriculture Balaram’s calling and then releasing the Yamuna River encapsulates a complex relationship between the deity and the goddess that reveals complexities and tensions in agricultural relations. Agriculture can be—and often is—a forced incursion into the earth and earthly processes, but agriculture is also necessary for sustenance and, as such, is a form of protection for human beings—as discussed earlier in terms of kingship and agriculture. Because plowing is almost universally associated with the male, and the earth and rivers with the female, agriculture can be seen as a gendered activity. Scholars such as Carolyn Merchant, Karen Warren, and Vandana Shiva have argued that the identification of the earth and nature with the feminine has determined modes through which we understand human relationships with the earth—such as Mother Nature—and between male and female. Merchant and Warren have demonstrated the similarities between domination of the earth and domination of women, and they argue that identification of the female with nature is both cause and result of subordination of women and nature.5 Culturally defined gender roles contribute to this dynamic; for example, female obligations to produce children and provide nurturing parallel obligations of the earth to provide sustenance. Thus, human treatment of the earth

96

Growing Stories from India

reflects treatment of women when gender norms for women such as nurturing, dependency, and self-sacrifice are applied to the earth. Similarly, female dependence and a perceived need for male protection have justified norms of control over women and the earth. The human-earth relationship has been framed through the metaphors of gendered human relationships—such as husband-wife or mother-child—and the qualities inherent in these human relationships translate to humanearth relations. In rethinking agricultural relations, we can use the metaphoric realms that underlie existing patterns to explore how different relationships, such as parenting or marriage, entail different qualities and norms for interaction. My exploration of these metaphoric realms— whether Hindu or otherwise—is not to suggest that we adopt these frameworks, but to help us abstract and investigate salient tropes, connections, and elements of narrative grammar. Aestheticians in the Hindu tradition categorize devotion through typical human relationships, and many devotees in the Hindu tradition understand their relationship to the divine through these familiar categories. Beyond the river-dragging story, Balaram’s relationship with the Yamuna River reveals different aspects of the goddess, such as mother and sister, which suggest alternate patterns of engagement. Investigating the variant forms of these relationships suggests patterns and qualities to guide modes of human behavior toward the earth. Rivers and oceans are deemed feminine in most cultures, but this gender identification has a particular theological significance within the Hindu tradition, wherein rivers are the embodiment of the goddess and so are coextensive with the divine. Many devotees base their relationship to the goddess on human maternal relationships and as such understand the river-goddess as mother. Rivers, like mothers, explains Anne Feldhaus, provide food and nourishment for crops and bodies and are responsible for agricultural as well as economic abundance.6 Vasudha Narayanan cites an apt agricultural metaphor in her discussion of devotion to the River Kaveri as a mother. When the Kaveri River is swollen with the monsoon rains that will feed the new crops, devotees say she is pregnant and indulge her “pregnancy food cravings” when they picnic on the banks of the river and consider that Kaveri Amman (the mother) is their guest. According to Narayanan, occasion-

Borrowing Balaram

97

ally an older female member of the family throws rice into the river, which satisfies Kaveri’s cravings.7 In the Hindu culture, as well as in many others, rice is associated with potential and fertility; this explains why rice is traditionally thrown at weddings. The significant themes in this narrative of interaction between divine and human and nature and human are those of indulgence and agency and recognition that the Mother’s eccentricities and excesses—such as monsoon flooding—are part of the cycle of fertility. Narayanan states that this theme of the pregnant woman invokes the associations of birth and potential, themes that result in a bond of mutual nurturing; devotees respond to the river’s needs, and the river maintains agricultural productivity. However, although rivers are also seen as purifying, the theme of the indulgent mother who cleans up after her (polluting) children is not particularly helpful ecologically. This idea has emerged in efforts to clean up the Ganges River in Varanasi, India, where the idiom of river as mother is a double-edged sword. While many devotees claim that dirtying one’s mother is wrong, others maintain that Mother Ganga is eternally tolerant and will clean up after her errant children.8 All of these entailments of the mother metaphor reflect prevailing gender stereotypes of motherhood and its obligations, but they have different consequences regarding human—or children’s— responsibilities toward their mother. In the context of Indian cultural norms, which assume children’s responsibility to care for parents, the motherhood metaphor perhaps has greater potential for engendering environmental responsibility in India than it does in the United States. There, responsibility flows down generations and parents are motivated to protect their children and their environment, but filial responsibility and veneration and care for elders are much less common. Thus, we might borrow elements of the mother metaphor, particularly the entailment of responsibility and obligation, but simply adopting the concept likely would not have the same effect. Kinship obligations as well as those between devotee and deity further bind Balaram and the Yamuna River. A framework of reciprocity and obligation structures ritual practice and relations between devotees and the divine. As noted earlier, Vedic sacrifice bears similarities to contractual obligations, and in this way and by familial obligations Balaram is obligated to worship the Yamuna, and the Yamuna is obli-

98

Growing Stories from India

gated to appear and provide water.9 Alan Entwistle points out that this story most likely reflected local agricultural practices of irrigating from the Yamuna River through the construction of canals.10 The role of irrigation in this story brings up two related points that demonstrate the warning inherent in Balaram’s story, both implicit warnings for agriculturalists about water usage. First, the process of irrigation in agriculture has been both a blessing and a curse. Although irrigation may be necessary and beneficial, irrigation practices can lead to salinization and desertification of the landscape. Agriculturalists must develop irrigation procedures with regard to the local ecosystem, that is, in responsive relationship to the earth’s processes. Second, that this story contains a warning about existing practices indicates that myth and narrative relate to very real concerns. Irrigation and agriculture are not abstract concerns, and ethical standards governing human action upon the earth have direct consequences for both humans and ecosystems. In short, whether domination or reciprocity guides agricultural practice is not merely a question of semantics but has material consequences, another reason to use the relationship between Balaram and the Yamuna River to prompt consideration of our own gendered relationships with the earth. Most traditional agricultural societies make the analogy between plowing the earth and human sexual activity, and the practices of agriculture are typically gendered and sexualized acts that reflect—and reinforce—existing hierarchical male-female relationships. For example, Leela Dube’s explication of the field-seed metaphor reflects this pattern: the male seed carries characteristics and the female field simply provides nurturing (but no substance), which normalizes male ownership and control of the crop as well as the field.11 Recognizing this gendered dimension of agriculture—that is, understanding the parallels between human entitlement to the earth’s gifts and men’s traditional dominance over women—opens up new lines of thought about what we expect from the earth and about patterns of social relations. In India, this gendered relationship manifests in ritual prohibitions against certain activities among farmers and fishermen at times when the earth or sea is considered to be menstruating. Similarly, taboos against women plowing the fields maintain gendered labor relations as control of property, and women’s ritual transgression of this taboo il-

Borrowing Balaram

99

lustrates the linkages between realms of ritual and economic empowerment. Ann Gold describes how women in Ghatiyali, Rajasthan, subvert these conventions on Sitala’s day, which falls shortly after Holi. (Sitala is a minor goddess linked with fertility, children’s health, and smallpox.) This ritual plowing, Gold argues, enacts the Ghatiyali women’s critique of existing agricultural relations, in terms of both property and labor.12 If Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna appears to be a sexualized act, it is because agriculture itself is a sexual and potentially violent activity that results in sustenance. Most forms of agriculture require the rending of the earth’s surface to implant seed, an act that reflects the ambivalence of humans’ relationship to the earth. This ambivalence demonstrates that, just like relations between humans, relations between humans and the earth are multifaceted and often contradictory. Ambivalence, for example, suggests one explanation for how the earth and women, can be worshipped and idealized and at the same time subordinated and abused. Balaram and the Yamuna’s story illustrates the frustrating reality of dominance in agriculture and exposes human illusions of control over the earth’s processes. Although as an agriculturalist Balaram appears powerful, he still must rely on the earth to produce. While the agriculturalist might control—to some extent—the inputs of water and fertilizer, the earth still has “choice” in her response, revealing the concept of agency as a way of understanding and discussing agriculture. For example, Gold’s observations of the seasonal agricultural rituals in Rajasthan revealed to her how female power—and nature’s power— becomes demonized. Women and the earth have power to create life, and this power, when not subject to control, can be dangerous to social stability and so is perceived as demonic.13 Idioms of control like these also structure narratives of industrial agriculture. The commodification and objectification of the earth and the female body function within a discourse of dominance and control; that is, such a view assumes that the earth can be controlled and will produce subject to human demand. Similarly, contemporary debates in the United States over reproductive freedom reveal fears about female fertility and sexuality and attempts to harness that power. However, the Yamuna River displays her own subjectivity, and her insubordination provokes Balaram’s rage. Her agency and Balaram’s

100

Growing Stories from India

anger demonstrate the consequences of resistance in the existing narrative, but her actions also reveal an alternate narrative about the earth and the biotic community. The earth’s agency shatters human illusions about controlling the earth’s processes and instead reveals a more dialectical understanding of relationships between different members of the biotic community, including humans. For example, the Yamuna’s “choice” might reflect genetic “choices” at the cellular level that determine how genes express in an organism. Recognizing the existence of choice and agency in human relationships with the earth helps us avoid commodifying the earth—and people as well—and helps us rethink these relationships in the context of agricultural practice. This metaphoric shift brings to mind some indigenous peoples whose understanding is that human beings belong within communities of sentient and nonsentient beings and that this membership invokes a moral responsibility to the collective. Natural features such as mountains or lakes are perceived as sacred and are protected from misuse. This ideology has motivated peasants and indigenous peoples to protect sacred groves in India and exemplifies local conservation practices.14 Similarly, peasants and fishermen of coastal Orissa celebrate the festival of Raja Parbha at the onset of the monsoon, the occasion of the menses of the earth and the sea. The concept of the menses of the earth reflects recognition of seasonal cycles, in which the earth moves through periods of productivity. For both women and the earth, menses is a fallow period, a period that allows for the “recuperation of fertility.”15 The linkage between cycles of productivity demonstrates the socioeconomic implications of the relationship between gender and agriculture. For example, taboos against women plowing the fields maintain gendered labor relations as control of property, and women’s ritual transgression of this taboo illustrates the linkages between realms of ritual and economic empowerment.16 The Raja Parbha festival demonstrates an understanding that reciprocity between human and nonhuman communities is necessary for regeneration of both groups. In the cases of both sacred groves and the ocean, humans make use of the fruits of the forest and the sea, and a paradigm of reciprocity leads to a constrained and sustainable use of these resources. The nonhuman community is understood as having agency in these interactions between communities, and humans must work with-

Borrowing Balaram

101

in limitations of the biotic community.17 This means that we must recognize the limits of the biotic community to provide for excessive human desires. Despite the dominant industrial agricultural narrative of control and manipulation, humans do not fully control natural processes, whether at the level of seed, gene, plant, or weather, and this reality provokes anxieties regarding fertility—or its lack—and survival.

Protection, Propriety, and Idealization Human survival depends on the earth’s continued fertility and on women’s continued fertility, and myth and practice demonstrate anxieties over fertility and productivity. Lack of control over fertility provokes social anxieties that emerge in narrative and practices of dominance. Balaram—as king and guardian of his region’s fertility—is lauded as a protector and an exemplar of propriety, so Balaram’s relationship with the Yamuna River offers an opportunity for us to consider the doubleedged sword of protection, that is, the relationship between protection and subordination. The presumed need for protection can be a slippery slope toward control, domination, and the loss of agency, so how the need for protection is assessed merits examination. Another look at Balaram’s role as protector shows how his story supports social hierarchy and accommodates the complex relationships between protection and subordination as well as control and domination. In Baldeo, the motif of agricultural fertility is clearly situated within notions of kingship, and the king’s authority and the earth’s productivity are mutually reinforcing.18 Actions that appear aggressive toward the earth are read by devotees as protective and necessary toward the earth and her flora and fauna. An example from the Mahabharata exemplifies this point. The text celebrates King Dusyanta wreaking havoc in the forest during a hunt; but, as Philip Lutgendorf explains, as “husband of the earth” the king is both entitled and expected to cull the game in this way, so his acts are understood as protection of the earth, his people, and the herd.19 How are we to read these Hindu notions of protection and vulnerability in terms of gender and social hierarchy? The story of Vishnu’s descent as the boar illustrates another aspect of protection and vulnerability through the Vaishnava identification with the earth as the goddess Bhudevi. Vishnu takes on the form of a

102

Growing Stories from India

boar to protect the earth, the goddess Bhudevi. The relationship between the earth and the boar demonstrates the benefits of protection but also reveals the potential of exploitation by the more powerful protector. Vijaya Nagarajan writes that female devotees clearly articulate the earth, Bhudevi, as vulnerable and as needing protection, particularly in relation to the masculine boar, Varaha.20 The boar rescues the earth from her abductors and raises her above the waters on his tusks, so his role as a protector is clear, yet the fact that boars are generally destructive to soil and agriculture adds an element of ambiguity. To these women devotees, the earth and her soil are fragile and need protection, an image appropriate for the Vaishnava context of sustenance. However, the earth and soil need protection both from outsiders and from the protectors. This dynamic appears in three sets of relationships: the boar Varaha and the earth Bhudevi; Balaram and the Yamuna River; and serpents and the earth. The story of Varaha and the earth has a particular agricultural connotation, and in the Hindu tradition, boars and nagas evince similar qualities in relation to agriculture. Boars embody the ambiguities of capriciousness and protection in a manner similar to serpents. Because boars root through fields with their snouts and disrupt the fields with their rooting, stories like that of Varaha link boars to fertility and agriculture. Watching a pig root through soil evokes the image of plowing or tilling the earth, as does the idea of a snake burrowing in the earth— an image evidenced in language as well.21 Because of their potential for destruction, boars must be propitiated—like nagas—to control damage, but they are also linked to the earth’s abundance. Gold writes that in Rajasthan, pigs at once evoke memories of the abundance of wild nature and the destruction of crops and seed.22 Further, nagas and boars are linked to soil fertility and soil health, and both creatures have potential to destroy fertility and production. Both nagas and boars represent a level of capriciousness that is inherent within agriculture because agriculture is the human attempt to harness natural systems that may or may not choose to cooperate. Although the earth, too, has a level of agency in that she might produce, she must also be protected from these potentially destructive forces. However, the framework of vulnerability—the idea that the earth’s fragile soils must be protected— offers up a new set of dangers, including the risk of idealization and

Borrowing Balaram

103

exploitation. Balaram’s frustration with the Yamuna exemplifies humans’ frustration when the earth reveals her autonomy. Patricia Mumme notes that the concept of rescuing the earth could establish a basis for Vaishnava ecological thought, but she rightly warns of the potential danger of this line of thought: arguing that the earth as female is helpless without a male rescuer-protector might further reinforce patriarchy and male authority over women.23 This points to a dichotomy within ecofeminist thought: some ecofeminists claim that female identification with the earth is empowering, while others contend that this identification results in oppression. The themes of vulnerability and protection demonstrate the dilemma of idealization. For example, when women are idealized and put on a pedestal, those who do not conform to the externally imposed ideals are not protected and may in fact be subject to violence. The same can be true when the natural world is idealized. The earth’s perceived vulnerability suggests that the idiom of protection contains the seeds of exploitation. Those who claim control of land in the guise of protecting it might be doing so out of greed or a single-minded concern for productivity. Leela Dube and Rita D. Sherma argue that the traditional male-seed and female-earth metaphor has been used to validate male control over the female body and the work or progeny it produces. In this case, the earth is depicted as the nurturer or supporter, and the seed carries the individuating characteristics.24 We can see this as one scenario in which Balaram’s character is ironic. While his persona is dominant, male, and aggressive as a naga, he is also cast in a supportive role, as Shesh, both in relation to Krishna and as the agriculturalist in regard to the dominant pastoral construct. As Sherma notes, this agricultural metaphor depicts the male-female, husband-wife, deity-human, and human-earth pairings as parallel and situates them within clear hierarchical relationships. Etymological links to Balaram’s epithets Samkarshan and Haladhar further embody the seed-field metaphor. “Samkarshan” refers to a furrow, and “Haladhar” means “the one holding a plow.” The Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana also use “Langulin,” meaning “furnished with a plough,” as an epithet for Balaram.25 The word langula—which is the source of the name of the langur, the long-tailed langur monkey in India—can mean tail, plough, or penis, which makes explicit the con-

104

Growing Stories from India

nection between agriculture and sexuality. This connection is borne out in popular practice: Rajasthani folk songs depict the Languriya— the one with the powerful plough-penis—as a male attendant of the goddess, insinuating a sexual relationship that does not fit the norm. Charlotte Vaudeville notes that the plough, the langula, is the mechanism by which Balaram controls the flow of waters between the earth’s surface and the subterranean waters of Patala.26 Balaram’s response to the Yamuna’s disobedience illustrates his frustrations that arise when the presumed subordinate in the relationship asserts her agency; when the river hesitated, she acted in opposition to the ideal and was subsequently dragged violently by Balaram. Similarly, tensions between idealized and “tainted” landscapes exemplify this phenomenon. Land considered tainted by human intervention —especially land that has suffered degradation from agricultural practices—often is not considered to be worthy of protection or, worse, is open to abuse. For example, environmental protection for wild rivers or regions designated as wilderness is strict; the relevant point is that these waters and lands have been undeveloped. Lands considered used or developed, however, whether urban parks, recreational rivers, or farmland, have far fewer environmental restrictions. Much environmental rhetoric and emotional energy in the United States has focused on lands, plants, and animals that are considered wild and untouched by humans. However, once land is farmed, developed, or otherwise used, it has lost the legal protections and emotional cachet of wilderness and is subject to enhanced abuse because it is no longer idealized. For example, a great hue and cry is often raised when there are plans to build roads or exploit natural resources in national parks or forests, but when municipalities build roads in urban areas, there may be some protest regarding the social or environmental consequences, but in most cases arguments of traffic and expediency make the building of these roads inevitable. Although today more environmental groups are addressing land that has been developed or used—such as, for example, backyard wilderness programs for songbird habitat—most efforts continue to valorize land, flora, and fauna that are wild, free, and apparently untouched by humans. Lands and species that are perceived to be untouched have agency—that is, they are not under human control—and this freedom,

Borrowing Balaram

105

wildness, and agency leads to their romanticization in human consciousness. This freedom or agency, however, is a double-edged sword, because it evokes both awe and fear; and fear of nature’s—and women’s—freedom and agency can lead to violence and suppression, pitfalls demonstrated by the Yamuna River’s plight. Any idiom of protection must incorporate the biotic community’s freedom to express and define itself. Agency is critical because idioms of protection can imply ownership or entitlement, and violence may result when “property” does not act as directed. Practically speaking, emerging agricultural practices such as agroecology and ecological agriculture embody concepts of agency in that these practices rely upon interactions between naturally occurring biological processes. Although farmers using agroecological principles obviously guide the processes, they do not attempt to assume complete control. Similarly, biodynamic farming assumes the agency of the farm as its own entity. Today, those who champion alternate agricultures highlight the qualities of freedom and wildness in regard to both biological processes and genetic developments, thus making links in agricultural practices to qualities that are valued in idealized landscapes. Balaram is obligated to protect the Yamuna River, and humans must protect wild animals, but these requirements place a heavy debt on the recipients of that protection. The obligation to protect entitles the protector to fealty and rights of ownership, and the recipients are punished for violating established norms and hierarchies that in part emerge from these entitlements. The Yamuna River’s forced diversion illustrates human frustrations when nature—or women—claim agency. The Yamuna River first demonstrated her agency by refusing to go to Balaram, and as a consequence, she was dragged to his feet. Similarly, when wild animals such as bears violate their idealized status as icons of protected wilderness by mauling visitors in national parks in the United States, they are destroyed. Even when humans are injured because they have teased an animal or even climbed into a cage, the animal often is killed, in part due to public outcry. In both cases, animals have agency, but the bears’ agency is compromised because they are protected to the degree that they fit human needs and ideals of the wild. Although agency is necessary for an agricultural ethic and humans are obligated to protect agricultural lands, we must examine how protec-

106

Growing Stories from India

tion, entitlement, and ownership are bundled to restrict agency. The interaction between Balaram and the Yamuna River demonstrates the penalty that human and nonhuman entities face for asserting agency and violating idealized norms. The idea of agency accords with Hindu understandings of the cosmos as a living organism; for Hindus, the cosmos is not inert, as it is in more mechanistic worldviews. So any relationship of protection and support must also embed concepts of choice and agency without penalty for the female-earth. Balaram’s story illustrates both the idea that the earth has agency and that she is punished for acting upon this agency. This account obliges us to rethink narratives of dominance over the natural world. The modern scientific agricultural narrative presumes control of and domination over the earth and its—or her—natural processes; fencerow-to-fencerow cultivation, fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation are tactics in a war on nature. If the modern view of the earth is of a machine, frustration at the earth’s unwillingness to cooperate with human desire provokes development of better tools with which to control the machine and its constituent parts. Recall the image of Balaram’s plow reducing the feisty Revati’s height to match his own shorter stature; this image parallels the agriculturalist’s attempts to contain the earth’s power and self-determination. Why have the parallel narratives of Balaram’s diversion of the river and that of industrial agriculture proven so compelling that they are continually retold and reenacted? In both cases, the narrative of control appears to be the sole solution to protecting the food supply. What would have happened if Balaram had not diverted the Yamuna River? This question portends dire consequences, if we assume that dragging the Yamuna River and overriding her agency are the sole means to ensure survival. Similarly, the stance of industrial agriculture is that harsh interventions are necessary to protect the world from starvation; by extension, adopting values of reciprocity and adapting to the earth’s agency will lead to starvation. This argument persists even in the face of growing evidence that the reciprocal and responsive methods practiced on small, diversified farms provide more food per acre—evidence indicating that industrial agriculture’s heroic narrative might be inadequate. For example, Worldwatch Institute food and agriculture researcher Brian Halweil writes that agribusiness executives, agricultural and ecological scientists, and international agriculture experts

Borrowing Balaram

107

agree that a “large-scale shift to organic agriculture would increase the world’s food supply” and cites multiple studies that back this claim.27 These arguments are critical for us today because the narrative given by industrial agriculture has framed debate about the next Green Revolution—the gene revolution—promised by scientists and agribusinesses. Contemporary rhetoric about India’s first Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, which drastically altered biophysical and financial aspects of food production, exposes a parallel discourse about the necessity of dramatic intervention. In June 2009, National Geographic published a special report, “The End of Plenty,” that explored the current food crisis and reviewed attempts to meet growing needs for food.28 Few will deny that at the time of the Green Revolution, India was facing famine and that gains in yield and productivity saved many from starvation; but were the water- and chemical-intensive methods of the Green Revolution the sole alternative? The discussion here and elsewhere is framed such that only two scenarios, the Green Revolution or mass starvation, appear possible; alternate methods, such as drought-resistant seeds, are ignored. Soil scientist Rattan Lal, originally of Punjab Agricultural University, acknowledges the massive health, water, and soil consequences of Green Revolution technologies, but states “I realize the problems of water quality and water withdrawal, but it saved hundreds of millions of people. We paid a price in water, but the choice was to let people die.”29 I cite this article because National Geographic is well respected and widely read and because its presentation of the issue of feeding the world parallels that of coverage in other popular venues, such as the New York Times and the Times of India. While these publications do explore alternate agricultures, such as organic or agroecological methods, they tend to privilege narratives and solutions posed by industrial agriculture. For example, in “The End of Plenty,” published in the National Geographic, Robert Fraley, chief technology officer for Monsanto, claims that genetic modifications will double yields of corn, cotton, and soy by 2030.30 No doubt Monsanto’s methods are scientifically valid, but these technologies further entrench narratives of food production such as, for example, industrial agriculture’s romantic, feed-the-world narrative. I do not expect Monsanto or similar agribusiness corporations to question either the narrative or the ethical aspects of their growing control over the world’s food supply. However, the media, as well as growers, consumers, and others

108

Growing Stories from India

concerned about food and food production, should look beyond “big ag or die” narratives. For example, the National Geographic report correctly argues that growing meat for consumption and creating biofuels such as ethanol have depleted grain supplies and that to maintain this growing consumption, we need more grain. However, such an approach takes the problem at face value—as one of lack of grain—rather than asking if the production of biofuels or massive livestock consumption is necessary or ethical. The specter of massive hunger—which is real—provides the shock that overrides ethical and environmental concerns; and while we want to protect the rights of people to eat and live, we must also question narratives of protection to determine the consequences on both people and the ecosystem. Although this narrative of control and domination appears to be the predominant account of human relations with the earth, I argue that the oppressive regime of industrial agriculture is not the sole option. Exploring the social roles of Balaram’s narrative reveals the slippery slope of narratives of protection and presumed needs for control. Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River and Monsanto’s desire to control genetic diversity both demonstrate the human desire to dominate agricultural processes. Agriculture is a system of control, and to some degree humans must intervene and control biotic processes to ensure survival. However, as I stated earlier, alternate narratives that emphasize the earth’s agency do exist and offer benefits, including enhanced biodiversity. Systems based on these alternate narratives, such as biodynamics, organic agriculture, and agroecology, emphasize tropes of reciprocity and mutuality rather than control and dominance—tropes that offer more constructive narratives for rethinking relations between humans and the earth.

Agency, Reciprocity, and Negotiation Thus far, my reading of Balaram and the Yamuna River’s story has focused on his aggressive need to control her. However, embedded in this story are two interrelated assumptions about the natural world and humans’ relationship to it. The first is that Balaram and the Yamuna River, just like humans and the earth, exist in a dynamic relationship, with a shifting balance of power, which means that no permanent hierarchical structure exists. The second assumption regards the earth’s agency.

Borrowing Balaram

109

On the first assumption, Balaram’s role is to ensure the earth’s fecundity, and the earth and river’s role is to be productive in return for protection and sacrificial offerings. Most schools of Hindu philosophy and theology presuppose the presence of the sacred within the material world. While this immanence takes different forms in different contexts, for our purposes it is important to note that rivers are considered the embodiment of the goddess upon the earth. The relationship between Balaram and the river is dialectical and one of mutual influence. These reciprocal and obligatory relationships parallel those between humans and deities postulated by Vedic ritual. In this Hindu context, humans and deities function within relationships of mutual exchange and gifting, and the relationships are ongoing and sustained. These gift exchanges exist within a web of relationships that includes human society, all aspects of the natural world, and divine and semidivine beings. Exchanges within this web of relationship are not commodified, but are valued within the context of social exchange.31 In a similar manner, in traditional and indigenous forms of agriculture, seeds and seed-trading are embedded within social relationships that must be maintained and are not strictly economic, and plants and animals are understood as subjects, not commodified objects.32 Western writers such as Michael Pollan and geneticist Richard C. Lewontin also discuss the reciprocity between organisms and their environment: organisms create the environment in which they develop, and they develop in response to their environment.33 Pollan suggests that when we view the world from the perspective of plants, we can see how plants, as well as some animals we think of as domesticated, have tamed and shaped human culture according to their needs.34 This point underscores the biological, social, and ecological reality that human beings—like all organisms—modify their environment; in turn, they are changed by it: a dialectical and flexible process in which an outcome is not absolutely determined.35 This process is dialectical because it is multidirectional, a process of coevolution that is contingent upon circumstances and is not determined. Lewontin and his coauthor Richard Levins look at biology and genetics from a Marxist perspective; that is, they see biological processes as operating in a dialectical and changing environment, and they also critique the social and economic scenarios in which scientific practices are carried out. In terms of agricultural research, Levins and Lewon-

110

Growing Stories from India

tin argue that we must ask who profits from that research and who has access to the technologies and practices that emerge from that research. By framing the issue in a sociopolitical context, Levins and Lewontin offer an alternative narrative for agriculture when they challenge the notion that the seed, plant, or gene will respond in an absolutely determined fashion and suggest instead that organisms are codetermined through the dialectical interaction of gene, environment, and chance.36 While this concept is a theory, it also functions as a narrative structure because it provides roles and relations for the characters in the action. In reality, we cannot absolutely predict how a trait will manifest. In contrast to a mechanistic worldview, this narrative offers the plant or seed an agency of sorts and situates it within an organic, or holistic, context of relationships. This story better reflects traditional cropping systems in India, in which agriculture is understood as situated within multiple systems—such as forest and soil systems—as well as social relationships. While the elements of reciprocity, noncommodified relationships, and agency will not entirely resolve the gender inequities manifest in agriculture, the problem will certainly not be solved in their absence. The second of the two interrelated assumptions about the natural world and human relationships with it is an extension of the first point. The Yamuna’s response to Balaram indicates clearly that she, and the natural world in general, are actors, not passive recipients and as such have agency. A caveat is in order here: in claiming agency for the earth or the nonhuman world, I am not suggesting a human-like consciousness on the part of plants and animals in any scientific fashion. For the purposes of this argument, I limit agency to the notion that plants and animals can— and do—manipulate their environment for their benefit and continued survival. At the cellular and genetic level, as Lewontin argues, cells “decide” how to interpret code sequences, and we do not yet know how the cell chooses among the different options.37 Similarly, the Yamuna hesitates and negotiates her fate. Balaram’s story presents an opportunity to rethink human relations with the biotic community, relations that could accommodate an earth that has agency. These two points—recognition that elements of the natural world have agency and that humans and the natural realm exist within a dynamic and potentially mutually beneficial relationship—suggest a different paradigm for viewing agriculture within the context of environmental thought,

Borrowing Balaram

111

and they suggest a basic framework for reevaluating human-nature relationships. This reassessment includes two propositions that have been minority opinions within environmental thought: first, the human-earth relationship is dynamic, dialectical, and coevolving; and second, human interventions can have benevolent effects on the earth. This discussion of agency, reciprocity, and relations might easily suggest goals of balance and resolution of social and biological tensions. Both the stories of Prthu and Prthvi and of Balaram and the Yamuna River can be read as narratives of comedic resolution, narratives in which social tensions are expressed, mediated, and then resolved. Balaram’s entering the river to bathe indicates a resolution of sorts. In both narratives, the immediate conflict is settled and opposing natural forces are tamed; but if we stop here, we are left with buried tensions. For example, if we take at face value the resolution of Balaram and the Yamuna River’s conflict, have we further entrenched the social and gender hierarchies that generated these tensions? Shouldn’t we consider the taming and psychic death of the earth, the river, and women as tragedy? The following section investigates the repercussions of plotting the story of Balaram and the Yamuna as narratives of comedic resolution and then explores the ramifications of replotting this story as a tragic narrative. To do so requires some explanation of the role of agriculture in the pastoral and some insight into how Balaram is anomalous to the pastoral genre.

Agriculture, Balaram, and the Pastoral Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River is situated within an Indian pastoral literary tradition; and, as an agricultural fertility deity, he is an anomaly in the idealized Braj landscape. Balaram’s role within the pastoral narrative parallels the role of agriculture in environmental thought: ironically, agriculture has been externalized in the same way that industrial agriculture has externalized environmental considerations. Discussing this dichotomy between the pastoral (or wilderness) and agriculture reveals what is hidden and subordinated. In both cases, agriculture and its attendant focus on the necessity of production, labor, and fertility are overshadowed by the splendors of idealized landscapes. Environmentalists have sacrificed the agricultural Midwest, and most people do not want to know the conditions under which their food is produced.

112

Growing Stories from India

Evan Eisenberg writes that Arcadia—the pastoral—is the site of an idealized balance between nature and culture, a spatial equivalent of the Golden Age. However, romantic notions of a past Golden Age or an Arcadia omit the realities and hardships that existed in those days, such as slavery in the Golden Age of Athens.38 Balaram, though, through his persona and actions is a reminder of the realities and hardships and as such disrupts the pastoral idyll with the violence and potential for famine that agriculture entails. Image and text depict Braj itself as a highly mythologized landscape, a verdant land in which nature always cooperates with human ventures. Most Vaishnava devotees worship the brothers Krishna and Balaram as pastoral youths whose lives revolve around herding cows, enjoying youthful dalliances, and occasionally slaying a rambunctious demon. Balaram, however, also is associated with agriculture: he carries the plow and mace. This agricultural persona complicates his role within a pastoral landscape—there is no room for agriculture with its undertones of human need, (coerced) sexuality, and aggression in the pastoral realm. Balaram is thus an anomaly in the Braj pastoral scenario, and as such affords us a way to consider the rhetoric associated with agriculture, wilderness, and the pastoral in the Hindu tradition. Doing so helps us reflect on how and why environmental thought has neglected agriculture. While most devotees understand Balaram in his pastoral context alongside Krishna, devotees in Baldeo, the center of Balaram pilgrimage and devotion, see Balaram as an agriculturalist and the protector of the region’s fertility. These qualities of protection and fertility render Balaram critical to an agricultural narrative yet inappropriate for the pastoral. I do not mean to overstate my case regarding the pastoral because there is overlap; for example, many of Balaram’s activities, such as cowherding, occur in this pastoral realm, and Krishna’s disposal of demons that are animals and other representations of natural forces is outside the pastoral. Nonetheless, Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River appears anomalous within the Braj pastoral construct, and his connections with nagas, agriculture, and protection suggest reasons for his subordinate status within the Braj pastoral. Balaram and agriculture represent elements of labor and necessity that have no role in an idealized landscape. Understanding the marginalization of Balaram and agriculture helps us understand the marginalization of agriculture in contemporary environmental

Borrowing Balaram

113

discourse. Agriculture is an intrusive and potentially violent, yet necessary, practice, and as such is rarely romanticized except possibly by urban dwellers who romanticize country or farm life as pure and free of urban taints. Instead, agriculture and its produce enable the existence of the pastoral realm and support those urban dwellers who romanticize wilderness. Balaram’s aggression, however—and the potential aggression in agriculture—plays a multivalent role because this violence determines both Balaram’s elevation as a protector and his marginalization within the pastoral realm, just as land devoted to agriculture is marginalized within the environmental movement because it is no longer wild. Balaram’s adherence to social norms and his role as a protector subordinate him to Krishna. In fact, Balaram is often praised with the term maryada, which suggests ethical propriety or decorum and is applied to a righteous and upstanding person, but often is considered a lesser form of devotion. We will return to this theme of Balaram’s diminished status, because his protective capacities are partially responsible for his subsidiary role to his younger, yet more popular brother, Krishna. While Krishna functions primarily within the pastoral realm of Braj, Balaram’s connections to local concerns such as fertility, guardianship, and agriculture render him both at variance with the pastoral realm as well as its supporter. Balaram functions as an ironic character whose existence controverts categories and notions of propriety. For example, as we examine in more detail in the next chapter, Balaram’s persona includes both propriety and intoxication, qualities that are typically not linked. Balaram’s actions at Holi are carnivalesque, yet the undercurrents of aggression, intoxication, and sexuality ultimately strengthen Balaram’s protective role as the king of Braj. Stock descriptions of Balaram in the Bhagavata Purana and later poetic traditions include his reddened, rolling eyes and his staggering gait. These traits reveal a medium state of intoxication, according to aesthetician Bharatamuni; and scholar of Hinduism Lee Siegel writes that Balaram’s description in Sanskrit dramas such as the Subhashitaratnakosa and in this Puranic episode reveal him as an exemplar of humorous drunkenness. As humor, drunkenness is a state of regression and celebration.39 However, Balaram’s drunkenness functions as satire in this episode because his behavior subverts and critiques the Braj pastoral; his actions in the service of agriculture demand acknowledgment that agriculture is an aggressive practice with real consequences for the earth.

114

Growing Stories from India

Balaram laughs at the pastoral—he does not laugh with it. As satire, Balaram’s role reaffirms hierarchies, to a point, by mocking them; but he also transforms hierarchies by reinterpreting some of the factors that have made him subordinate in the eyes of some. For example, to some Vaishnava scholars, maryada is a subordinating element, but Balaram redefines maryada and turns it upside down because his behavior links propriety with intoxicants, sexuality, and aggression. Balaram’s dragging the Yamuna is maryada because it sustains society in agricultural terms, even as this act simultaneously subordinates Balaram. Neither the sexuality that produces children, nor aggression, nor agriculture play a role in the pastoral. In Baldeo, with its attention to local concerns, there is much less room for the capricious antics of Krishna, so the focus remains on Balaram as a protective figure.

Repercussions of Comedic Resolution According to standard devotional interpretations, the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River ends in resolution. The story takes place during Holi, the agricultural festival that celebrates fertility and social renewal. The fact that it ends in resolution places this narrative in the genre of comedy, because comedy deals in celebration and renewal, both social and physical. Balaram both protects his region’s fertility and upholds dharma, contributing to moral, physical, and social sustenance. His seemingly egregious actions, such as his intoxication, are read in a dharmic context. As such, Balaram might be viewed as an ironic figure within the comedic realm, where social cohesion and renewal are elements, because his subversive actions actually strengthen social bonds. This reading fits with innovative attempts to rethink human interventions into ecosystems and the metaphoric frames that guide these interventions. Ecological restorationist William Jordan explores the narrative frames that shape ecological restoration, a set of practices designed to restore degraded ecosystems. For Jordan, restorative interventions are practices that heal impaired psychological and biophysical relations with the biotic community. He quotes philosopher Susanne Langer’s definition of comedy, because comedy as narrative and the practice of restoration both address fertility and reconciliation:

Borrowing Balaram

115

Comedy is an art form that arises naturally whenever people are gathered to celebrate life, in spring festivals, triumphs, birthdays, weddings or initiations. For it expresses the elementary strains and resolutions of animate nature, the animal drives that persist in human nature, the delight man takes in his special mental gifts that make him lord of creation; it is an image of human vitality holding its own in the world amid the surprises of unplanned coincidence.40

Jordan’s reading of restoration ecology as comedic is fitting because the goal is balance, healing, and reconciliation. On one level, this comedic frame seems appropriate for Balaram because the narrative itself is typically read as one of resolution and wholeness, and the ritual practices of Holi celebrate both the renewal of social bonds and agricultural fertility. Nonetheless, I question this interpretation because emphasizing resolution and social stability overshadows concerns about equity and hierarchy. For example, discussions about conflict resolution tend to privilege the erasure of conflict rather than addressing the inequities that have led to conflict. The genre of comedy appears to have developed from archaic IndoEuropean springtime rites in which youth, fertility, and health defeat old age, disease, and sterility. This development accounts for the similarity in genres between Sanskrit and later Indian and Greek literary forms.41 Bharatamuni’s sixth-century Natyashastra systematized Indian aesthetic theory, and sixteenth-century theologian Rupa Goswami later adapted this literary and dramatic theory to Vaishnava devotion. This incursion into narrative structure necessitates some explanation of the connections between dramatic theory, agriculture, and religion. First, narrative patterns of tragedy and comedy structure the interpretation of text and practice. Interpretation is fluid and contextual; for example, an event can be understood as ironic, comedic, or tragic depending on point of view. Second, Hindu devotional traditions use dramatic theory to conceptualize the various possibilities of the human-divine relationship. Devotees pattern their relationships to the divine on basic human relations, such as parent-child and lover-beloved, and adopt the stance and emotions appropriate to their chosen roles. Thus devotees assuming the emotions of a parent inculcate a form of love similar to a parent’s love toward a child. Drama and religious sentiment depend on the arousal of a mood (rasa), and these moods include emotions such as love, anger, and

116

Growing Stories from India

facetiousness. Comedy is that form in which the dominant mood is comedic (hasya-rasa). The festival of Holi is funny and carnivalesque, and it fulfills a satirical role because Holi stories and narratives that appear to subvert social hierarchies in fact strengthen them. Siegel writes that Indian comedy has two branches: humor and satire. Humor centers on innocence and vulnerability and celebrates the illusion of ideals, while satire pokes fun at illusion and exposes the hypocrisy of unrealized ideals.42 The resulting tension is not tragic or even ironic, says Siegel. “It is an aesthetic mode of attack, directed against culturally esteemed objects and characterized by degrading vulgarities in which comic laughter arises out of a sudden perception of the ridiculousness of what has traditionally been idealized.”43 Balaram’s anger at the uncooperative Yamuna River renders him a satirical figure. His inebriation, characterized by his staggering gait and rolling red eyes, appears humorous, but his behavior does not fit with the idealized Braj of devotional Vaishnavism. Balaram’s rage and his need to subdue the subversive feminine river function as a satirical commentary on illusions of human control over natural forces. Viewing Balaram’s narrative as satire still places it in the realm of comedy and resolution. Although satire exposes the flaws of an idealized nature, it also emphasizes the resolution of tensions produced by such idealization. But resolution— even in a satirical setting—does not acknowledge what is lost when the earth is tamed to the point of submission or inertness. Reading Balaram’s narrative instead as tragedy—as the death of nature—offers a rethinking of contemporary agricultural narratives. Although the feed-the-world narrative expounded by industrial agriculture celebrates plenitude and productivity and thus appears comedic, this form of agriculture, as we have seen, rests upon metaphors of mechanistic control and domination. Natural forces and the earth’s agency have been tamed by chemical inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically altered crops. Sadly, this mechanistic metaphor has become literal as harsh chemicals destroy the living soil, and the earth’s fertility in many cases results from more powerful fertilizers acting upon tamed soil rather than resulting from the healthy processes of living soil communities. Carolyn Merchant and Wes Jackson understand the Western (read Christian) human-nature narrative to be tragic, or one of rupture.44 Although Indian drama does not have a form that is analogous to western

Borrowing Balaram

117

tragedy, the literary categories of tragedy, comedy, satire, and irony are important to this analysis even if all of these forms are not articulated within Indian dramatic theory. These literary forms of interpretation offer a means for us to interpret agricultural narratives and patterns of humannature interactions.45 Understanding how these genres frame cultural constructions of nature exposes narrative dimensions of agriculture and the human relation to the earth and offers the opportunity to assess how narrative shapes practice. For example, Aldo Leopold’s notion of the biotic community reflects the comedic emphasis on restoration and renewal. Leopold was concerned both with relationships within the human community and between humans and the nonhuman biotic community. In an interview with restoration ecologist Stephanie Mills, Nina Leopold Bradley, Leopold’s daughter, quoted one of her father’s unpublished papers: “There are only two things I care about: the relationship of people to each other, and the relations of people to the land.”46 Leopold’s land ethic holds that the biotic community includes all living beings, whether sentient or not, and that human beings should extend ethical consideration to the biotic community, not just other human beings. While Leopold’s concept of the biotic community includes all beings, his apparent bifurcation of human and biotic as separate communities reflects contemporary thought and practice. While biotic community refers to existing entities, the term also functions as a metaphor, and the entailments associated with community privilege certain elements in constructions of human relations with the earth. The term community is often idealized, and evokes notions of cohesiveness, sharing, and mutuality while omitting themes of individualism, hierarchy, and power. Similarly, the concept of community evokes some facets of Balaram’s relationship to the Yamuna River while excluding other aspects, and revealing those facets related to community highlights those attributes that describe idealized modes of human participation in the biotic community. Although the comedic resolution of conflict privileges resolution and social stability, we should be aware of how this emphasis deflects inquiry into hierarchies that may have prompted the tensions from which the conflict grew. Similar dynamics emerge in the pastoral literary tradition, in which the trope of the idealized rural landscape conceals urban power and privilege.

118

Growing Stories from India

As we recognize Balaram’s assumption of control over the Yamuna River, we can reflect upon similar assumptions of privilege over the earth’s bounty. Then we might consider how these assumed entitlements extend to human social relationships characterized by domination and control. As we have seen, plotting Balaram’s story in the comedic realm emphasizes resolution rather than the conflict itself; and we have also explored how the pastoral idealization of nature excludes concerns about fertility, labor, and survival. The following discussion investigates some alternate narratives that scrutinize social hierarchies and conflicts masked in an idealized nature.

Alternate Narratives Karl Marx’s theory of the metabolic relationship between human society and the natural world provides an alternative narrative to the modern narrative of control and domination. Exploring Marx’s thought on society and agriculture requires that we critique the hierarchies and social relations that both create and result from agricultural practices. Marx, who had been greatly influenced by the work of soil chemist Justus von Liebig, harshly critiqued the large-scale agriculture systems of his time for their exploitation of both humans and the earth.47 Extractive agricultural practices and a growing urban-rural divide had led to soil degradation and what Marx termed a “metabolic rift.” When the countryside was densely populated in an agricultural landscape, nutrients taken from the soil would be returned to the soil in a metabolic exchange. Depopulation of agricultural areas had resulted in severe soil degradation due to lack of manure, while cities and towns became polluted with waste products. While the solution in Marx’s day had been massive imports of guano for agricultural use in the countryside, he claimed that repopulating the country and restoring the metabolic equilibrium would benefit soil fertility, one example of a mutually beneficial human-nature relationship. He postulated that a sustainable relation between the two “takes the metabolic relationship into account.”48 Marx’s views on agriculture are important here because they provide an alternate narrative in which human society is seen as existing in a mutually dependent partnership with the natural world, not in an exploitive or commodified relation.

Borrowing Balaram

119

As the means for disseminating religious and ethical norms, story and narrative play an important role in shaping the discourse and providing models of behavior, a “lived ethics,” to use Anna Peterson’s term.49 The mythic realms of Balaram and the Yamuna and the modern scientific realms of cell biology suggest different concepts of agency and subjectivity. Similarly, indigenous knowledge of plants and animals attributes to them a level of agency that modern science would not. Balaram’s story presupposes a natural world with human-like consciousness while Lewontin’s argument does not, and the moral implications differ depending on the attribution of consciousness and moral agency. In both cases, however, the agents negotiate in the context of relationship, in which the specifics of the situation guide, but do not determine, the outcome. Contrast a garden to a snack machine: With the machine, you have every reason to expect that when you put in your money you will receive the snack you select. In a garden, however, mystery, improvisation, and ambiguity trump certainty and determination. Variant forms of agriculture manifest these dichotomous views. For example, Wendell Berry contrasts the totalitarian landscapes that characterize industrial agriculture, a system in which humans (attempt to) control all aspects, to the complexities and ambiguities of traditional agriculture.50 Relationship and agency are two pertinent—and continually evolving—characteristics of agriculture within the Hindu context, and this worldview reflects some indigenous views in which knowledge and ethics are based on assumptions of relationship, proximity, and partnership. What would happen if these relational and dialectical tropes guided agricultural practice and participation within the biotic community? I argue that these assumptions are—or should be—the sine qua non of any agricultural practice. That is, any human intervention in the realm of nature should proceed under two basic assumptions: first, humans and the natural world exist in a context of multiple relations; and, second, these relationships entail mutual obligations. The multiple relationships between Balaram and the Yamuna River demonstrate a pattern of obligation and reciprocity in two separate ways. First, the Yamuna River is Balaram’s family deity. As such, it is an implicit assumption in the deity-devotee relationship that when the devotee calls upon the deity for worship, the deity will appear. Balaram is obliged to

120

Growing Stories from India

worship the Yamuna, and the Yamuna, in accepting offerings, is obligated to respond. Second, Balaram is a king and a protector; he is obligated to protect the earth as well as its flora and fauna. Balaram descended to the earth in response to the earth’s pleas for help. The earth—and, by extension, the Yamuna—participates in this protective relationship. The earth has received protection from Balaram as well as sacrificial offerings from devotees and, as a result, is obliged to provide sustenance—in this case, water for agriculture. This relationship of obligation is recapitulated in the story of Prthu and the earth Goddess Prthvi, wherein the narrative demonstrates the contractual obligation of the earth to provide for its citizens. These tropes of relationship invite us to create new patterns for agricultural practice. Perhaps, in recognition of what will be the earth’s sustained productive responsibilities and capabilities, we should acknowledge our protective responsibilities. Although I would not go so far as to say we are engaged in a contract with the earth, the trope of community membership or citizenship does suggest new roles for humans to enact in our agricultural relations with the earth. As humans and organisms, we cannot help but affect our environment. However, in the context of dialectical relationships, we can evaluate the very real differences in the quality of human interventions. Borrowing Balaram’s story illuminates how tropes of protection and entitlement justify inequitable social relations, particularly gender relations, but also points to themes that lay the foundation for agricultural practices beneficial for multiple communities. The next chapter explores how the Holi festivities in Baldeo demonstrate the ties between social and agricultural health and how these rituals provide a release for social and agricultural tensions that could undermine social stability. Again, however, because an emphasis on resolution and social stability can preclude a serious exploration of the cause of social tensions, Chapter 5 also examines the role of social and gender tensions in Holi rituals.

Chapter 5

The Festival of Holi Celebrating Agricultural and Social Health

The springtime festival of Holi in Braj, the setting for the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River, celebrates the importance of agriculture and fertility in the social realm. The agricultural narrative embedded in Holi has broad religious, social, and cultural implications, and demonstrates that agricultural practice reflects and shapes social practices. Holi rituals confirm that agriculture is central to the social realm in Braj—and, I argue, in the contemporary United States as well. Although both the Braj pastoral narrative and contemporary environmental thought marginalize agriculture, Holi ritual practice, an example of Vaishnava devotion, reveals the inadequacy of this construct because human survival relies upon agricultural bounty. Despite the relative anonymity of food production in the contemporary United States, the intersection of food and social tensions shapes social hierarchy and food production, and I draw parallels between Braj and the United States to explore how agricultural tensions both reinforce social hierarchy and provide opportunities to rethink these relations. Although the Yamuna River demonstrates agency in her relationship with Balaram, his obligation to protect his region’s fertility renders her subject to his force. Similarly, the human need for agricultural production can result in commodified and objectified relations between humans and the earth. Assessing the expression of agency and protection in Balaram’s relationship with the Yamuna River provides conceptual tools to consider how these themes might emerge in alternate agricultural paradigms. For example, although humans often assume a protective role toward the earth, protection can engender attitudes of

122

Growing Stories from India

entitlement and ownership; and protection, whether of the earth or people, may be used to justify hierarchical or oppressive structures. Balaram and the Yamuna River’s story is situated during the springtime festival Holi, and Holi ritual practice in Baldeo, India, celebrates the renewal of social and religious bonds and agricultural fertility. The relationship between Balaram and the Yamuna River, for example, reveals anxieties related to social hierarchies, sexuality, and agrarian fertility that could weaken social structures if not resolved. Holi ritual practice enacts social anxieties related to agriculture, hierarchy, and sexuality, and the ritual enactment of these anxieties defuses tensions that emerge between classes, genders, and generations, thus maintaining existing social hierarchies. Although the temple guides and priests of Baldeo state that Balaram’s actions and the accompanying Holi rituals reflect concepts of protection and agriculture, these practices also provide a vent for forces, such as sexuality and violence, that might otherwise prove destabilizing to society. While Holi’s comedic rituals perform the serious work of resolution, however, the temporary instability manifest in Holi’s play and role reversals creates a disorienting space from which we might question existing social structures and ask what is sacrificed to ensure social stability. Anxieties about famine and survival—irresolvable tensions between death and the need to eat—add an ironic dimension, a competing theme, to Holi, and memes such as ambivalence, ambiguity, and disorientation offer possibilities for us to imagine different relations between humans and food. The Holi practices of Baldeo, then, offer an opportunity to revisit Balaram’s role regarding agriculture and relations between agricultural and social health. In short, Holi rituals embody the intimate ties between social and agricultural health, and in this chapter I illustrate how Holi ritual practice mediates the social and agricultural tensions that appear in Balaram’s story. Baldeo’s Holi rituals illuminate broad concerns about human relations with the earth because they articulate, through practice, narrative structures that guide human behavior toward the earth. Acknowledging dilemmas of hierarchy and demand for production that are inherent in agricultural practice is a step toward developing alternative narratives for agricultural practice. This festival, celebrating fertility and the renewal of social bonds, mitigates fears related to food, famine,

The Festival of Holi

123

and hierarchy, and simultaneously exposes human ambivalence about human treatment of the earth and procurement of food.

A Celebration of Spring The springtime agricultural festival of Holi commemorates Balaram’s redirecting the Yamuna River to restore the fertility of Braj. During Holi, Hindus across India celebrate the return of spring and renew social bonds. Devotees in Baldeo read this episode as a testament to Balaram’s status as a guardian, both of society and of agriculture, and the Holi rituals of Baldeo embody social and agricultural renewal. Balaram is the king of Braj and the patron of agriculture; he is responsible for social and agricultural health. And these two concerns are intimately related, because agricultural success and prosperity are foundational to social connections and harmony—and vice versa. The stories and practices associated with Balaram in Baldeo reaffirm his status as a protector, as both the king of Braj and as the premier agriculturalist. These stories and practices, however, also raise significant questions regarding the extent to which human need overrides ethical concerns. Understanding how participants interpret Balaram as a protector of agricultural fertility reveals human attitudes of entitlement to the earth’s productivity. Baldeo temple priests are central players in Braj devotion, especially during Holi. At temples and other pilgrimage sites, members of a hereditary group called Pandas are responsible for guiding pilgrims, telling the appropriate tales, and ensuring that the proper rituals are performed. These traditions of Balaram devotion are documented in the Balabhadra Mahatmya, a section of the Sanskrit text Garga Samhita. The Pandas preside over rituals at Balaram’s temple in Baldeo and regale Balaram’s devotees with story and lore. They shape and communicate what constitutes knowledge about Balaram and present interpretations of Balaram narrative for devotees, so much of my discussion of Holi centers on the Pandas. The Pandas understand Balaram as an exemplar of propriety, and they note the necessary link between violence and protection. Force and violence, it seems, are necessary for protection. One Panda explained to me that Balaram destroys depravity with his plow and mace.

124

Growing Stories from India

It is worth reiterating that Balaram’s identity as a naga helps conflate kingship, protection, fertility, and agriculture. In Hindu thought, nagas are responsible for bounded areas, and their responsibilities lie primarily in their association with fertility and water provision. This connection determines in part their association with kingship, because kings also are held responsible for the agricultural productivity of their region. A king who does not ensure the agricultural productivity of his region has failed, in both agricultural and societal guardianship. Balaram’s status as a protector and the king of Braj is inextricably bound to his identity as a naga, a capricious, potentially destructive entity that must be appeased. Holi enlivens the months of February and March in north India, and during the six weeks of the Holi season, the telltale splotches of red, yellow, and pink on hair and clothing mark the enthusiastic celebration of this festival. Although Holi is celebrated throughout India, residents of Braj are arguably the most enthusiastic participants. Visitors observing Holi festivities might be struck by the raucousness of the festival. Water fights and the throwing of colored powders are some of the most obvious manifestations of Holi. It is a festival of fun and celebration, not one of solemnity and dignity; for example, I have seen temple priests douse entire congregations with super-soakers. After all, water fights are fun, and throwing things is fun. However, these festivities associated with Holi—elements we might call ritual levity—provide important social functions, and the fun of Holi is not incidental but critical for these social goals. The events of Baldeo’s Holi, like much of Holi in India, appear riotous, but have specific meanings in Baldeo. In particular, the Holi festivities provide a means to renew social bonds as well as to reinforce a sense of Balaram’s rectitude, even when at first glance these events might be seen as encouraging the exact opposite. Further, the festivities celebrate the continuity of the agricultural cycle and demonstrate the critical connections between social and agricultural health, particularly the alleviation of the fear of famine. Baldeo’s unique Holi festivities reflect an embedded agricultural narrative that continues to naturalize sets of social hierarchies and their attendant agricultural narratives. By drawing parallels between the Pandas’ stories and those of industrial agriculture, we might better understand how narratives achieve authority.

The Festival of Holi

125

Holi in the Agricultural Calendar Holi marks the arrival of spring, and by February most of north India is eager to celebrate the passing of winter. Braj was and still is a rural agricultural community, and festivals such as Holi, which are interpreted in terms of Krishna and Balaram, have older agricultural roots. Prior to the sixteenth century, many rituals and practices reflected this agricultural lifestyle and later were incorporated and adapted to devotional cycles. The forms of revelry in Braj have no textual referents, but the agricultural and fertility elements of the Holi festivities are clear in text and practice.1 Balaram’s dragging the Yamuna River with his plow has obvious sexual connotations, and the Holi festivities as practiced today demonstrate a sexual license that would be inappropriate at any other time. The importance given to seeds, plows, and bonfires demonstrates that the celebration of spring with its attendant focus on fertility is an essential aspect of Holi and further that ritual exchanges of seeds and color reveal the role of agriculture within social relationships. Most festivals in India are intimately linked with natural and agricultural cycles.2 This close linkage between the festival and agricultural calendars suggests that even Hindus with no close ties to agriculture still maintain familiarity with the lunar calendar. The dates when Krishna and Balaram danced with the gopis (cowherd girls), Sharad and Phalgun, the full moons of autumn and the end of winter respectively, are two such occasions. These dates are significant for the agricultural cycles, and remnants of these emphases can be seen in practice. For example, Sharad celebrates the bounty of harvest and the attainment of goals of sustenance; and Phalgun, the night of Holi, celebrates, among other things, the end of winter and the onset of new life, commemorated by the burning of piles of straw and dung. The Balaram temple in Baithain (named for the fact that Balaram and his friends once rested there) inaugurates the six-week Holi period on Vasant Panchami with a processional singing of Holi and Vasant (spring) songs as well as the throwing of color. Some devotees travel to Baithain to begin Holi on Vasant Panchami, but most devotees outside of Baldeo begin to play only in the last week of the month of Phalgun (February–March), which actually is the fift h week of the Holi season.

126

Growing Stories from India

The six-week Holi period ends with a final blast of color on Rang Pancami, the fift h day of the dark half of Chaitra (March–April). To celebrate Holi is to play Holi. Although it is played throughout India, Holi is most enthusiastically observed in north India and has become tied in myth and practice to Krishna devotion. Holi festivities throughout India demonstrate its agricultural connections, but particularly in north India most devotees play Holi in the context of Braj devotion to Krishna, Balaram, and Radha. Devotees playing Holi in Baldeo provide the exception to the exclusive emphasis on Krishna. The throwing of color commemorates Krishna’s play with his beloved consort, Radha, and her friends, the cowherd girls of Braj. By the actual day of the Holi festival, the streets become a battleground of color, and anyone who cannot remain in good humor while getting doused with color should stay home. The throwing of color is but one aspect of Holi that, both in text and in practice, contains strong aggressive and sexual undercurrents. Pranks and outlandish behavior are common during this time, and the strictures of normal society are loosened—to a point, anyway. Women tease men, younger people gang up on elders, and lower castes wreak havoc on the upper castes.3 However, this reversal should not be overstated. Certainly everybody has more license than normal; yet, despite claims to the contrary, those wielding power—such as men or the higher castes—have considerably more license to violate social boundaries. The phrase on everyone’s lips in Baldeo at this time is “Don’t take it badly, it’s Holi.” It is considered poor sportsmanship to complain about rough behavior at this time. This attitude discouraged public discussion of differential treatment of women, for example. When I was in Baldeo, it seemed to me that this behavior was less a reversal of norms than an extension of behavior typically held in check. Residents of Baldeo stressed repeatedly that Baldeo’s Holi is different from the rest of Braj, and they remarked that Holi in Baldeo is played with love (of course, residents of other Braj villages might take exception to that distinction). These statements were in response to the reality that throughout much of north India, Holi has become synonymous with egregious behavior, and many residents, particularly women, simply stay inside for the duration. Most residents of Baldeo view Holi behavior through a lens of beneficence and camaraderie, and they

The Festival of Holi

127

stress good sportsmanship, which makes critiquing this behavior difficult. Their rhetoric echoes the tired cliché that feminists have no sense of humor. Few women I spoke with, including myself, enjoyed being the target of Holi “fun,” but the dominant narrative, which defined “fun” from a male perspective, tended to stifle alternate perspectives. This narrative and its social role exemplify the power of an influential narrative to shape interpretation and to silence critique. Many Hindus travel throughout Braj during the week of Holi to participate in the different celebrations in each village, so while the main day of Holi festivities is the full moon day of Phalgun, the festivities are staggered throughout the week to accommodate pilgrimage travel. In Balaram’s village of Baldeo, residents play a form of Holi unique to that place. Baldeo is one of the more important stops on the Holi pilgrimage tour, and three days are particularly important for Baldeo’s Holi: the full moon day of Phalgun (Holika bonfire); the first day of the dark half of Chaitra (Holi Dhulendi, or the throwing of color); and the second day of the dark half of Chaitra (Huranga).

Playing Holi in Baldeo In 1999, when I observed Holi in Baldeo, I was a guest of the Yogendra Pandey family. Dr. Pandey and his family are Ayurvedic doctors and run a clinic in Baldeo; they are also Ahivasi Gaur Brahmans and thus hereditary Pandas, and they act as ritual servants when it is their family’s turn to do so. They trace their ancestry from Kalyandev, who discovered Balaram’s image, and are the eleventh generation from him. The Yogendra Pandeys are an important family in Baldeo for at least two reasons: first, they run a clinic and fulfill much of the community’s medical needs; and second, the Pandeys organized the Baldev Research Institute, a research institute dedicated to Balaram.

Holi at the Clinic: Chaitra 1, Dark Half (March 2) On the morning after the Phalgun full moon, the main day of the Holi festivities, I spent most of the morning—as I did many mornings—with the elder Pandey brothers in their clinic. The Pandeys take seriously their commitment to provide medical services to the members of their community. I spent many days sitting at the clinic observing the pro-

128

Growing Stories from India

cess of treatment and chatting with patients while they waited their turn. Undergoing medical treatment here is quite unlike visiting the doctor in the United States, where doctor-patient interactions occur primarily behind closed doors. Here the visit and the diagnosis are communal, conducted publicly in the front courtyard of the building. As a service for Balaram and the village, on the morning of Holi, the Pandey brothers offer an antidote for snakebite to the town’s residents. The main ingredient is baur, the mango blossom, and a teaspoon of the antidote is said to last an entire year. In the spirit of scientific experimentation, I took this remedy and suffered no ill effects. Virtually all of Baldeo’s residents visited the clinic, played a mild Holi, and paid their respects to the Pandey family. As a sign of respect, they touched the doctors’ feet, which Ravi Pandey, the youngest of the Pandey brothers, told me they did to ask the doctors’ blessings. The Pandeys’ service and the responses of the town’s residents demonstrated a social component of the connection between Balaram’s protection, agriculture, and health. The Pandey family provided important social and medical services to Baldeo and nearby towns, and they repeatedly stressed to me Balaram’s social responsibilities. The Pandey family is not alone in their commitment to social service; other Pandas, including a Mr. Shastri, ran schools and were heavily involved in education. These families understand Balaram’s role—and their own—as one of service, particularly in terms of food and health; and, through their clinics and schools, they adapt Balaram to meet contemporary needs. Although Holi and Balaram’s story tend to reinforce social norms, the Pandeys’ clinics illustrate a creative reimagining of their Holi duties as response to contemporary social needs. This day, the first day of the dark half of Chaitra, was dedicated to Holi, and patients played Holi to affirm bonds of friendship. Friends hugged in the side-side-side mode characteristic of Braj. The (male) visitors were not sure what to do with me; they would not typically play with a strange woman. Due to my foreign-scholar status, however, Dr. Yogendra Pandey nodded, to them and to me, that playing would be appropriate. Ravi Pandey explained that Holi is prem, a game of love. The games and passion of Holi reflect the soul’s love for the divine. Friends renew bonds, and it is a time to make amends and let bygones be bygones. Traditionally, in Braj, new brides return to their natal fam-

The Festival of Holi

129

ilies for their first Holi, so women, too, are able to maintain familial bonds. After all, Holi is the time when Balaram came home to Braj and reunited with his friends and family for the first time since he left for Mathura long ago. This event is celebrated in a poem that comes from the poetry anthology owned by the temple: The boy Balaram plays Holi. Revati sits radiant with her friends, Balaram with his friends. It is Holi. The lord and his friends are helpless and are forced to jump. Revati hits them with powder. It’s Holi. Drums beat out a rhythm, the raised mallet strikes the gong. It is Holi. Sri Vasudeva and Mother Rohini were amazed, seeing his strength. It is Holi. Those living in Braj forget all their wisdom and learning; enemies are broken and defeated. It is Holi. The gods rejoice. Dau is tired. They watch the spectacle of this Holi. It is Holi. Sanaka and the other sages eternally sit in meditation. He makes all of Braj prosperous. It is Holi. Lord Jagannath, your infinite beauty increases and awes your servant. The boy Balaram plays Holi.4 Every day during Holi, the Pandas and visitors to the temple sing this poem, and its refrain echoes in the markets and streets of Baldeo. Holi is a time of joy. Spring is here; Balaram has returned from Dwarka and is reunited with his friends. Even Balaram’s wife, Revati—who is rarely mentioned in Braj poetry—plays Holi and renders the powerful Balaram helpless. This is ironic because it was Balaram’s strength that caused Revati to perform the austerities that gained her Balaram as her husband. Yet such are the reversals and ironies of Holi: the weak become strong, and the low become high. Normally a wife must show respect to her husband. The Pandas explained to me that, as Balaram’s wife, Revati is positioned directly across from him both because she continually honors Balaram’s feet, caran-seva, and because Balaram’s

130

Growing Stories from India

emphasis on propriety requires this separation. Despite the respective locations of their images, though, stories about Revati demonstrate that she can match Balaram’s temper. Residents of Braj, particularly residents of Baldeo, identify with a persona of Balaram that is subordinated—or less obvious—beyond Baldeo. Most residents refer to Balaram affectionately as Baladev or as Dauji or Daubaba, both derived from dau, which means “elder brother” in Brajabhasha, the local dialect of Hindi, with ji and baba as appended honorifics. Devotees’ reference to Balaram by his status of elder brother to Krishna is significant; first, it denotes Balaram’s pride of place as elder brother to his more popular younger brother; and second, his elder status reflects Balaram’s position as guardian. Devotees in Baldeo emphasize Balaram’s status as a protector, and this is one way in which Balaram devotion in Baldeo is unique. This emphasis is important and constant; locals refer to the temple, the deity, and the village by the shorthand of Dauji, and this naming reflects the familiarity and intimacy Baldeo devotees feel toward Balaram. For example, on Balaram’s birthday, the full moon of Shravan, after one of the young Pandey children stated that he did not want to visit the temple, his father told him that Daubaba would feel sad if the boy did not wish him happy birthday. Despite Balaram’s fierce reputation as a warrior and king, devotees relate to him as family, with nicknames that reflect both their feelings of closeness and Balaram’s merciful nature. The element of naming signals intimacy, and since devotees offer their food to Balaram prior to eating, food and those with whom the food is shared are enmeshed in a web of intimate relations. As I reflect upon the meals I shared in Baldeo, I am struck by the lack of intimacy surrounding food in U.S. contemporary culture. The absence of this intimacy of names and naming in regard to our food and its sources reflects our estrangement from the biotic community. The modern industrial agricultural narrative is premised upon anonymity and interchangeability; for example, McDonald’s potatoes are purchased and prepared in such a way that their french fries look identical regardless of their origin. Large-scale agricultural producers and chain restaurants have trained consumers to expect uniformity in food and produce, and many consumers do not want to be made aware of just how their food, particularly meat and milk, is produced. When confronted

The Festival of Holi

131

with horrific conditions of food production, many consumers—and even some of those who produce food—become ambivalent about their own choices and personal practices. A 2010 ABC News report, for example, exposed animal abuse at a dairy farm and made clear that those buying conventionally produced milk are complicit in these practices.5 Ambivalence about our own participation in these practices is a stance from which to reevaluate both story and practice, and moving beyond anonymity is a first and necessary step. In Chapter 1 I asked “What stories do we tell ourselves about food?” and noted that I had not, for much of my life, thought about the sources of my food because they were, to me, anonymous. This anonymity is precisely what alternative agricultural movements, such as CSAs and farmers’ markets, are trying to eradicate. Programs such as the USDA’s “Know Your Farmer” and “The 100 Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change” build relationships with individual farmers and familiarity with the specific foods and conditions of consumers’ bioregions. Intimacy and familiarity with our food and its production does not mean that humans have full control over natural processes, nor does it exempt us from the reality that our survival causes harm or death to other beings. Instead this naming process demands that we recognize our food sources as part of the biotic community and also that, unlike a machine, the earth is not subject to human control. Holi practices force recognition of this latter reality, as demonstrated in Balaram’s story, that the earth has agency and that humans’ ability to control the earth’s processes is ambiguous. At the same time, Holi practices, such as the exchange of color and barley seed, highlight the importance of intimate social bonds, and the literal hand-to-hand exchange cements social and familial ties and reverses tendencies toward social anonymity.

Holi at the Temple: Chaitra 2, Dark Half (March 3) Every year, on the second day after the full moon of Phalgun (the second day of the dark half of Chaitra), boisterous crowds fill every millimeter of the Dauji Temple in Baldeo. Pilgrims arrive by bus, train, tractor, and on foot to play Holi with Balaram. Shouts of “Jai Baldev” (Hail Baladev) and “Jai Dauji” fill the air. Although some of these devotees have been playing Holi for only the previous week, others have been playing Holi for the entire six weeks of the Holi season. One of the

132

Growing Stories from India

most obvious signs of Holi in Baldeo is the ubiquitous yellow spatters of color that stain virtually everything. In Baldeo, Balaram plays with yellow dye made from safflowers, which devotees told me is good for the skin, and everyone spending time in Baldeo sports a conspicuous—and seemingly permanent—yellow tint. The anticipation of the crowds escalates as the midday start of the festival approaches. The Pandas stand before the image of Balaram and sing to him, inviting him to play. As noted earlier, devotees play Holi (Hindi: Holi khelana), and much of Holi appears to be a game. To use the word play invokes the notion of lila, which describes divine activity as a form of play. That is, in Hindu cosmology, all existence results from the spontaneous outpouring of the divine, and lila is the spontaneous play of the divine. Devotees describe Krishna and Balaram’s adventures in Braj as lila and note that none of the deities’ activities are done of necessity. This notion of play as underlying cause and structure of being is particularly appropriate in Braj devotion. Much of Braj devotion is irreverent, and Krishna and Balaram’s games manifest a spontaneous rebellion against authority and poke fun at conventional norms of decorum. In Baldeo, the actual Holi activities—that is, to play Holi, or Huranga—translate the abstraction of lila into real and spontaneous human play and negotiate ambivalences between decorum and impropriety, thus enacting Balaram’s redefinition of maryada. While this play is irreverent and mocks authority with sexuality and intoxication, it also does the more serious work of stabilizing society by releasing social and agricultural tensions. The day’s festivities begin at midday on the day of Dauji’s Huranga, two days after the full moon of Phalgun, when devotees crowd into the temple and its surrounding courtyard. The image of Balaram is enclosed in a small shrine, approximately fifteen by fifteen feet, and the temple has a roof, but the sides are open to the courtyard. As soon as the crowd takes darshan of Balaram—meaning as soon as they see Balaram—everyone begins Huranga by throwing colored water and powder. An enclosed courtyard surrounds the temple’s main shrine, and devotees pack the area. Devotees crowd onto the roof and throw handfuls of powder until the scene below is barely visible through the cloud of color (see photo). When the sprinklers that line the roof are turned on, the powder turns into paste and floods the courtyard’s mar-

The Festival of Holi

133

Throwing color from the temple roof. (Photo by Robyn Beeche)

ble floor. This pasty mix of water and powder covers the devotees who crowd the temple courtyard. Amidst the devotees, two groups of men carry poles adorned with items associated with spring fertility rituals. Each of the two poles is festooned with mango buds (baur) and leaves, balloons, safflowers, and ashok leaves. The game in the temple ends after about an hour, when the adorned poles are toppled and materials are stripped from the poles and distributed. The mood of the festival is exuberant and raucous and, to an outsider, might appear chaotic or even violent. In fact, when I observed these festivities, two Canadian reporters asked me if this were a celebration of violence or a competition. Their confusion echoed anthropologist McKim Marriott’s experiences of Holi in Braj almost fift y years prior, when devotees explained the Holi pranks and ritual beatings as part of the “festival of love.”6 Devotees understand that these activities play an important social function. The ritual levity reaffirms Balaram’s status as a protector— as both the king of Braj and as the premier agriculturalist. Balaram, in his protective capacities, is very much a local deity. For example, residents of Braj state that “Braj is Baldev.”7 Many of the practices that emphasize Balaram’s agricultural and protective capacities are unique to Baldeo, so it

134

Growing Stories from India

is worth exploring the history of Baldeo and the Pandas, the temple priests responsible for Balaram devotion. As explained below, the history of the Pandas highlights a series of contests over rights to serve Balaram and illustrates the role of story in arbitrating disputes and establishing hierarchy, a parallel process exemplified both in Braj and industrial agricultural narratives.

Pandas and Their Roles The Pandas of Baldeo play a central role in Balaram devotion in Baldeo, and their responsibilities include serving Balaram in the temple, guiding pilgrims and devotees through the temple, and maintaining lore about Balaram. The Pandas consist of approximately four hundred families, and these families collectively own the temple and serve Balaram, with joint family groups being responsible for two days a year. These families share the daily and seasonal ritual service of Balaram and Revati, and many members of these families are employed as traditional temple guides for visiting pilgrims. They know the songs, rituals, and stories about Balaram, and they play a predominant role in all Baldeo festivals. The Pandas perform service rituals (seva) for Balaram that are patterned on worship rituals of the Vallabh Sampraday, one of the two major devotional communities of the sixteenth century. Ritual service in Baldeo is similar, but not identical, to that of the Vallabh Sampraday temples. The Pandas emphasize that Balaram is the king of Braj, which is divided in half with the Yamuna River as the dividing line. Krishna reigns supreme in his half, which includes Mathura, Govardhan, and Vrindavan, while the other side of the Yamuna River, including Gokul and Baldeo, belongs to Balaram.8 The focus of the Panda’s devotion is the image of Balaram, a naga carved of black stone that is approximately ten feet tall and dates from the Kushana period (100 b.c.e.–100 c.e.). For much of the day, this image is hidden behind a curtain, but during the daily darshan periods the Pandas open the curtains so that devotees can “see” Balaram. Like most naga images, Balaram holds a cup of wine in his left hand, and his right hand is raised over his head. This gesture, or mudra, the Pandas note, conveys assistance and reassurance to his devotees. Baldeo’s Balaram sports a diamond in his chin and a mark on his chest where the ass-demon Arishta had kicked him, and a seven-hooded cobra shields his head. The Pandas

The Festival of Holi

135

Image of Balaram shielded by a seven-hooded cobra, Dauji Temple. (Photo by author)

offer Balaram food and clothing appropriate to the time of day and season, and devotees see an image of Balaram that has been lovingly adorned and dressed in this clothing by those, according to Baldeo narrative, Balaram has deemed worthy (see photo).

136

Growing Stories from India

Across the temple courtyard, the shrine to the sage Saubhari prominently faces Balaram, and the Pandas emphasize Saubhari’s role when guiding devotees through the temple. The Pandas, also known as Ahivasi Gaur Brahmans, descend from the sage Saubhari through Kalyandev, and watching the Pandas and devotees honor this shrine makes the importance of the Pandas’ lineage clear. In a previous era, Saubhari, who had a small ashram on the Yamuna River in what today is the tiny village of Sunrakh, offered refuge to the naga Kaliya from the eagle Garuda. Therefore Ahivas, or, literally, “residence of serpents,” became the name of the great sage Saubhari’s place.9 The serpent then bestowed a boon upon the sage Saubhari: “Just as you have protected my lineage, my birth as Shesh-incarnation Balaram will become the family deity (kul-devata) of your lineage, and I will protect you in the Kaliyuga.” Balaram’s serpentine heritage is embodied by the lineage of the Ahivasi Gaur Brahmans of Baldeo: they embody their connections to the nagas by tracing their ancestry from the serpent Vasuki through the sage Saubhari who offered refuge to the serpent Kaliya.10 In discussions with devotees and with me, the Pandas highlighted the stories of both their lineage and Balaram’s appearance in Braj, and these stories illustrate both contestations over the Pandas’ rights to serve Balaram and the Pandas’ use of story to reinforce these rights. For example, the story of Balaram’s manifestation in Baldeo reveals the negotiations between the Vallabh Sampraday in Gokul and local Braj devotees over rights to serve this image. These narratives about Balaram’s appearance demonstrate two points pertinent to my argument. First, the conflict over serving the image demonstrates how Balaram’s associations with fertility and agriculture emerge in practice, in terms of both temple ritual and social practices, and have shaped social hierarchy. Second, and more broadly, the Pandas’ continued control over and repetition of these narratives illustrates how a narrative becomes naturalized and normative. Once enshrined as the dominant paradigm, the narrative and the resulting social structures are reciprocally reinforced as normative by their very existence. The Pandas, for example, recite those stories that illustrate to devotees exactly how Balaram himself chose the Pandas to be his servants and how their continued service verifies the enduring nature of these stories. The Pandas highlight two stories in particular to establish that Balaram chose their ancestor Kalyandev, heir to the great sage Saubhari,

The Festival of Holi

137

to serve him, and the retelling of these stories explicitly reinforces the Pandas’ role as temple guides and ritual specialists. Although these stories detail events that occurred almost four hundred years ago, they are told with a freshness that suggests a contemporary relevance. The first has to do with the Pandas’ lineage and Balaram’s ritual feeding, and the second has to do with Balaram indicating who should guard his temple. When I heard these stories over and over again, I understood why they must be retold. Despite their prominence in the temple today, the Pandas have faced—and won—legal and social claims from groups such as the Sanadhya Brahmans, who have disputed both the Pandas’ right to serve and their status as Brahmans. So how did the Pandas get to be Pandas? Most devotees and Baldeo temple priests tell the same story of how Kalyandev unearthed the statue of Balaram that now is enshrined in the temple: In 1638, an image of Balaram manifested itself to a local cowherd named Kalyandev in what today is the village of Baldeo.11 This manifestation is called a svarup, or self-manifestation, which is different from the type of image known as murti. The designation svarup indicates that the deity has chosen to manifest itself through a specific medium, and in doing so reveals itself to whomever it chooses. Svarups, unlike murtis, are not created but reveal themselves to devotees of their own accord. Significantly, Balaram, through this svarup, specifically revealed himself to Kalyandev, who was the heir of a naga and a local cowherd. According to Baldeo tradition, Balaram appeared to Kalyandev in a dream in his joined (yugal) form wherein he revealed himself both as Balaram himself and as Revati, Balaram’s wife, and told Kalyandev where to dig. On Marghashirsh Purnima, the full moon of Aghan (December), Kalyandev unearthed the images of Balaram and Revati, installed them under a tree, and built a small temple in which to serve the images. Meanwhile, Balaram had also appeared in a dream to Gokulnath, grandson of Vallabh, the founder of the Vallabh Sampraday, who lived in nearby Gokul and was considered the local lord, and instructed him to unearth the images. When Gokulnath arrived at the site, he discovered that Kalyandev had already done so.12 Gokulnath then attempted to relocate the images to Gokul, Balaram’s birthplace and an important seat for the Vallabh Sampraday. Moving the images of Balaram and Revati would ensconce the ritual control of

138

Growing Stories from India

Balaram in the auspices of the Vallabh Sampraday and out of the control of the local Braj cowherds. However, Baldeo tradition states that not even “one hundred fift y men or twenty-four oxen” could dislodge the images from the site under the tree, and devotees cite this as evidence of Balaram’s determination to remain in Baldeo with Kalyandev. Gokulnath’s social status was considerably higher than that of Kalyandev, a cowherd and rural Braj resident; yet Balaram, a naga and farmer, chose Kalyandev over the elite and urbane Gokulnath. Since 1638, Balaram has remained in Baldeo, and Saubhari and Kalyandev’s descendants, the Ahivasi Gaur Brahmans, known today as the Pandas, hold the privilege of serving Balaram. Although daughters can inherit rights to serve Balaram, wives do not inherit this right. The Pandas emphasize that Balaram specifically described to Kalyandev how he preferred to be worshipped. Balaram clearly stated his desires regarding food and clothing, and the Pandas serve Balaram accordingly in the prescribed daily (nitya) and festival (utsava) ritual patterns. As Brahmans, the Pandas are eligible to perform ritual service, although some other local Brahmans dispute their Brahman status.13 Pandit Radharamanaji emphasized that only the Pandas and the Gosains, the heirs of Gokulnath, have the right to stand on the stage with the image of Dauji. I heard much of this information repeated multiple times throughout the year by numerous Pandas. However, two older and particularly knowledgeable Pandas, Pandit Shastri and Pandit Radharamani, offered me nuanced and detailed information about serving Balaram. As mentioned above, Balaram provided Kalyandev with detailed instructions about how he should be worshipped. He specifically requested and accepted pakka food from Kalyandev, a Brajvasi cowherd, and his descendants, and asked to be served by Kalyandev instead of Gokulnath. Balaram accepts only cooked—pakka—foods, except on rare occasions. Pakka means cooked in ghee (clarified butter) or complete, kacca being raw or incomplete, and the terms function as opposites. Although the words’ meaning involves food preparation, the pakka-kacca dichotomy connotes a range of dualisms, including paved-unpaved, finished (as in a building)-mud and firm–not firm. The cooked-prepared versus raw-unprepared food dichotomy has enormous implications in ritual service: to accept pakka food—such as a type of fried bread called puris—signifies an element of commensalism

The Festival of Holi

139

and privilege. In a commensal relationship, one accepts food from another without fear of pollution. Unaltered foods, such as milk or fruits, are the most impervious to pollution, so any devotee might offer those foods. Cooked foods, by contrast, particularly foods cooked in water such as boiled rice, are most susceptible to pollution.14 The Pandas further state that Balaram will only eat pakka food—such as laddus, a sweet made of flour, sugar, and butter, which are favorites of Balaram—after he takes his daily bhang at 3:00 p.m. in the temple. The stories that are told and retold by Pandas and devotees document how and why the Pandas claim the privilege, knowledge, and responsibility to feed Balaram. According to the stories the Pandas tell, as temple priests chosen by Balaram they are obligated to know specifically what Balaram should eat and how to procure those foods. These stories and the ritual practices of feeding Balaram iteratively reinforce the Pandas’ role in the temple. Thinking through the social role of these stories is a means to uncover the process by which certain stories, and the social groups who control those stories, achieve ascendancy. Food production and associated rituals are means of achieving and maintaining hierarchy, and seeing how the Pandas achieved status as producers provides some insight into how large-scale agricultural producers claimed and now maintain the narrative of feeding the world. For example, this narrative elevates producers and makes consumers second-class citizens who are given little or no input into the story or details of food production. As consumers increasingly became removed from food production and the details became obscured, producers assumed the privilege of telling consumers—through marketing and products made available for sale—what they should eat and how new, scientific, and efficient methods of production were feeding the world. The current overabundance of foods and food choices and wellstocked supermarket shelves normalize this story and deflect critique. So, like the Pandas and their stories, industrial agriculture broadcasts the narrative that they feed the world, and the ubiquity of these products verifies the accuracy of these stories. The second story the Pandas recounted to me numerous times as evidence of Balaram’s choice of Kalyandev describes the incident that cemented Kalyandev’s lineage as the primary ritual servants of Balaram. In addition to serving Balaram, Kalyandev guarded the temple at night and slept in the temple. Balaram and Revati shared one warm blanket (despite

140

Growing Stories from India

being on opposite sides of the room in the temple), while Kalyandev slept under a ragged old blanket. Balaram had offered Kalyandev the use of both blankets in the cool season, and devotees cite this offer to illustrate Balaram’s conscientiousness in protecting his devotees. Some devotees arose early and complained to Gokulnath of Kalyandev’s “theft.” However, when Gokulnath went to investigate this accusation, he saw Kalyandev sleeping under only his own blanket. Kalyandev then confessed that Balaram had warned him that Gokulnath was coming. After that incident, Gokulnath realized that Balaram clearly favored Kalyandev, and Kalyandev took on the role of head priest, assuming all rights to perform ritual service, rights that have been inherited by his descendants, the Pandas.15 Balaram’s choice of Kalyandev is significant for a variety of social and religious reasons, but devotees emphasize that, as the story goes, Balaram specifically chose a person and a group with both naga and rural ties—as opposed to the urbane Gokulnath and his descendants—to perform his ritual service. The Pandas continue to stress their agrarian heritage and identify as farmers as well as temple priests.

Seeing Balaram When I observed a typical Holi in Baldeo in 1999, the priests and residents of Baldeo played Holi for the entire six-week season, though the most significant days were those surrounding the full moon of Phalgun, the night when Balaram danced with the cowherd women of Braj. As the full moon day of Phalgun approached, the number of pilgrims increased, and a palpable sense of excitement grew. Each day, as Holi approached, I sat with the Pandas in the temple during the different daily periods of ritual service. Crowds thronged to the daily singing (samaj) prior to the midmorning ritual service period in which devotees could view the image of Balaram, known as taking darshan of Balaram (see photo). Samaj is a form of group singing that frequently occurs immediately prior to darshan. Most of the singers—particularly the older ones—knew the words, but the lines were sung and repeated for the benefit of those who did not. The Pandas performed these songs energetically, with animated gestures and enthusiastic repetition of the song’s lines. While the singing and throwing of color were daily events during the Holi season, events such as the parade, dancing, and Huranga occur only once each year.

The Festival of Holi

141

Singing samaj for Balaram. (Photo by author)

It was impossible to confuse the Pandas with the crowds of pilgrims. They wore their trademark forehead mark—tilak—of saffron, sandalwood, and turmeric smeared across their foreheads. Their white or yellow clothes, dyed safflower yellow, bore witness to days of playing Holi. Safflower garlands, received as consecrated offerings—prasad—from Balaram, were draped around their necks and wound about their heads like headbands. Almost everyone wore at least one item of silk cloth, a tunic or perhaps even a headband, which once adorned the image of Balaram enshrined in the temple. Once a year, just before the end of Holi, the priests divide and distribute as prasad the outfits given to Balaram. As the time for taking darshan of Balaram approached, the singing and gesturing became more and more animated. At 10:30 a.m., temple servants pulled back the curtain, offering a view of Balaram and Revati to the crowds. This darshan was special because it was the only period of the day in which Balaram played wet Holi—pani Holi—that is, with waterbased color; at all other times, he played dry Holi, with powdered colors. The yellow color comes from safflowers—tesu—and was stored in the gullies alongside the courtyard. During the entire Holi season, thousands of gallons of color are thrown. This dye needs at least twenty-four hours to

142

Growing Stories from India

set and is considered medicinal, particularly for skin diseases such as scabies; some devotees come for the curative aspect of this festival. Playing Holi with Balaram is not for the timid. As soon as the curtain was drawn back, the crowds drove forward with handfuls of butter and makkhan-misari, a rock candy that is Balaram’s favorite food. Devotees hurled this hard substance over the railing toward the image of Balaram, occasionally hitting the priests. As the priests dodged the hail of buttercoated rock candy and coins, they filled buckets and clay cups full of yellow color and flung the liquid over the crowd. The shoving intensified as the end of the darshan period neared: each devotee wanted to play Holi with Balaram and receive the consecrated offering, or prasad. The younger Pandas climbed over the railing, while the guard ineffectively beat them back with a stick in a futile—and ritualized—attempt to maintain control. Other temple guides propelled devotees to the front of the railing. Those so favored received a full dousing of Dauji’s prasad, the yellow color consecrated by having been offered to Balaram. After the ritual, it was easy to distinguish between those who played Holi and those who did not. Although this Holi ritual was open to anyone who wished to play, some devotees were more enthusiastic than others, and some of those who came only for the day seemed less eager to get soaked with yellow color. The yellow-drenched minority laughed at themselves and the spectacle, while the remainder appeared a bit puzzled and headed for their buses.

Holi as Carnival The color, the singing, and the festivities of the previous weeks—all of this was merely prologue. The real Holi revelry in Baldeo began on the late afternoon of the full moon of Phalgun.

The Holi Parade: Phalgun Purnima (March 1) On the afternoon of March 1, the residents of Baldeo processed in groups by status through town, winding through the village to a site where villagers were preparing an enormous bonfire. The Pandas, the largest group, led the procession, followed by the Sanadhya Brahmans (Brahmans who have no official function in the temple), and finally the merchants (Baniyas) and others who had far smaller groups. I walked with the Pandas as

Parading the jhand through town. (Photo by author)

144

Growing Stories from India

they proceeded through town, singing and throwing powder. They carried the temple’s large red anthology of devotional poetry that leaves the temple only once each year for this event. To me, this procession of Baldeo residents—mostly men—suggested an atmosphere of carnival and revelry befitting a springtime festival linked to fertility. One older man with a tricolor beard danced suggestively with a pole; others carried plows, one of Balaram’s trademark items; and one rode a donkey sitting backwards. Others carried an adorned pole (jhand) that reappeared in Balaram’s official Holi celebration in the temple several days later (see photo). Approximately thirty minutes after the Pandas’ procession, the Sanadhya Brahmans paraded through town, carrying a similarly adorned pole. Their numbers were smaller, and some danced. The procession of the Sanadhya Brahmans seemed the most carnivalesque of the three processions. Men wore fake beards and funny hats, several rode backwards on an ass, and one, encouraged by the crowd, danced in a stuffed bra. This revelry and flouting of social decorum, including the mocking of class roles, has parallels in springtime fertility festivals in other cultures.16 However, although the reversal of gender roles is central to Holi play, women did not participate in this parade, and it seemed ironic that women would not be present at a carnivalesque parade that embodied role reversals and fertility. The women’s absence reflects the gendered nature of agricultural narratives, both in Hinduism and in industrial agriculture. Nonetheless, the comedic element of Holi emphasizes social stability and the maintenance of the status quo, not social change or serious social critique. Holi reflects a desire for control—control of the earth’s fertility, of water, and of women—to stabilize social and agricultural tensions, yet at the same time the implausibility of control lends Holi a dimension of irony. All of the processions led to the Holika (the origin of the name Holi) bonfire that would be lit later that night, when devotees throughout Braj set alight bonfires to commemorate Prahlad’s devotion to the deity Vishnu. The Puranas tell the story of Prahlad, a young devotee of Vishnu. Prahlad’s father, King Hiranyakashipu, however, was a dedicated enemy of Vishnu and was infuriated by his son’s steadfast devotion to Vishnu. Hiranyakashipu made many attempts to sway his son’s devotion, but the boy appeared both immortal and immovable. Eventually, Hiranyakashipu called upon his sister, Holika, to enter a bonfire carrying Prahlad, assum-

The Festival of Holi

145

Piled wood and govar before the bonfire. (Photo by author)

ing that she was impervious to fire. Holika entered the fire holding the boy on her lap, but to the king’s surprise, Prahlad was untouched by the flames while Holika perished. The Holi bonfire reenacts this story and celebrates Prahlad’s steadfast devotion to Vishnu. A statue of Prahlad is placed in the woodpile before a Holika bonfire is lit. When I viewed the bonfire, after it had been burning for some time and just when it appeared almost too late, a young boy leaped up and rescued Prahlad from the fire. The crowds cheered the boy for his daring rescue. During the day nearly everyone—and especially women—went to the bonfire and performed ritual service, in this case, ritual offerings, or puja. Devotees primarily offered foods such as rice, wheat, barley, and ghee, as well as sticks and branches and govar—cow dung, which is a traditional fertilizer and emblem of hope of future fertility (see photo). All of these materials have both symbolic and practical relevance to agricultural fertility and sustenance, but it would be difficult to overestimate the importance of govar to a traditional Indian agrarian economy. The offerings of

146

Growing Stories from India

sticks and branches were draped with strings of govar that had been shaped into small round balls and strung together as necklaces. The devotees received these necklaces as a prasad and wore them around their necks or on their hats. Rice was offered in this puja, but barley was the most important contribution because it indicated Holi’s origins as a springtime agricultural festival. Although the bonfires are public events, most families also replicate this offering in their own homes as well. The big Holi bonfire was lit at around midnight, and, at about 4:30 in the morning, house fires were rekindled with materials from the primary fire, a symbolic and material form of renewal. The barley was handed out to family and friends to strengthen and display bonds of friendship and intimacy.

Chaitra 1, Dark Half (March 2) Later that morning, the day after the bonfire, friends and families visited to exchange color and celebrate the day; from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. is the traditional time for playing Holi. The first day after the Phalgun full moon (and the first day of the month of Chaitra) is Holi Dhulendi, the throwing of color, the form of celebrating Holi that is prevalent throughout India. Although the more raucous element of Holi that is played in streets and temples is most evident to observers, the Holi played among friends and family in private settings tends to be gentler and less ribald. Nonetheless, when I played Holi with the Pandey family later that afternoon, I was dyed completely purple, and my hair remained that color for several weeks. Typically, Holi is played with a range of colors, particularly reds, purples, and yellows. Baldeo is noteworthy in that the temple priests only use safflower yellow to play Holi with Balaram and his devotees. By 11:00 a.m. the morning’s Holi festivities had concluded, and everyone had returned home to bathe and don new clothes for the afternoon’s Maharasalila dance in the temple. Panda men danced with their sistersin-law—specifically their elder brothers’ wives—who held colored scarves between them, and after the dancing, the women beat the men with the men’s color-soaked clothes. This dance was the first of several ritual activities that highlighted the devar-bhabhi relationship—the relationship between the younger brother and his elder brother’s wife. Most of the Panda families sported silk clothes—mostly yellow and pink scarves—once worn by the image of Balaram in the temple, and many of the temple priests dressed as cowherd women, some wearing green for Rukmini,

The Festival of Holi

147

Krishna’s wife, and yellow for Radha and Revati. Prem Pandey dressed like a gopi, wearing green silks, complete with anklets, and later he appeared with a hobbyhorse decorated with Rajasthani cloth. According to one learned Panda, Mr. Shastri, these scarves and other pieces of clothing, which are distributed among Panda families, confer Balaram’s protection to those who wear them. At 2:00 p.m., the temple opened for a special darshan before the Maharasalila dance. Traditionally, only the Panda families could participate in this dance and the next day’s Huranga, although this rule is less strictly observed today. Additionally, women of the more prominent priestly families did not participate in any of the public devar-bhabhi activities. In this event, pairs (or triads) of devar and bhabhi danced, each holding one end of a scarf so that they did not actually touch. After the dance, they circumambulated the temple tank, which sits just outside the temple grounds, following Balaram’s flag, which emerges annually only on this occasion. At other times, Balaram’s flag flies from a pole on the temple roof.

Chaitra 2, Dark Half (March 3) The following morning, now two days after the bonfire and the second day of the dark half of Chaitra, Baldeo prepared for its big event: Huranga. Dr. Ghanashyam Pandey, current head of the Baldev Research Institute, stressed that the Huranga, which indicates the throwing of color, is unique to Baldeo. He stated that other villages, such as Barsana or Nandagaon, throw color; but unlike in Baldeo, they also play Holi with sticks, called lathi-Holi. Lathi-Holi is a ritualized role reversal in which women dramatically overpower men. Each year, women from Barsana, Radha’s village, travel to Nandagaon, Krishna’s village, to protest Krishna’s heartless—as they see it—treatment of the gopis. He danced with them under the full moon and then left town the next day, never to return. The women from Barsana who represent the gopis carry heavy sticks and beat the Nandagaon men. The men hold shields to protect themselves from the women’s blows. This ritual provides a vent for women’s frustration with men and exemplifies one of the major reversals of Holi: that of women over men. Although Holi highlights role reversals, particularly in terms of gender, this ritual was one of the few that centered on women. There is no lathi-Holi in Baldeo, only the throwing of color, which distinguishes Baldeo’s celebration from Holi in the other Braj villages.

148

Growing Stories from India

Ghanashyam Pandey’s remarks echoed Ravi Pandey’s comment that devotees of Balaram play Holi with love. Krishna, he said, plays lathi-Holi, while Balaram plays only with color, and that is Huranga. Huranga, Dr. Pandey and Mr. Shastri stated, is the true form of Holi. However, Holi and Huranga are joined. The pair are husband and wife: Holi is the wife (patni), while Huranga is the husband, or lord (pati). Several lines of a poem composed and sung by Raghubir, a ninety-two-year-old temple priest, echoed this concept: Let’s watch the Holi of Braj. She’s come to the society of Braj; the wheat-complexioned one resides here. My heroine is Holi; her lover is Huranga. Golden liquid rains down. By 11:00 a.m., devotees had filled the temple’s courtyard and rooftop to capacity in anticipation of the Huranga. Small boys dressed as Krishna and Balaram sat on a raised platform, facing the image of Balaram; the VIPs sat under a canopy on the roof overlooking the courtyard. Others (including myself) sat on the ledge just below the temple roof with large bags full of colored powders. Because I am a foreigner and a woman, there had been some debate about where I should observe—or participate in— this event. I had spent most of my time with the male Pandas, but remaining on the courtyard floor with them could have been dangerous for me and certainly would have spoiled their fun. Throwing color from the ledge seemed the best compromise. Sprinklers were attached to this ledge; and, although they were not yet turned on, the courtyard floor was already flooded with several inches of water. The priests in the courtyard below wore their silks, and many were dressed as cowherd women. They began to dance, and revelers below threw buckets of color and water balloons at the watching crowd. I sat on the ledge just in front of the VIPs. After about twenty minutes of play, the VIPs realized the effect of my presence: They were doused with all the color aimed at me (I was clearly a target) and did not seem altogether pleased with the extra color they received. I was especially targeted by some young boys whose families had befriended me. They aimed their pumps straight at me and doused me with streams of

The Festival of Holi

149

colored water. (Later, I surprised them when I asked to “see” the pump and then turned it back on them.) The mood in the courtyard below reflected the vast quantities of the intoxicating drink of bhang-laced thandai (a cooling drink made with milk, sugar, and almonds) offered to Balaram in the morning and dispersed as prasad. After the dancing had begun, an engineer sitting next to me leaned over and told me that it would start soon. It looked to me as if something had already begun: What more would start? I wondered. The priests stood in front of Balaram’s image, singing songs that invited him to come play Holi. To reflect the fact that Balaram also plays Holi, the statue is adorned with Holi color. At first, it looked like the darshans I had seen during the preceding days, but then I saw the two poles that the Pandas and the Brahmans carried in the procession to the bonfire areas appear in the courtyard. Their arrival signaled the start of the Huranga, and the play would continue until both poles had fallen over. Once toppled, they would be broken into small pieces that would be offered to devotees. The Pandas offered the poles to Balaram, and there was a brief darshan. In the courtyard, the devar-bhabhi pairs danced, and soon the women began to rip off the men’s shirts. They twisted the shirts, dipped them in the water on the floor and beat the men with their own wet clothing. No boy or man on the courtyard floor was exempt from this beating. Then suddenly everyone apparently knew it was time to begin throwing the color, and we all hurled handfuls of powder into the air. Those of us sitting on the ledges threw the powder on those dancing below, and those not dancing threw buckets of color (see photo). A dense cloud of red, yellow, and silver powder made it difficult to see across the temple courtyard. Below, several men paraded the poles around the courtyard (see photo), while others danced or beat someone or tried to avoid being beaten. Some men were raised overhead and carried about. On and off, the cloud of color thinned and rendered visible the frenzied activity below. The colored water on the courtyard floor was almost four inches deep, and wet, colored powder stuck to everything and everyone. All of us were wet from the colored water and covered with a thick layer of wet colored powder that had become like paste. After forty-five minutes, the poles fell, and the offerings were distributed. Everyone then returned home to share a

150

Growing Stories from India

Throwing a bucket of color. (Photo by Robyn Beeche)

traditional meal of fried bread (puris) and rice pudding (khir), two of Balaram’s favorite foods. The temple meanwhile was strewn with the remains of gifts offered to Balaram and flooded with color; clumps of soggy powder covered the ground. The following day, the onerous job of cleaning the temple court-

Carrying the jhands during Huranga. (Photo by Robyn Beeche)

152

Growing Stories from India

Weighing and distributing prasad after Holi. (Photo by author)

yard began in earnest. Piles of powder-covered rock candy and coconut lay in large piles. The priests weighed and distributed this material among all the priestly families (see photo). The gutters lining the temple, which had been full of the safflower color, were emptied and cleaned. The Holi season was almost over. Some devotees still played Holi for the few remaining days, but in significantly reduced numbers.

Chaitra 5, Dark Half (March 7) The final throwing of color occurred on Rang Pancami, the fift h day of the dark half of Chaitra, and afterward, the devar-bhabhi relationship provided the trope through which to highlight familial bonds. At noon, four days after the devar-bhabhi dance on the first day of the dark half of Chaitra, the younger brother must give his elder brother’s wife a sari, and the woman offers her brother-in-law a sweet rice dish. The younger priests sat in front of the temple door, mock-wrestling (in commemoration of Balaram as the master of wrestling) and jostling each other; they mobbed those who carried offerings to distribute to the crowd. The gentle restraint

The Festival of Holi

153

of most of Balaram’s Holi was gone; today’s Holi seemed significantly rougher than that of the previous days. When the darshan period opened at 1:00 p.m., an hour after the devar-bhabhi exchange, the crowds rushed forward to see Balaram. Some priests soaked devotees with colored water, and others threw colored powders. The sprinklers again flooded the courtyard. Then Holi was over for another year.

Balancing Tensions The rituals and practice of Baldeo’s Holi that I witnessed and describe here reveal the tensions of sexuality, production, and aggression that threaten social stability. Devotees in Baldeo interpret the Holi festivities in light of Balaram’s Holi play upon his return to Braj, and these expressions of levity and raucousness make sense when we understand the context behind Baldeo’s Holi. Previous scholars have demonstrated that the rebellious aspects of Holi provide a vent for social tensions; but, as I point out, Balaram also has a role in expressing and balancing these tensions. Still, defusing tensions does not resolve the structural problems, as discussed earlier. On one level, Holi can be understood as a comedic festival because it results in social stability; but the resulting stability tends to maintain existing hierarchies. What is interesting here is how the social and agricultural tensions related to aggression, sexuality, and fertility converge in this festival. The Holi bonfires exemplify how ties between social bonds and agriculture are mitigated, but not fully resolved, in a social context. As I noted earlier, the bonfire with its relationship to fertility is a common element in springtime agricultural festivals, and the Holi bonfire demonstrates how slapstick role reversals and accentuations ameliorate tensions about fertility. Certainly the bonfire rescue has a comedic element—a boy jumps into the fire to the crowd’s cheers and rescues the image of Prahlad. This ritual is funny and entertains the crowd, but it articulates concerns about food and famine. First, as a spring agricultural festival Holi mediates the anxiety that the earth might not produce or might not be fertile, and the ritual bonfire addresses these concerns. The bonfire burns away the remnants of winter to renew the cycle of fertility. Second, the bonfire incorporates the Vaishnava context of protection when the devout devotee Prahlad is saved from the flames. Holi ritual practice mediates agricultural and social tensions through

154

Growing Stories from India

comedic performances that emphasize restoration and resolution. As Susanne Langer notes, springtime fertility festivals are comedic because they celebrate both social and agricultural vitality.17 This comedic element is important because Balaram’s narrative itself, along with associated Holi practices, is plotted as a narrative of resolution and wholeness; and it appears in the context of Holi, a festival that celebrates the renewal of social bonds and agricultural fertility. At the same time, Holi fulfills a satirical role in that those stories and narratives that appear to subvert hierarchy in fact strengthen them. Balaram’s actions and Holi’s carnivalesque activities mock social norms, but they ultimately strengthen social structures by easing social and agricultural tensions. These tensions, the fears of instability and famine, are powerful emotions and can inhibit moves toward alternate social or agricultural arrangements. This negative cycle, in which fear prompts even more control and so narrows the realm of imagined possibilities, provides insight into why narratives of control and mastery over the earth and women remain dominant: we fear what might happen if we loosened control. We can hear this dynamic echoed in the voices of critics of organic and other alternative forms of agriculture when, in essence, they ask, as did Earl Butz and, more recently, Lord Haskins, advisor to Tony Blair, “Whom do we wish to starve?”18 The Balaram and the Holi practices described here demonstrate how ritual levity mitigates fears of social and agricultural collapse; yet these rituals and the temporary instability also offer us maneuvering space through which we might rethink relations with the biotic community. Balaram’s associations with fertility and wine render him a satirical figure because he exposes flaws in the pastoral idealization of nature— such as, for example, that the pastoral realm is free from need and nature fulfills human needs. Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River illustrates human frustration at nature’s agency, and, while the surface conflict is resolved, the underlying problem—that the earth might not cooperate— will not go away no matter what we rituals we perform or agricultural practices we adopt. Exposing these flaws is a destabilizing force because the exposure forces recognition both of human reliance on capricious natural processes and inequities of food production. At the same time, though, this destabilization offers an opportunity for creativity because it also undermines constraints on the imagination. The fear and uncertainty of leaving our comfort zones force us to reassess old assumptions because

The Festival of Holi

155

what seems solid and obvious no longer is. My fieldwork in India granted me the creative disorientation through which to reconsider long-held ideas on food and agriculture, and the disorientation of Holi similarly provides space from which to question normative narratives and practices. Agricultural anxieties regarding fertility, protection, and production are central to the realms of family and social sustenance. Barley—a sign of fertility in many cultures—is shared among family and friends to further cement social and familial bonds in India. Food, as well as the consumption and sharing of food, is a foundational social element that underlies and determines many social bonds, and fear of famine destroys those bonds. At a minimum, food security is a sine qua non for a stable society; the creative disorientation of Balaram’s Holi provides the space to question whether our food production indeed is providing food security, and to whom. This questioning also provides freedom for us to expand our ecological imagination so that we might also explore the consequences of food production on multiple communities, human and nonhuman, and possibilities of revised relations between these communities. Exploring food production and its consequences then compels us to acknowledge our ambiguous role in the biotic community. The reality that something must die for us to eat introduces a potential stance of ambivalence, an opportunity for us to consider food security from multiple perspectives, including the nonhuman. Most devotees of Balaram realize that their riotous activities during Holi ultimately stabilize society, and similarly they know that Balaram’s qualities of aggression and intoxication underscore his status as protector and elder brother. Kings are, after all, responsible for agricultural fertility. Balaram and the Yamuna’s story fits the paradigm of a deity releasing lifegiving water, an aggressive act that results in sustenance. Although unchecked aggression—and, more so, intoxication—can weaken social bonds, devotees understand that Balaram uses these qualities in service of his devotees. Balaram’s aggression helps him protect his devotees, and his intoxication helps him ready himself for battle. Balaram only uses aggression and intoxication in the service of righteousness and to protect his devotees, so devotees deem these qualities appropriate. This understanding echoes the Rajput (one of India’s warrior dynasties) linkage of lust, wine, and strength. Meat and wine are important for male Rajputs because they build lust and strength, important traits for professional war-

156

Growing Stories from India

riors and kings.19 Similarly, according to Ghanashyam Pandey, Balaram takes the bhang intoxicant to gain the strength necessary for protection from his enemies. Holi manifests tensions of sexuality and aggression in the general teasing and prank playing and, particularly, in the devar-bhabhi actions that characterize the festival. We might recall Balaram’s epithet and identity as langulin, the wielder of the plough-penis, here; this association highlights Balaram’s sexuality as it relates to agriculture, but it also invokes the languriya as a motif of extrasocietal sexuality.20 My observations, along with my discussions with families in Baldeo, demonstrated that the devar-bhabhi relationship—that is, the younger brother and elder brother’s wife—and not the husband-wife relationship, is the central relationship in the Holi festival. In Krishna’s familial structure, Krishna and Revati are the devar and bhabhi. Technically, Balaram, the elder brother, does not play (although devotees note that all of Balaram’s family plays Holi). Traditionally a joking, and implicitly sexualized, relationship exists between the younger brother and the elder brother’s wife. This relationship provides a friendly outlet for women marrying into an extended family. Her relationship with her husband, her husband’s elder brother(s), and her in-laws is formal. That is, the bride, particularly if she is a new bride, must show humility—lajj—before her in-laws and her husband’s elder brother(s). Showing lajj means that the bride speaks soft ly with downcast eyes and often covers her face when speaking with elder members of her new family. Her relationship with her husband’s younger brother, however, is typically more relaxed, and she can speak freely and laugh in this context. Cementing this bond is crucial for family stability because it helps strengthen the bride’s bonds to the family unit. The actions of the devarbhabhi pair exemplify this ambivalent mix of sexuality and aggression that is seen in Balaram himself: the pairs dance together in the temple during the Huranga, then the women thrash their brothers-in-law. This thrashing looks like nothing less than a war. This is, after all, a ritual space in which women vent their frustrations with men. It is, however, only a ritual space, and although the thrashing helps women let off some steam, it does not alter their social realities. These activities and associations manifest the flexibility of the devarbhabhi relationship itself; it provides a space for an informal and somewhat sexualized bond, yet the informality of this space also provides

The Festival of Holi

157

perhaps women’s only opportunity to vent anger and frustration. The more formal relationships with other family members do not allow space for such communications. At the same time, this space is situated within the husband’s family unit, and so has boundaries, despite the relative freedom within. The dance and beatings of the Huranga ritual express the inherent tensions of the devar-bhabhi relationship and offer women choice and agency, however circumscribed. Similarly, our relationships with nature will always be circumscribed by a variety of factors, including biological ones; for example, a tiger will always view me as food, no matter what I think about that tiger. Still, despite such limitations, approaching members of the biotic community with an ethic of partnership and reciprocity rather than domination, whether that means providing habitat and/or respecting the animal’s social structure, is a means of loosening our (attempted) control over the biotic community. Although Holi practice emphasizes social transgression, at least for the duration of the festival, the participation of women, particularly high caste women, was clearly circumscribed. Their absence from these rituals parallels the loss of agency and the potential penalty for claiming agency and violating an idealized status. The loss of agency, or subordination, can result from violent action or from simple erasure or exclusion—that is, not having a place at the table. I recall a specific conversation in Baldeo with several Pandas as we walked toward the temple. They had been explaining to me how everyone, simply everyone, in Baldeo took bhang along with Balaram, who was noted for his fondness for this intoxicant. I asked if this included the women, and one replied, “Oh, well, not them.” His answer conveyed to me that women were beyond consideration, which further confirmed my suspicions about social—and perhaps more extensive— penalties for women who publicly partook of bhang. In fact, it seems to me that these Holi rituals play a critical role in preventing challenges to social structures, and recognizing these dynamics helps us reflect on our own narratives and practices. The rituals and dances of Holi offer a space to negotiate a set of social tensions, and these examples of ritual levity fulfill specific social functions in Baldeo. The exuberance and spontaneity of these ritual practices offer participants the flexibility and freedom for working out anxieties, such as those related to sexuality and aggression, that do not have a socially sanctioned release. These rituals are funny—it is difficult to imagine Holi as

158

Growing Stories from India

not funny—and that levity is intrinsic to the performance and social goals of these activities. For example, the basis of the devar-bhabhi relationship is humor and teasing, so the tensions and ambivalences of this relationship are expressed and mediated through humor. The social tensions of Holi can be quite serious. For example, serious tensions relating to agriculture or family bonds exist, but the humor and laughter of Holi are effective means of defusing these tense situations. Spontaneity and a degree of freedom are essential aspects of both the devar-bhabhi relationship and Holi rituals. The exuberant spontaneity and freedom of expression of Holi could not exist without fun and levity. Baldeo’s Holi demonstrates the tensions and ambivalences that exist regarding protection and aggression, fertility and sexuality, and these anxieties have the potential to destabilize society. Baldeo’s Holi celebration uses narrative and ritual to adjudicate these problems; at the same time, the narrative shapes practice and interpretation. The relationship between text and practice should not be understood as one-sided, but as an iterative cycle, as each shapes and responds to the other. The devarbhabhi dance presents a visual metaphor: this dance has no set steps, but instead the dancers respond to the other’s movements, and each dancer has agency. This dance suggests a metaphor for rethinking agricultural practice that could accommodate agency in the biotic community and offers a model of dialectical responsiveness instead of what can be seen as the prevailing agricultural ideology of control and domination. Just as Holi’s rituals and dances preserve social structures, they might also adjudicate a different set of tensions: the reality of agriculture—and basic survival—is that something must die if we are to eat. The Panda community is strictly vegetarian, although not vegan, so hunting is not an issue. In terms of Holi, survival anxieties emerge in the guise of gender and sexuality. The stories and rituals of Holi reflect the unease or even guilt at how the earth and, by extension, women are used for food production. The anonymity and distance from the source of food provided by industrial agriculture have helped alleviate consumers’ guilt by commodifying food and its producers so that these are rarely objects of moral concern. When this veil of anonymity is breached, however—for example, when the New York Times reported slaughterhouse use of electric prods on “downer” cows, those that can no longer stand on their own—the public was understandably outraged, both for concerns about human health and

The Festival of Holi

159

also, though somewhat less, animal welfare.21 Although stories about animal abuse are particularly egregious, the fact remains that in the contemporary United States, we have few agrarian narratives that address the human dimension of food production, beyond our narratives of control. Wendell Berry’s admonition that we should “eat responsibly,” that we should eat with pleasure and with recognition of the conditions under which our food is produced, is a powerful alternative narrative to that of the willful ignorance necessary for industrial agriculture.22 Balaram’s aggression toward the earth reflects fears that the earth will not provide. Devotees explain Balaram’s aggression as socially necessary and look to Balaram for, among other things, healing, protection, and agricultural benefits. In this view, violence is justified because protection always includes some risk of danger and violence. As a protector, Balaram’s aggression in the service of agriculture embodies farmers’ fears that the crops could fail, and that, as a consequence, the social unit would experience famine. Even though Holi rituals negotiate anxieties regarding agricultural violence, these rituals reflect the fact that some level of violence or aggression is necessary for survival, whether that means fighting off enemies or killing something in order to live. Recognizing the fear of famine—the fear that the earth will not produce—helps us understand why narratives that highlight dominance and control (e.g., industrial agriculture’s feed-the-world narrative) continue to be so popular and why we are reluctant to reimagine them. While these narratives represent a form of comic resolution of tension, an alternate reading would evoke their tragic dimensions—the death and subduing of nature to provide sustenance. This chapter delineated how Holi’s carnival atmosphere provides an outlet for forces such as sexuality and aggression that can destabilize society if not otherwise resolved. Baldeo’s springtime festivities celebrate earthly fertility at the same time that they alleviate social tensions, thereby recognizing the integral connection between agrarian abundance and social order. Nonetheless, as we have seen, relieving tensions typically reinforces existing social structures rather than addressing social inequities. For example, anxiety over the fear of famine, that the earth will not cooperate, tends to lead to stricter controls and narratives (and practices) of domination rather than reciprocity and partnership and so makes it more difficult to envision alternatives for food production. As a festival of levity and role

160

Growing Stories from India

reversals, however, Holi offers a set of memes—ambivalence, ambiguity, and disorientation—that provides the space and maneuverability from which we might imagine alternatives to existing narratives and related social structures. Exploring the ambivalence that many feel between the need to eat and the necessary death of other beings has led many people to change their eating habits to reflect their qualms about the treatment of other species, sentient or not. I also wonder whether the Pandeys’ clinic service on Holi, and perhaps other days as well, enacts an ambiguity regarding social status. On the one hand, their service on Holi reestablishes their status as a prominent family; on the other, the flexibility of Holi play provides them the imaginative space to enact their interpretation of Balaram’s story as one of service to their community. We have seen how social and agricultural anxieties can paralyze attempts to rethink existing food systems and also how, at the same time, destabilization reframes established norms and spurs the imagination. The anonymity of industrial agriculture and the distance of consumers from the sources of food contribute to the maintenance of industrial agriculture’s feed-the-world narrative. This pervasive narrative relies on a deeply entrenched notion of pastoral that shapes many consumers’ ideas of food production. In the next chapter I establish a parallel between the pastoral paradigm of Vaishnava devotion and the neglect of agriculture in Western environmental thought, and I argue that the pastoral construct has contributed to this neglect. The dominant Braj paradigm is the pastoral, an idealized nature that excludes the realities of agriculture and the consequences of sex and violence. In this religious and cultural paradigm, agricultural and related social anxieties are subordinated to a utopian pastoral realm of simple joys and cowherding. I discuss Balaram’s subordination in the Braj pastoral realm as a way to consider the neglect of agriculture within environmental discourse and develop an agricultural discourse that leads to practices that can benefit both human and nonhuman communities.

Chapter 6

The Land in Between Constructing Nature, Wilderness, and Agriculture

The convergence of text and practice in Baldeo’s Holi festivities demonstrates how Holi rituals balance and adjudicate tensions arising from the paired issues of fertility and sexuality on the one hand and aggression and protection on the other. The story of Balaram’s return to Braj is the central narrative of the festival, and Balaram’s role as an agriculturalist is reiterated in every ritual. His behavior illustrates human responses to agricultural and gender tensions and provides an opportunity to rethink existing responses to the earth’s—and women’s— agency. The Holi festival, like most springtime fertility festivals, celebrates prosperity and renewal and as such can be considered comic because it restores social and agricultural bonds. Balaram, as a satiric figure, mocks social convention, but ultimately his behavior stabilizes and reaffirms the existing social structures that produced the destabilizing tensions. To make a broader claim, Balaram mocks the gentility and restraint of the pastoral, yet his actions related to fertility and protection enable the pastoral, and this dynamic parallels the relationship between agriculture and wilderness constructs in contemporary environmental thought. In this chapter, I demonstrate the parallel between the pastoral paradigm of Vaishnava devotion and the neglect of agriculture in Western environmental thought. This discussion provides a foundation from which to explore the role of agriculture in the context of religion, nature, and society so that we can understand the persistence of certain stories. To lay this foundation, I present Balaram’s subordination in the Braj pastoral realm as a way to consider the neglect of agriculture with-

162

Growing Stories from India

in environmental discourse and how we might develop an agricultural discourse that leads to more sustainable practices. While impending destruction of a wilderness landscape arouses fury and indignation in large numbers of environmentalists, the environmental degradation of pastoral landscapes resulting from largescale agriculture rarely registers such an emotional response. Many environmentalists oppose disruption of the caribou migrations across the arctic tundra and mountaintop removal for mining operations, yet few rally to protest the fate of hog lot sows and fertilizer-laden rivers. The divide between animal rights and environmental groups reflects this disjuncture. The case of hog lot sows is particularly interesting because it lies at the divide between animal rights activists and environmental groups. Although environmentalists have primarily focused on ecosystems or natural processes, animal rights activists stress the emotional bonds and parallels between humans and animals.1 Although some animal rights movements have indeed focused on the plight of farm animals, most have concentrated on animals that are either considered cute, such as cats and dogs, or closer to humans, such as chimps. The gap in emotional investment in pristine wilderness as opposed to used or human-altered land is enormous and reflects cultural and social attitudes that influence human participation in the biotic community. The environmental focus on wilderness lands is particularly strong in North America, where vast tracts of land and national parks are a source of national pride. For the French, however, writes anthropologist and chef Amy Trubek, agrarian landscapes hold the pride of place in the French mythic imagination, and the French have rallied to preserve small farms and agrarian lifeways more than untouched landscapes.2 Similarly, agrarian thinkers in the United States have emphasized in-between land; for example, hedgerows and margins are considered “wild” but not wilderness. These lands and these discussions, however, have remained on the margins of mainstream environmental thought.3 The story of Balaram and the Yamuna River—and their relationship to Krishna—provides a context to rethink idioms that have dominated contemporary environmental discourse in the United States. As we have seen, an analysis of Balaram’s Holi narrative reveals those qualities that shaped his relationship to the Yamuna River, and this relationship, in part, determines Balaram’s role in the pastoral realm.

The Land in Between

163

Recognizing how Balaram disturbs the pastoral scenario in the Braj context prompts reflection on similar tensions in Western environmental thought. These systems of thought have similarities: in both cases an idealized nature masks elements of class and urbanity, and human intervention into the land and the need for productivity are the disjunctive forces that disrupt romantic fantasies of the earth with “realities” such as hunger and danger. Similarly, Raymond Williams notes, nostalgic longing for an idyllic country landscape suppresses the work, urbanity, and property relations that created this landscape.4 In Vaishnava devotion, the idealized nature is the pastoral whereas in Western environmentalism, it is wilderness. Understanding how notions of idealized nature, urbanity, and the pastoral manifest in Vaishnava devotion offers a framework through which we might evaluate contemporary notions of environmental and agricultural discourse. What is the pastoral? A romanticized construct of nature, the pastoral appears in both Western and Hindu literary traditions, although despite their similarities, Braj pastoralization encompasses a different set of conflicts. Pastoral poetry, art, and narrative depict rural life as idyllic, with the natural world existing as a cooperative stage for humans and animals. In short, the pastoral offers a cooperative nature for human endeavors. Neither danger nor need lurks there. Human presence in the pastoral distinguishes it from both agriculture and wilderness; the pastoral, or Arcadia, is the middle landscape between the urban realm and untamed wilderness.5 Humans in pastoral settings are depicted as existing in harmonious relations with the natural world, yet this idyllic trope excludes realities such as hunger, violence, and destruction. Agriculture incorporates themes of control, aggression, and need that do not fit in the pastoral realm. In agricultural settings, humans manipulate the earth to meet their need for food and so direct the earth’s productivity. Agricultural processes, such as tilling and plant manipulation, are—even in the least intensive forms of agriculture— aggressive practices and reflect the reality that feeding settled human populations requires that the earth produce to meet these needs. Pastoral settings, in contrast, do not emphasize human need or the conflicts that arise from unmet needs. Any humans present in a pastoral setting are typically herdsmen, and, as Paul Alpers argues, the herdsman is the central figure of the pastoral.6 Herdsmen do not control the earth, but

164

Growing Stories from India

live off its freely given bounty. While both agriculturalists and herdsmen live close to the land (and sometimes these categories overlap), agriculturalists till the land and, in doing so, intervene on the land in a way that does not fit the pastoral. In contrast, the concept of wilderness by definition entirely excludes human participation in the landscape. Romanticized concepts of the natural world—whether wilderness or the pastoral—are problematic because they have enabled the construct of dichotomies, such as pristine wilderness or tainted earth, that are often, according to Wendell Berry, vacation-oriented or crisis-oriented.7 These dichotomies are one cause of agricultural regions such as the Midwest becoming “ecological sacrifice zones.”8 While agrarian thought as characterized by Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson is becoming increasingly important within environmental circles, mainstream environmental groups have only recently begun addressing issues related to agricultural lands. One exception, however, comes from the 1982 Sierra Club Engagement Calendar, which featured the following statement from conservation biologist Ray Dasmann: Not long ago, I was one of those who were only interested in the extremes of land use, the city and the wilderness. Everything in between was just space to be passed through as quickly as possible. I did know, intellectually, that the country in between was important, but emotionally, I had no attachment to it. Now it seems to me that the fringe lands, the farm lands, the ranges, pastures, and managed forests are the areas where the real conservation issues of the next two decades will be faced.9

Dasmann was one of the first Western conservationists to consider agriculture and indigenous peoples in his environmental thought, but many environmentalists and others remain tied to the romanticized nature–pristine wilderness dichotomy. Attachment to this dichotomy has delayed broad participation in attempts to create guidelines for human interventions upon the earth. For example, many environmentalists have focused on wilderness areas that are suitable for recreational activities, such as backpacking. Participants in these activities relish the remote and untouched appearance of the landscape. Meeting other backpackers or seeing human signs shatters the illusion of wilderness and is often considered detrimental to the experience. While the trope of wilderness has been critical in galvanizing support for land deemed

The Land in Between

165

remote and apparently untouched, this emphasis has kept us from addressing how we treat land that does not fall into this category. Support for constructs such as wilderness as remote and apparently untouched land also has social consequences; these fantasized relations with the earth mask hierarchical and oppressive relations within the social realm. First, concentrating on wilderness and apparently unpeopled land hides the effects of environmental degradation on those people whose lives and livelihoods are tied to tainted lands. Poor soil quality and contaminated water, for example, disproportionately affect those communities and individuals with fewer financial resources. Second, considering the earth as female, as a goddess or “Mother Nature,” does not assure decent treatment of the earth or of women. Both the Western and Braj constructs of pastoral and wilderness are ultimately urban-based products of a (largely) privileged class, and these constructs have had social consequences as well. Philosopher Kate Soper notes that pastoral depictions of Arcadia ignore the animal and human labor that renders possible the illusion of a bountiful nature.10 These romantic and pastoral notions have shaped categories of thought about the natural world and ultimately reflect a set of human desires that rarely acknowledge our debt to the earth for subsistence or our reciprocal obligations. The Braj pastoral realm and Balaram’s (partial) exclusion demonstrates how the pastoral creates an idyllic view of the natural world and obscures issues of human need as they relate to agriculture.

Krishna and Balaram in an Idealized Braj Sixteenth-century north Indian devotional text and practice valorized an idealized pastoral setting for the activities of Krishna and Balaram, and even today devotees visualize an idealized landscape that does not reconcile well with the contemporary degraded landscape of Braj. In contrast, traditional images of Balaram and Krishna, both in scholarship and in religious depictions, routinely are portrayed in pastoral terms, as simple boys and girls populating an idealized rural landscape.11 These images embody a set of conflicts in Braj pastoralism, chiefly the disjuncture created by Balaram’s association with fertility and protection in relation to Krishna’s rural persona, which masks an urbane sophistication. Recall the temple guide Prem Pandey’s words

166

Growing Stories from India

during Holi: Balaram lets Krishna be Krishna. Balaram’s role as king of Braj conveniently frees Krishna to exist in that pastoral ideal in which nature never presents danger and erotic dalliances have no unwanted consequences. This popular devotion to Krishna and Balaram that swept north India in the sixteenth century articulated a pastoral theology that privileged the urban concerns of the Vaishnava theologians who developed these systems. In the centuries prior to the sixteenth century, worship of the deities Krishna and Balaram in the Braj region was not particularly important, and devotees and pilgrims worshipped a variety of divine beings, including nagas, Shiva, and the arboreal yakshas.12 Agriculturalists, those who tilled the soil, worshipped serpents (though not exclusively), and the nomadic pastoralists worshipped Govardhan Hill because the local tree spirits, or yakshas, protected the forests that were necessary for grazing and foraging. Balaram was the deity of the “pure agriculturalists.”13 Over time, the socioeconomic lives of these groups became integrated, and, Alan Entwistle suggests, their interests coalesced through the worship of the brothers Balaram and Krishna. This familial, hierarchical structure made possible the inclusion of variant deities, ideas, and practices.14 Prior to the sixteenth century, worship of Krishna and Balaram focused on their regal and heroic capacities, as seen in the epic Mahabharata. However, in the sixteenth century, a radically altered form of devotion, which focused on the brothers as delightful cowherding boys, eclipsed older forms of Vaishnavism in Braj. The pastoral became the prevalent ideology; and local practices, including naga, yaksha, and goddess worship, were incorporated into this overarching framework. That these devotional forms professed an openness to all devotees regardless of social status or gender and used vernacular languages contributed to their popular appeal, and these notions still appeal to devotees even today. This pastoral theology emphasized a sophisticated process of cultivating the emotions (bhava) toward the youthful Krishna. The devotee became a kind of actor in a cosmic drama played around Krishna, assuming the emotions appropriate to the particular role. As a new actor in the divine drama of Braj, the devotee forges an emotional bond with Krishna that is based on stylized roles, each of which has been depicted

The Land in Between

167

in extenso in the narratives of the Bhagavata Purana. These roles are based on characters and scenarios drawn from Krishna and Balaram’s idyllic youth, such as Krishna’s foster parents or the cowherding boys and girls who befriended him. The practical result is that while Krishna becomes the “king of emotion,” devotion to Balaram at Baldeo highlights qualities, such as guardianship, that do not seem to be part of the pastoral construct. For example, this passionate devotion to Krishna emphasized homey and idyllic images of Krishna and Balaram, rather than heroic images of the brothers defeating demons, thus diminishing the prominence of heroic figures and guardianship in Braj Vaishnavism. The casting and the staging for this drama valorized an idealized pastoral setting. The pastoralization process of sixteenth-century Braj seems to have concentrated in Balaram elements that do not easily fit into the pastoral ideal. After all, Balaram is Haladhar, the one carrying the plow, the deity of agriculture, and farmers rarely have idealized notions about a cooperative nature. Lee Siegel suggests that we understand Balaram as a satirical figure, and this concept makes sense in terms of Balaram’s critique of the pastoral.15 While the lovable rogue Krishna revels in the sanctuary of the pastoral, Balaram denies the existence of a sanctuary by forcing us to confront the reality of an uncooperative nature. Satire, however, does not destroy, but ultimately upholds order by exposing hypocrisy or unsustainable illusions. In this way, through his protection of order and fertility, Balaram upholds dharma and so supports the earth. Ironically, Balaram’s existence enables the pastoral and its illusions, and agriculture enables the urban civilizations that idealize the pastoral. The Braj pastoralization process reflects controversies between an urban elite and the local folk culture that result in very real social consequences. These consequences are similar to those resulting from our contemporary romanticization of nature: they privilege urban and middle-class interests over those of agriculturalists or those who work the land. The pastoral construct is almost always an urban, or elite, phenomenon. An urban elite, mostly theologians associated with either the Vallabh Sampraday or Gaudiya Vaishnavism, imposed an idealized notion of nature upon a noncooperative reality, setting up privileged hierar-

168

Growing Stories from India

chies between rural and urban, sophisticate and rustic. In stories and religious plays, scene and setting play a significant supporting role in enabling actors to arouse emotions relevant to their characters. So, for example, the image of a moonlit night on the banks of the Yamuna River presents a romantic backdrop for devotees who cultivate erotic love in their emotional stance as Krishna’s beloved. Cultivating these emotional states requires an idealized view of nature, a natural world that adheres to the rules of the pastoral. Braj pastoral theology assumes that the elements of the natural world—the water, the wind, the trees, and the animals—are themselves devotees of Krishna and so provide an environment conducive to devotion. So, for example, this wondrous landscape includes cows and birds that gaze lovingly upon Krishna’s antics, but never includes beasts that might look upon Krishna as dinner. Descriptions of Krishna’s Braj portray an idyllic realm of blooming trees and gentle fauna; and the eulogistic (mahatyma) literature pointed to that golden age when, according to Vaishnava tradition, five thousand years ago Krishna and Balaram played in these very forests.16 To illustrate the point of this discrepancy between the pastoral and wilderness, in local and pan-Indian tradition, fiendish yakshas (or the feminine yakshinis as well) populate forests, and travelers—particularly woodsmen— must beware of confronting or antagonizing these testy sprites, who embody notions of wilderness and chaos.17 Yet the pastoral literature of Krishna devotion lauds these lush and verdant groves of friendly trees as befitting Krishna’s love-play with the cowherding girls of Braj.18 Similarly, tigers have virtually no role in the Braj landscape, although until recently tigers were common to villages in some parts of India. The Braj pastoral ethic further glorifies the simplicity of rural life in comparison to the evils of city life. Krishna was born to royal status in urban Mathura, but devotees note his choice of the rural pleasures of Braj over the prestige and material wealth to which his birth entitles him. Devotees praise Krishna’s love of his simple wooden flute and his forest garland when by rights he could be adorned with gold and silver. Further, and significantly, Krishna’s rakish and mischievous qualities are favorably compared with the more staid and regal virtues of the king Ram, a previous incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Ram is known for his righteous rule and honorable qualities, which for devotees pale in comparison to Krishna’s qualities.

The Land in Between

169

This idealized view of nature and society was primarily promoted by urban Brahmans from Gujarat and Bengal, leaders or representatives of the Vallabh Sampraday and Gaudiya Vaishnavism, who could afford to disdain money, social status, and prestige. Their idioms of devotion and practice soon became the norm in Braj. These devotees literally applied a mythological mapping of Braj and Krishna’s activities to a physical landscape. For example, they identified geographical sites as the location of events narrated in texts such as the Bhagavata Purana. Some of these sites and shrines were already sites of local piety, but were reidentified according to idioms of Krishna devotion. Although this process encountered resistance, and practices and stories about many sites suggest a process of continued contestation, the newcomers had the power of a sophisticated theological discourse as well as patronage networks on their side. They negotiated control of numerous local shrines, most notably that of Shrinathji, a manifestation of Krishna, and their pastoral theology became the dominant discourse in Braj. This leadership soon controlled the patronage networks as well as the ritual practice.19 The social location of the pastoral ideology is important in determining how the pastoral became dominant and in a position to marginalize local concerns. These urban Brahmans had access to patronage networks both from other urban Vaishnavas as well as from the Mughal court. For example, the Mughal administration frequently granted funds for the maintenance of Braj temples, although their ties were of a financial-political and an administrative nature rather than devotional or protective. For example, in 1593 the Emperor Akbar issued an order (farman) awarding to Vitthalnath, Vallabh’s son, the village of Jatipura—and its revenues—where Shrinathji was housed.20 It is important to note that the groups that privileged the pastoral disdain of wealth, power, and prestige possessed these attributes and could articulate a devotional discourse that ostensibly renounced these qualities while still retaining them. Similarly, in a parallel we can see today, those who romanticize the natural world often do not have to bear the consequences of a degraded landscape, or they have the financial and other resources to distance themselves from the more disturbing sites of production on the earth such as hog lots or mines that sustain their lifestyles. The sixteenth-century pastoralization of Braj created a new dy-

170

Growing Stories from India

namic between Vaishnavism and local traditions, mostly those of the herding and agricultural communities, and had political as well as theological and devotional repercussions. The pastoral became the idiom through which conflicts were negotiated and for determining inclusion into developing hierarchies. Where does this leave the local naga and yaksha cults of Braj? Outside the system. These older traditions, which emphasize practical human concerns such as fertility and disease, do not figure in the pastoral depictions of Braj. If the pastoral is the hegemonic discourse for Braj, nagas and yakshas, by default, are relegated to the margins. The cultural flows in sixteenth-century Braj exhibit a system of mutual influences. For example, local Braj practices contributed to developments in Vaishnava thought as well as the other way around. The dialectical cultural flows that characterized the changes in sixteenthcentury Braj have been identified by terms such as elite versus folk or Sanskrit versus vernacular, but Entwistle’s observation that “pastoralization more adequately describes the dialectic between elite and folk cultures than Sanskritization or Brahmanization” is appropriate—and this raises questions about the relationship of Krishna to Balaram as a naga and to yakshas—deities associated with nature, especially trees.21 Charlotte Vaudeville has eloquently argued that Braj devotion rests lightly upon naga and yaksha traditions in Braj, and the reciprocity between these local and “systematizing” forces, as Vaudeville puts it, continues into the present.22 The pastoral construct is the idiom for this systematizing force and sets up a dynamic that places Krishna at the center, with other deities, including Balaram, at varying distances from that center. Because Balaram was integrated into the Vaishnava system more than two thousand years ago, he stands both inside and outside of pastoral Braj. Although this pastoralization process radically transformed Braj devotion, Balaram retains many of his naga associations. Krishna largely reflects the concerns of an urban elite (such as the Bengali and south Indian presence in sixteenth-century Braj), and Balaram maintains his archaic naga connections and reflects the concerns of a rural and agrarian populace. However, nagas and yakshas mediate concerns that lie outside the pastoral; threats, supplication, disease, and greed have no role in the idealized pastoral construct wherein there can be

The Land in Between

171

neither fear of disease nor the need for money. Balaram’s habits, such as drinking, and his martial skill render him the embodiment of fertility and protection, and as such Balaram retains a multivalent role within Vaishnavism. These qualities—well within his scope as a protectorking—at once elevate him and subordinate him in the pastoral realm. Such are the reversals of Braj devotion. He is portrayed in pastoral representations of Braj as a cowherd youth along with Krishna and thus as an integral part of the pastoral ethos. At the same time, he also appears as the embodiment of fertility, protection, and intoxication, but these qualities alienate Balaram from idealized portrayals of Braj and determine both his elevation and subordination within Vaishnavism. The local deities of Braj offer a sustaining balance to the pastoral Krishna tradition. In spite of what Vaudeville calls the powerful “systematizing” forces of Hinduism, these local traditions, at least in the case of Braj, have proven to be the enduring cultural forms, possibly because of their symbiotic relationship with what is perceived to be hegemonic. Braj nagas and yakshas protect their devotees and mediate practical concerns, while Krishna functions primarily in his realm, the realm of bhava, the devotional emotion. This is not to say that Krishna has no role in curing disease or bestowing boons; significantly, Krishna’s protective role in his multiple descents to earth makes him beloved to his devotees. However, in the pastoral representations that dominate Braj devotion, devotees primarily relate to Krishna in his role as a handsome and charming youth. This scenario is possible because these other deities—including Balaram, nagas, and yakshas—hold down the serious jobs of protecting Braj and devotees, thus freeing Krishna to exist in his pastoral world. Balaram’s ambivalent role within the pastoral Braj paradigm and its attendant social consequences present similarities to the role of agriculture within a highly romanticized rhetorical discourse about the environment.23 Within this scenario, the idealized Braj has no room for the mundane concerns of Balaram, so Braj text and practice marginalize Balaram’s associations with fertility, protection, and intoxication. However, the romanticized pastoral construct masks urban concerns and hierarchies, such that those with financial and social resources are able to ignore concerns relating to human sustenance. This division of labor is hierarchical and reflects real social conditions regarding the natural world, both in India and the United

172

Growing Stories from India

States. That is, while some toil to provide basic human needs such as food, their labor frees others to pursue activities such as recreation. Contemporary Western environmental discourse reveals a similar dynamic, and as a result the trope of an idealized wilderness dominates environmental thought. That Krishna has been identified as a green protagonist presents an interesting parallel. Anil Agarwal suggested that Krishna’s cowherding stance would be a good model for the protection of grassland, and Srivatsa Goswami, director of Sri Caitanya Prem Samsthan in Vrindavan, India, has written about Krishna as “green.”24 David Haberman and Srivatsa Goswami read Krishna’s destruction of the serpent Kaliya as ecological: Krishna removed Kaliya’s pollution from the Yamuna River.25 However, it is ironic, as Philip Lutgendorf points out, that, in the Mahabharata, Krishna burned down the Khandava Forest and, in doing so, massacred all the living creatures of this forest.26 Nonetheless, this depiction of a green Krishna has led to real environmental change in Vrindavan, India. For example, both the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), paired with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the Friends of Vrindavan, associated with Srivatsa Goswami, have initiated environmental programs based on a green Krishna.27 Vrindavan also is home to Balaram Eco Sena, the Ecological Army of Balaram; but most environmental activities invoke Krishna as opposed to Balaram, in part due to Krishna’s greater popularity. It is significant that while these greening movements reflect the environmental concerns of urban elites and the restoration of Krishna’s idyllic pastoral landscape, they also attend to social justice concerns associated with the environment. For example, cleaning up the Yamuna River especially benefits those whose livelihoods are based on the river. While Krishna’s idealized Braj landscape offers resources for environmental thought and action, this portrayal of the landscape parallels the sanctity and idealization of wilderness. Krishna’s relative popularity as an icon for the environment—instead of Balaram, Krishna’s agriculturalist brother—further demonstrates the urban roots of the pastoral. This dichotomy thus reflects the predominant interests of urban constructions of nature in both Indian and Western culture and parallels the dichotomy in contemporary environmental rhetoric. That is, the predominant Western environmental tropes are based on idealized

The Land in Between

173

representations of the natural world, and these romanticized landscapes present—or are believed to present—no human intervention. Thus, by definition, agriculture has no role in such an idyllic nature because agriculture will always involve intervention, no matter how minimal. As described earlier, much of this contemporary environmental rhetoric emerges from members of the urban or middle class, whose interactions in the landscape are primarily through gardening or outdoor recreation. Understanding why agricultural interventions have become subordinate requires us to investigate our own idealized nature.

Encountering the Fantasized Landscape Romanticized views of the natural world and tropes of wilderness have structured the discourse in U.S. environmental thought, and in doing so have relegated agricultural interventions to the margins. While the dynamics between the pastoral, agricultural, and urban in Hindu culture reveal similarities to those dynamics in the United States, the two do not share the same narrative origins. The tropes of the paradisiacal garden of Eden and chaotic wilderness that appear in biblical narratives have laid the foundations for Western environmental discourse. These biblical foundations and the dynamics they engendered situate the concept of wilderness in a religious dimension that emerges, for example, in John Muir’s articulation of a sacralized wilderness. The human expulsion from Paradise—the Garden of Eden—is a fall from grace and represents a rupture with a romanticized nature, a break that resulted in work and agriculture.28 The tropes of expulsion and punishment render this narrative a tragedy, in contrast to the Hindu narratives, which represent the comic element of resolution and renewal. Carolyn Merchant describes the Penobscot story of the Corn Maiden as a similar agricultural narrative of comic resolution: During a great famine, a young married woman took a snake as a lover. When her infidelity was revealed, she told her husband how to alleviate his sorrow. “First he must kill her with his axe, then drag her body through the clearing until all her flesh had been stripped, and finally bury her bones in the center of the clearing.” Then he must plant the blade of grass clinging to her ankle. She appeared to her husband in a dream and taught him how to plant and harvest corn. In this case, resolution in the

174

Growing Stories from India

form of agriculture and survival result from the Corn Maiden’s sacrifice.29 These tropes—whether of a tragic rupture or comic restoration—provide the narrative structure for plotting the human role in regard to the natural world. The narrative structure and metaphors provide frameworks that guide how humans act within and toward the biotic community. Merchant argues, for example, that the fall and the subsequent desire to reinvent the lost paradise of Eden have shaped Western history. The marriage of science and technology has enabled us to redesign the natural world as a garden, controllable and designed to fit human needs.30 Idioms of paradise, gardens, and untouched wilderness have shaped depictions of nature in literature, art, and philosophy and are so characteristic of constructions of the natural world that they appear natural or inevitable. So natural have these biblical narratives come to seem that they have shaped environmental thought regardless of whether one is an adherent of a biblically based religious tradition. This point is important because many environmentalists in the United States have sought inspiration in nonbiblical religions, such as Buddhism, Native American traditions, or paganism, and others have consciously rejected organized or institutionalized religion as a source of environmental values, yet they, too, assume these same constructions of the natural world. In The Sunflower Forest, William Jordan argues that the narrative of the Garden of Eden represents a pure and untrammeled nature or wilderness and notes that the theme of returning to this original state of nature has trapped environmental thinkers in a backward stance.31 This goal of preserving and returning to an original nature or wilderness has shaped North American attitudes, and the ideology of a pure nature has been part of Americans’ attitudes toward the natural world from the arrival of the Puritans through ideologies of environmentalists who declare no religious affiliation. The Puritans’ dichotomous attitude toward the landscape they encountered shaped how even today we in the United States think about human relations with the natural world. Although every culture develops a social construction of nature, the land that would become the United States offered a unique opportunity to those arriving from Europe and the British Isles. The Puritans arrived upon the shores of what was later named by them New England and encountered a wild land with expansive tracts of forest. This forest represented both an unlimited bounty and a terrifying,

The Land in Between

175

chaotic wilderness. In 1609, William Strachey’s report of the New World describes it as a place of “hellish darkness; [arousing] the fear of malevolent forces in the cosmos, and of the cannibalistic and bestial traits of men.”32 Armed with symbolic and descriptive biblical accounts of wilderness, the Puritans were zealous in their desire to tame this wild land and construct a city on a hill, and they viewed these untamed tracts as analogous to the untamed passions of a mind not dominated by thoughts of God.33 This wilderness, then, provided them the opportunity to revisit the Garden of Eden and handle it better than Adam and Eve did the first time.34 The Puritans’ attitudes toward nature point to two themes that structure North American approaches to the land. First, the North American landscape is endlessly bountiful; and second, wilderness represents nature in a pure—even if chaotic—state.35 Further, in this now dominant view, pure wilderness excludes humans. This point is important theoretically and practically. Most theoretical discussions of wilderness and nature are premised upon an ideal nature that is unpeopled. In practice, this exclusion has had the social and economic consequences of removing indigenous peoples—or other marginalized people—from land that is declared wilderness. For instance, in India, the assumption that humans can only have a detrimental effect on the natural world has shaped forest policy, wherein either humans or the environment could be protected, but not both. Government officials, according to one commentator, “did not recognize the possibility that humans and their forest environment could form a single habitat.”36 Similarly, Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha have described conflicts that arose in India over the creation of national parks and animal preserves. People who had traditional rights to subsistence in those areas, whom Gadgil and Guha refer to as “ecosystem people,” lost access to these lands. Ashish Kothari, founder of Kalpavriksh, an Indian environmental group, stated that “the approach was one of saving wildlife from the people, rather than with them” and that these people were removed from land that they could have helped conserve.37 A parallel emphasis on wilderness and unpeopled lands in U.S. environmentalism leads Guha to argue that Indian environmentalism intimately links social justice and human needs with environmental issues.38 The U.S. government has removed indigenous peoples to reservations and denied them access to their lands that became designated as parks and

176

Growing Stories from India

wilderness, or later, as is the case in Oklahoma, deeded out to newcomers. The Puritans and other colonialists—who might today be considered illegal aliens—encountered populations of Native Americans who inhabited the land these newcomers considered wilderness. In their view the land was wilderness simply because they did not consider the inhabitants to be people; at best, the native populations represented a new sort of Adam. This identification of Native Americans as Adam obscured the fact that the North American landscape had been vastly altered and humanized by indigenous populations. It was not, in fact, the pristine nature that informs the concept of wilderness.39 Indigenous alterations to the land were either not apparent to the Puritans or were not recognized as such. The Puritans and later settlers were accustomed to England’s built environment, with farms and the growing practice of land enclosures, and English law and custom deemed these practices improvements. Land alterations that were considered improvements reflected European—and now North American—patterns of usage, but “improvements” is a relative term. In 1669, John Winthrop argued that appropriating land was justified because “the natives enclose no land, neither have they any settled habitation nor any tame cattle to tame the land by.”40 Winthrop and others used the rhetoric of improvement to justify land seizures and thereby created inequitable land holdings. For example, land not “improved” was considered unused and thereby open for use, and even today this view appears in discussions regarding river usage, in which waters that reach the ocean are considered wasted. Initially—and even today—European assumptions prevented settlers (and us) from seeing the less intensive alterations, such as creating prairies through regular, intensive burns; these changes were not considered improvements. Subsequently, the lack of obvious alterations and land enclosures as well as the lack of concepts of private property provided justification for the newcomers to seize lands. The area now known as Yosemite National Park was the first land granted protection through an inalienable public trust, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864, which led to the establishment of the National Parks System, with Yellowstone designated the first official national park. The history of these lands and their inhabitants demonstrates the relationship between indigenous land interventions, agriculture, and aesthetics. The Ahwahneechee tribe had historically dwelled in the Yosemite

The Land in Between

177

Valley, and their practices of burning and grazing the land gave the area the parklike appearance that Frederick Law Olmsted labeled as natural scenery.41 John Muir and the Sierra Club, steeped in a wilderness ethic, opposed such practices, and subsequently vegetation grew unchecked. The Ahwahneechee were evicted from the area in 1851; and in 1921 Totuya, the last survivor of this group, returned to Yosemite. “Too dirty, too bushy,” she complained, commenting on the overgrown appearance of the park. The wilderness ethic that privileged unpeopled lands also led to the removal of farms to create Shenandoah National Park in the 1920s and 1930s, and supporters of national parks specifically preferred these parks as wild scenery as opposed to agricultural landscape.42 The rigid, hierarchical dichotomy between wilderness and used land has made it difficult to distinguish between different forms of intervention, and renders agriculture both obscure and subordinate to wilderness. These categories do not provide space for an agriculture that is long-term and sustainable. Kenneth Olwig suggests that Totuya’s judgment of the park at Yosemite as messy and unkempt was based on a sustainable land stewardship, yet the wilderness ideology allows for little distinction between sustainable and intensely extractive agricultural practices.43 Recent research on tropical forests in South and Central America indicates that the mature vegetation of today’s “pristine” forests is the result of centuries of management, so these forests should be considered both artifact and habitat.44 Further, viewing these regions as wilderness continues to obscure the existence and contributions of indigenous peoples who shaped these ecosystems. As environmental ethicist Anna Peterson notes, this recognition forces us to reconsider our responsibilities both to managed lands and to the people who managed them.45 Terms such as “empty” or “pristine”—words that become ammunition in battles to save sites designated as such—simply do not reflect the reality of human relationships and interventions in such sites.46 The Puritan notion of wilderness as a psychological testing ground emerges in subsequent thought and reflects socioeconomic developments in the United States. Puritans understood nature as the site of the battle between good and evil, and the wilderness setting provided humans the locale to test their spiritual fortitude. This understanding manifests in two variant, but related, strains. First, exploratory narratives of the western United States and later outdoor recreation accounts emphasize the role of

178

Growing Stories from India

wilderness as a site for testing an individual’s physical and psychological reserves. Second, nature becomes the site that heals wounds inflicted by the rigors of social and economic life. For example, Leo Marx explains how a vague reverence for nature manifests in a disdain for urban life and realities and is enacted through activities such as outdoor recreation, gardens, and picnics, which function as escapes from reality.47 The related views of nature as a respite from harshness and nature as a source of vigor differ, but the similarities outweigh the differences. Both use nature as a source of personal development or healing. Further, both rely on the ideology of an unpeopled wilderness, that is, the idea that the land is not—or has not been—utilized. Although the Puritans viewed nature as the devil’s playground, a spiritual challenge to be overcome, in the late nineteenth century John Muir articulated a view of wilderness as sacred, as the “terrestrial manifestation of God.”48 His concept of wilderness as spiritually nourishing and transformative has been exceedingly popular for outdoor recreationists and offers some justification for the power of the wilderness trope. The Puritans initiated the discourse that viewed the landscape in religious terms, and this discourse has continued into contemporary environmentalism. However, as Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli note, landscape could only retain such cultural influence because North Americans sacralized the concept of wilderness.49 The harshness of the Industrial Revolution provided the natural world a new role: a source of peace and respite from the rigors of urban life and strife. National parks, the countryside, and sometimes urban parks were seen as “restoring the souls” of those who consistently fought the battles of corporate life.50 A newly emerging middle class had the resources to travel to the country and to newly established national parks in the United States. Most of the expensive and beautiful hotels in the national parks, such as Awahnee in Yosemite and the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in Yellowstone, resulted from this upper- and middle-class interest in nature and wilderness, a movement that was largely both class- and urban-based. Only those of at least the middle class had the resources to take advantage of the national parks, although the lower classes did have access to city parks, such as Central Park in New York City. Contemporary outdoor recreation maintains its class-based origins, and those seeking a wilderness experience either to test themselves or to

The Land in Between

179

bond with nature can romanticize their relationship with nature in these circumstances because they typically do not have to bear the long-term consequences of an uncooperative nature. Agriculturalists, by contrast, realize the consequences of, for example, the unpredictable nature of rain. It is one thing to “survive” a rainstorm while uncomfortably sitting in a tent and an entirely different matter to “survive” flooded fields. The longing for the wilderness experience in the United States presents a parallel to the pastoral romanticization of the Braj landscape, and this parallel enables us to critique the dynamic between wilderness and agricultural tropes as they manifest in environmental discourse. The natural world still bears the burden of recreational and aesthetic projections, and much environmental thought and funding rests upon these visions. Mountain bikers, kayakers, and backpackers test themselves against the challenges of mountains, rivers, and lakes. Others seek the benefits of a wilderness experience so they can develop relationships with the natural world that humans seem to have lost in urban society; I place myself in this category. However, the potential of encountering a polar bear while backpacking in the Arctic was a sobering reminder of my own vulnerability and romantic only in retrospect. The 2005 documentary film Grizzly Man graphically depicted the fatal results of Timothy Treadwell’s relationship with grizzly bears in Alaska.

Social Constructions of Nature Reappraising one’s own place within the food chain demands recognition both that different cultures have socially constructed the biotic community, or the natural world, and that despite such constructions, participation in the biotic community has real, material consequences. When we reflect on our place in the natural world, we must recognize that the natural world we are reflecting upon is a social construct based in a particular culture. Further, we must recognize that human participation in the natural world has consequences. This reflection raises two important questions: first, What do we mean by socially constructed? and second, What do we mean by the natural world? As a grounding concept, social construction carries certain connotations that can be unpacked and examined. For example, my use of the term biotic community reveals a particular construction that draws upon

180

Growing Stories from India

entailments of community, such as relationship and interdependence, which themselves carry a moral resonance. This usage reflects George Lakoff ’s ideas that metaphors structure thought and that multiple metaphoric realms can apply to a topic. However, discussing the social construction of nature is problematic, both theoretically and practically. First, “socially constructed” suggests that society provides theoretical frameworks through which individuals interpret the natural world. For example, the Braj pastoral grants devotees the vision of a cooperative and romanticized landscape. However, the concept of social construction becomes problematic in some postmodernist approaches because this term suggests that nothing lies behind a socially constructed meaning—that is, there is nothing real behind the linguistic and social constructs of different cultures. If the concept of nature is simply formed within a human-centered value system, it has no real or demonstrable existence outside of this construct. In this case, all culturally derived meanings have the same validity, so none is really correct. This point is important for environmentalists, and here the problem becomes practical. If we understand that nature is a construct and not real in itself, then it is difficult to argue environmental policy for a mere social construct. However, it should be clear to anyone who spends much time in areas commonly construed to be wilderness that regardless of any assigned meaning, something real and material exists. So, regardless of the meaning we assign to polar bears, these bears view humans as prey. No matter what you call it—wilderness, nature, or the biotic community—it does not conform to human projections and fantasies. This kind of recognition of the material dimensions of nature—a science-realist position—is essential for any environmental discourse. Although humans might comprehend and act in and upon the natural world according to socially determined patterns, the physicality of the earth and the body provides the ground and material for such thought and action. Similarly, while we might discuss the human—and gendered—body as a socially constructed entity, the body’s very real biological processes and responses, including pain, provide a critical ground from which to argue for proper treatment of the body. So then it is possible to argue that practices that cause pain—foot binding, for example—are wrong.51 This point echoes philosopher Mary Midgley’s dialectic between the science-realist and social constructivist positions on the issue of human nature. She ar-

The Land in Between

181

gues that while humans have an innate or perhaps even a genetic disposition for behaviors, these behaviors are not determined; and she further argues that ideas and social institutions have causal influences. Biological processes have real consequences, and ignoring them causes harm. For example, a cat that eats only food designed for humans will have nutritional deficiencies.52 Soper and Midgley provide an important middle ground between a science-realist view that ignores how nature can be used to enforce oppressive social relations and a social constructivist view that disregards the physical realities of body and earth. Improving human interventions upon the earth requires the realization that both the scientific-realist and the social constructivist approaches are necessary and further that they are not ultimately separable. Instead of a sharp dualism, culture and nature are mutually influential, and despite the physical and cultural ways in which humans affect the physical world, the material world exists and suffers.53 However, although “improvement,” too, is a relative term, biological reality offers a basis to judge what might constitute improved human relations in the biotic community. Although some might argue that a highly productive, even if short-term, monoculture is an improved landscape, the consequences of toxic pesticides and fertilizers to humans as well as wildlife offer some basis to make a judgment. Environmentalists can address criticisms of being “anti-people” that are levied upon them by recognizing the dynamics of nature-culture interdependence. Although the rhetoric of wilderness that is predominant in environmentalist dialogue does tend to exclude people in favor of key species or spectacular landscapes, many groups do focus on the concerns of people who are affected by degradation of by exclusion from lands.54 In acknowledging the social dimension, these groups emphasize both that ecological problems have social consequences and that these consequences reflect existing, often unequal, social conditions. In my second question, “What do we mean by the natural world?” I invoke the category of nature. Throughout most of this book, I use the term biotic community because it better reflects my argument regarding human interventions in the earth. For this discussion on social construction, however, I use the term nature because others who write about the social construction of nature have used this term. Soper, for example, defines nature as the “material structures and processes that are independent

182

Growing Stories from India

of human activity” and “whose forces and causal powers are the precondition of and constraint on any human technological activity.”55 Despite my critique of the terms nature and natural world, and given the lack of better options, I will continue to use nature in its colloquial sense, which seems congruent with Soper’s definition. Nature and culture are important and necessary epistemological categories because they facilitate the recognition that human intellectual and emotional capacities place humans as both within and outside of the natural world. For example, philosopher René Descartes shaped the biological and philosophical narrative that has provided subsequent thinkers with the rationale both for human superiority over the natural world and for human domination over it. This way of thinking offered scientific validity to the Christian concept of human uniqueness based on human rationality, moral abilities, and, most importantly, possession of a soul.56 Biologically, however, narratives about human separation from nature make no sense; we are intimately part of the natural world. Environmental philosopher Baird Callicott addresses human relations with the natural world using the concept of scale of effect. While biologically humans are obviously part of the natural cycle, a confluence of human skills, including rationality, culture, and opposable thumbs, has enabled us to vastly alter the landscape beyond our natural processes, such as eating, excreting, and breathing.57 There are other narratives about the world, indigenous and scientific, that tell different stories about human relationships with the natural world, and these stories offer models for altered interventions. Most indigenous cultures, whether hunter-gatherer or agriculturalist, do not recognize the concept of wilderness, and many of their ethical and religious traditions derive from their interactions with the earth.58 Anthropologist Pramod Parajuli writes that what emerges in the Adivasi (indigenous or, translated, “first resident”) worldview “is not an idea of forest as pristine wilderness untouched by humans, but a conception of space that is in continuation with the household and farm.”59 He describes the Adivasis of Jharkhand, India, as having an agroecology that is based upon a deep knowledge of the forest’s ecology. Their “ecological cosmovision” integrates views of personhood, divinity, ritual, and human institutions, and their agricultural practice demonstrates a nurturing and productive, but not dominating, use of nature.60 Knowledge of the forest is relational, and this dynamic and dialectical knowledge of the natural is constitutive of

The Land in Between

183

Adivasi personhood and community, human and other. What is important for this analysis is that this group’s use of the forest is protective and sustainable, if not beneficial, and that community mores extend to the natural world. Similarly, the Hill Maria, a tribal group in India, understand themselves to be participating in a universe of multiple entities, and their agricultural, religious, and social lives are determined by being situated within these relationships.61 Their modes of knowledge about the world emerge out of relationships based on etiquette and ethical norms that govern relationships with the natural world and sometimes with other groups as they vie for resources.62 Both of these indigenous worldviews exemplify systems of reciprocity and relationship and demonstrate that human interventions have the potential to benefit natural systems. The Hill Maria and the Adivasis illustrate indigenous systems of agroecology and exemplify what Parajuli defines as ecological ethnicities, people who have “developed a mutually nurturing relationship to natural resources and consequently a commitment to creating and preserving a technology that interacts with local ecosystems in a sustainable manner.”63 These indigenous models of agriculture—and knowledge of the natural world—integrate techniques that encourage biodiversity and the longterm health of the soil, flora, and fauna.64 “Long term” is a relative concept. On the one hand, a five-year plan is considered long-range planning in some settings, while on the other the Native American standard considers the consequences to the seventh generation in the future—about two hundred years. Traditional tropical agroforestry involves long-term cycles of clearing, planting, and fallowing, a regenerative cycle that can be maintained over centuries, and this form of agriculture is alternatively referred to as shifting cultivation, slash-and-burn, or swidden agriculture. The duration of a fallow period depends on the soil quality of the specific location; a forest fallow period can last twenty to twenty-five years. Long fallow periods overcome the soil, weed, and pest problems that plague cycles with insufficient fallow periods.65 These indigenous and shifting systems of agriculture can be highly productive, and research on agroecological systems, in particular that of ethno-ecologist Darrell Posey, refutes the narrative promulgated by industrial agriculture that intensive and monocropping systems offer the highest yields.66 According to Arturo Gomez-Pompa and

184

Growing Stories from India

Andrea Kaus, the terms “shifting cultivation,” “slash-and-burn,” or “swidden agriculture” have been applied inappropriately to those agriculturalists who either shorten or eliminate the fallow period.67 These terms have become problematic because in most cases this abbreviated form of swidden agriculture depletes soil nutrients and is unsustainable. However, the Adivasi’s low population density and their long-term cycling habits have rendered their practices sustainable over centuries. Ironically, the longterm agricultural cycles create the patterns of dense growth and biodiversity that today environmentalists and others wish to protect. These examples of long-term indigenous practices embody Posey and philosopher Donna Haraway’s contention that the natural world is an “artifact,” that is, the earth is the site of intense human-nature interaction, and its meanings are socially constituted.68 For example, despite notions of wilderness, archaeological and biological evidence reveals that the North and South American landscapes have been inhabited and significantly altered by people for approximately ten thousand years. Further, while humans are responsible for some (and now increasing) alteration, ecosystems themselves are dynamic.69 Understanding models of knowledge beyond the Cartesian and biblically based models coupled with an admission of human alteration of the landscape offers the opportunity for us to look critically at the manner of interventions—rather than focusing on wilderness as the idealized opposite of the “tainted” earth. As Anna Peterson notes, acknowledging that humans have had a wide range of effects on their habitat helps “environmentalists avoid a blanket condemnation of all human practices.” This is particularly important as human populations multiply, and can lead to the creation of more sustainable relations with the earth.70 Acknowledging that human patterns of engagement have material consequences helps us avoid the pitfalls of a purely social constructionist view of the natural world. Both Haraway and Peterson avoid this problem because they recognize that although the “forest” is socially constructed in terms of its meaning to a particular culture, human interventions have very real and tangible effects on the natural world regardless of what meaning is ascribed to these effects. Further, these interventions, which are rooted ideologically in sociocultural systems, disproportionately affect different social groups, so the social constructionist discourse is real because it manifests in actual material, and typically unequal, conse-

The Land in Between

185

quences.71 Even though the natural world is the product of long-term human-nature interaction, it is more than a construct developed within the context of social categories. Karl Marx argues rightly that we humans must eat and breathe before we can think and that our knowledge emerges from encounters of embodied subjects with the physical world.72 Marx’s materialism corrects problems associated with notions of the “social construction of nature” by emphasizing that human actions have very real consequences within the material world. That the earth is the site of long-term interactions between humans and the natural realm makes it no less worthy of protection. It is important to question the quality of our interventions, and I argue that it is time for new stories to tell about human relations with the earth. The story of Balaram and the Yamuna performs two functions: first, it offers a model of obligation and reciprocity between humans and the earth. Second, it reveals and cautions us about the aggression inherent in agriculture. New stories must acknowledge the reality that agriculture is a human attempt to control the earth’s production. Callicott asked (somewhat rhetorically) whether human interventions cannot enhance natural ecosystems. The examples of indigenous agroecology offer a positive response, and the question underscores the importance of understanding both narratives and the contexts for those narratives as we interrogate specific interventions. For example, because improving nature is also the claim of industrial agriculture and, more specifically, biotechnology, it is necessary to determine what constitutes improvement and to understand who benefits from these improvements. The Hill Maria people in India demonstrate a positive response in terms of increased biodiversity and sustained forest health, and the answer is situated within a context of relationship and local knowledge.73 Similarly, as we will see in the following chapter, in the United States small-scale farmers, organic farmers, and gardeners, among others, know their lands intimately and work with the land in ways that benefit humans and local flora and fauna. Despite the rhetoric of wilderness, landscapes and forests in India and the United States have been sites of long-term agricultural manipulation by indigenous populations as well as others, interventions that have increased biodiversity and improved soil health while at the same time sustained human populations.74 Stories such as that of Balaram and the

186

Growing Stories from India

Yamuna offer tools, such as the notion of obligation, with which to evaluate such interventions. Practices based on indigenous knowledge and long-term relations with the land depict a real model in which humans can interact with the land in patterns that benefit all involved. I do not want to romanticize indigenous cultures or their environmental practices because to do so simply invokes yet another set of problems. For example, it risks valorizing oppressive social or gender hierarchies that may prevail within those systems. Nonetheless it is important to recognize the difference in approaches to the natural world because, regardless of practice, most of those within an indigenous culture or ecosystem, people who have had traditional rights to subsistence in a place, understand their natural world in terms of active relations with the human realm. This distinction—that many indigenous practices manifest a care and partnership with the natural world as compared to industrial agriculture—is significant. Distilling the qualities that contribute to benevolent practices and what constitutes benevolence provides the criteria to evaluate interventions. Such criteria are important because they provide the discourse necessary to reject the so-called wise-use policies that purport to care for forests, for example, but in reality are based on economic exploitation without regard for long-term forest health or the health of those people who are most intimately in relationship with the forest.75 Examples in both India and the United States demonstrate that humans can use, but not abuse, the land’s resources. For example, those who live in an ecosystem who know and use land intimately do not use intensive inputs, nor do they heavily export the biomass out of the region; their use is typically constrained by their low population density and the limits of the bioregion, although admittedly this limitation may not be by choice. In contrast, omnivores, to use Gadgil and Guha’s term, export their region’s biomass for short-term gain; their long-term interests are not tied to the land’s health because they can move to other regions.76 How then should we begin to evaluate such practices of intervention? In their discussions of indigenous practices of intervention, both Guha and Haraway argue that opposition to these indigenous practices often is framed in the context of norms of objectivity and representation that suggest that those with no relationship to a person or place are best suited to protect it. This ideal of objectivity embraces emotional, epistemic, and on-

The Land in Between

187

tological distance as the markers of one who “knows best” and privileges knowledge deemed scientific over that of indigenous or tribal peoples. The practical result is that people with no obvious ties to an area in question are deemed more appropriate to arbitrate its fate than those whose lives are intimately tied to this fate. The fact that many environmentalists and others fail to differentiate between the quality of interventions ironically leads to human suffering as well as further land degradation. Guha argues that removing people from forests not only promotes the loss of the rich biological and cultural knowledge of the ecosystem but reenacts the colonial “white man’s burden.” For example, surveys of Garwhal Himalayan forests showed that the forests managed by van panchayat, or the local community, were after thirty years in better condition than the reserved forests managed by the forest service.77 As mentioned above, contemporary norms of objectivity and representation lead to the notion that those unconnected to a given place are seen as the ones best able to protect it. This view assumes a natural world that is passive, the recipient of action rather than an actor who shapes its circumstances or is a moral agent in itself.78 Such a relationship is between subject and object, not subject and subject. This denies the possibility of an ethic of protection based upon proximity and relationship and at the same time obscures the social and political power of those deemed to be objective. Contrast this assumption with the Yamuna River, who is an active participant in her relationship with Balaram and, in the case of the Jharkhand forest, the ethical and protective interactions with the forest emerge from—not in opposition to—patterns of engagement and relationship between humans and their proximate world. Both Haraway and environmental philosophers Jim Cheney and Anthony Weston articulate a relationship-based epistemology in which knowledge and ethics about the natural world derive from specific and situated relationships with plants and animals.79 Knowledge emerges from practice and interaction—that is, within the context of subject-subject relationships. This relational knowledge reflects the epistemological systems of Native Americans regarding their ecosystems. For example, natural phenomena are represented in kinship terms, such as the Corn Mother, and this contextual knowledge means that these groups know the local

188

Growing Stories from India

flora and fauna through personalized relationships, not through the abstractions that objective science presents.80 Such situated knowledge suggests that all knowledge is partial and embodied within relationships as opposed to a transcendent “gaze from nowhere.”81 This transcendent gaze brings to mind Foucault’s discussion of Jeremy Bentham’s model prison, in which a single, centralized gaze enforced discipline by creating a unidirectional flow of knowledge. The panopticon, a central tower, enabled a guard to see prisoners in their individual cells, but the prisoners could not communicate with each other or the guard, nor did they know if or when they were being observed. This abstracted knowledge and the power it creates parallels the abstracted knowledge about ecological and human systems developed by scientific methods. Situated knowledge instead privileges the partial views from within a system—for example, from the individual prisoners’ point of view. This eliminates the possibility of a single, objective viewpoint—a god’s-eye view that represents an authoritative knowledge—and thereby alters the power dynamic regarding the creation of knowledge.82 Multiple processes and interactions produce phenomena such as, for example, people, plants, and animals that exist within multiple relationships and reveal different aspects within each of these contexts. We cannot know a thing simply as an object, as the passive recipient of the “scientific gaze,” without regard to its relationships to its surroundings. Because this kind of knowledge is localized and contingent to specific relationships, it demands responsibility and accountability from participants in this relationship.83 We can know little about birds, for example, without considering their environment and their habits, and that knowledge results from directly observing and taking into account their habitat.84 Cheney and Weston note that indigenous traditions gain knowledge about the natural world within the context of preexisting relationships based on etiquette. Instead of first knowing the aspects of the natural world and then basing ethical norms upon this ostensibly objective knowledge, indigenous traditions first extend the courtesy of relationship to beings of the natural world. Then, in the context of this relationship, plants and animals have the freedom to present themselves on their own terms; for example, once a person offers an animal the dignity of a subject-subject relationship, the animal may then reveal its own personality. One way to

The Land in Between

189

think of a shift like this might be to consider a pet seen as a companion rather than a possession.85 Such norms as reciprocity and mutual obligation structure these relationships, and an important goal is maintaining harmony within the cosmos and within these relationships.86 This imparts a radically different lens through which to view our world: elements of the natural world are subjects, not machines, and the “natural world” as we know it—even wilderness areas—is a response of nature to long-term human interventions. Indigenous groups have developed ethical frameworks for treating plants and animals that rely on norms of partnership and relationship; their patterns of knowledge and practice rely on interactions with specific animals. For example, in many cases, indigenous thought presumes that each animal is a moral agent, capable of making moral decisions and acting as an individual. The animal is not a machine. The mode of subject-subject relationship and knowledge through practice reflects the dialectical view of the natural world that world that Richard Lewontin, Richard Levins, and Stephen Jay Gould claim better represents biological and cellular processes. In their discussion of biological evolution, Gould and Lewontin argue against what they term the Panglossian Paradigm, in which traits emerge in response to specific needs. In contrast, evolutionary change proceeds in a dialectical relationship between part and whole, or trait and organism. That is, evolution is a product of interactions between multiple influences, and traits emerge randomly, not in response to a particular need.87 Their view of dialectical biology helps us see that these processes are flexible and relational and not determined by an end that in retrospect seems adaptive. The context of a relationship in which each partner responds to the needs of the other offers a better model for human participation within the biotic community. Environmental ethicist Holmes Rolston and others recognize that plants and animals are not passive but actively defend their interests in sustenance and reproduction. For example, black walnuts poison other plants, and carnivores eat herbivores.88 To the extent that plants and animals have coevolved with humans, we participate in dialectical relationships with them, although we typically do not recognize mutual obligations or reciprocity. When we discuss relations between humans and the earth in terms of agriculture, a dialectical pattern provides models of intervention that can

190

Growing Stories from India

include the narrative elements of reciprocity and obligation. Dialectical biologists such as Lewontin, Levins and, to some extent, Gould highlight reciprocity and obligation as cultural and religious dimensions and offer variant narratives that reflect Marx’s theory of the metabolic interaction between nature and society. Reexamining our narratives of agriculture in terms of our dialectical relations with the natural world provides openings to see these relationships in terms of obligation, responsibility, and reciprocity and to recognize the agency and self-determination of the biotic community. Two caveats are in order here. First, I am not suggesting that biological models of dialectical relationships should determine human action; the is of nature should not determine the ought of human ethics. I am, however, exploring the ways in which reciprocity and accommodation of agency might help us rethink agricultural practices and interactions with the biotic community. Second, this discussion of interventions and the recognition that indigenous peoples have altered land considered wilderness should not be used as an argument against land preservation. Regardless of whether undeveloped lands fit into an official definition of wilderness, large tracts of open land offer the sole hope of survival for numerous species of flora and fauna. The goal of my discussion of interventions is not to destroy the little undeveloped land that exists but to consider alternative means of food production. Marx and dialectical biologists’ delineation of human-nature relations and all organism-environment relationships as dialectical, coevolving, and nondetermined offers us tools to reassess how we as humans intervene in the natural world. And this emphasis on the quality of our interactions addresses a large and critical lacuna within environmental thought. Premising an agricultural ethic on the quality of our interventions that is framed in terms of relationships helps us steer clear of two related problems. The first is an environmental ethic based on idioms of pristine nature, and the second is contemporary wise-use policies. The former relies upon concepts of unsullied or pure wilderness, which agriculture clearly is not; and the latter is merely extractive and obscures problems with language of opportunity and equitable use. We can address these problems by reflecting upon the relationship between Balaram and the Yamuna River; doing so can help us think through options for human relationships with the biotic community.

The Land in Between

191

Revisiting a Romanticized Nature I have argued that agriculture is not romantic for most North Americans, in part because it runs counter to notions of wilderness. That is not to say that there is no romanticization of rural life, and the rural lifestyle plays a large role in French and British imagination as well. The small farm depicted in storybooks shapes urban fantasies about life in the country, and a slower, simpler life remains a dream for many in the hectic and competitive urban jungle. Fantasy meets reality, however, when urbanites move to the country and confront annoyances such as slow-moving farm vehicles and the odor of manure. The reality of agriculture is that it is fundamentally a form of human relations with the earth; but we can rethink and revise the frames that guide these relations. Balaram—as a deity of place—presents a starting point for a discussion about the relationship and protection of a particular place. We have seen that, as a serpent-king, Balaram is responsible for a bounded location, and his responsibilities are that of a king-guardian and include agricultural productivity and sustainability. For this conversation, we should emphasize the directive that we, as humans, must not only protect our place—despite the dangers of a protection ethic—but we must recognize that we are part of the ecosystem. Marx’s materialism and concept of metabolic relations are striking in relation to much of environmental discourse because he posits that we humans can have beneficial effects on our ecosystems. Being native to place, in Wes Jackson’s words, implies a certain intimacy reflected in knowledge and understanding of natural cycles, such as cycles of bird and wildlife migrations and cycles of plants. Indigenous systems that situate knowledge within the context of relationship can help sustain or improve ecosystems as each acts responsively to the needs of the other in a dialectical fashion. Again, I do not want to romanticize the nature-human relations of indigenous peoples; that is both demeaning and inaccurate. However, the situated knowledge of indigenous peoples within the context of a dialectical relationship offers us clues about how to improve our own relations within the biotic community. As humans with moral agency, we can choose our roles in this cosmic drama; for example, we can relate to the earth as conqueror, lover, or devotee, and each of these will provoke different responses from the earth. The quality of our relationships is important, and we could benefit

192

Growing Stories from India

humans and the land by engaging in a relationship of subjects, in which neither is commodified for another’s gain. We revisit the Braj pastoral because Krishna himself offers advice on the commodification of love and relationships. The mischievous Krishna has stolen the cowherd girls’ milk, which they were going to sell in the market. In his response to their reprimands, he states that milk is love, and as such it cannot be sold as a commodity. In the “economy of love” that develops from relationships, milk and love must be offered freely, and in the Braj pastoral context, they increase.89 There are no shortages in the economy of love, and money and greed have no role. In this way, the pastoral model provides insight into how we might relate to the earth through noncommodified relations. This chapter has explored how the tensions in the Braj pastoral reveal similar tensions in environmental discourse. Both the Braj pastoral and the trope of wilderness in U.S. environmental discourse romanticize the natural world and exclude the possibility of human intervention in the land. The idealized landscape does not offer us the conceptual tools to wrestle with the disturbing elements associated with agriculture, such as hunger, fertility, and the need for productivity. While idioms of wilderness and the pastoral theoretically exclude concepts of interventions, these idioms parallel—and cause—the exclusion of indigenous peoples from their traditional lands of subsistence. By contrast, the cases of the Hill Maria and the Adivasis of Jharkhand show how indigenous people can improve the health of the land in their patterns of long-term subsistence. Their practices exemplify the metabolic relations described by Marx, in which humans, plants, and animals coexist in dialectical and interdependent relationships, and in which local knowledge results in protection of the long-term health of the land. The previous chapters have investigated how story and practice related to Balaram as an agriculturalist might facilitate a rethinking of how we relate to the land in the context of agriculture. Although Balaram aggressively diverts the Yamuna River to fulfill agricultural needs, Balaram’s actions are seen in service of dharma, or the moral order. As a king and guardian of fertility and agriculture, Balaram is obligated to take action to preserve the earth’s fecundity. So his release of the Yamuna’s waters during Holi reiterates the centrality of fertility and renewal to this springtime

The Land in Between

193

festival. Continued fertility and production are necessary for social stability, and Holi celebrates the renewal of social and agricultural bonds. Nonetheless, Balaram’s aggression toward the Yamuna River might be read as a warning about treatment of the earth and women in regard to the need for production. For example, emphasizing the comedic elements of Holi text and practice privileges social stability over the addressing of inequities. We have seen how the narratives underlying science and agriculture shape agricultural practice and human relationships with the earth. Other scientific approaches, such as restoration ecology and agroecological restoration, however, offer alternate narratives and metaphors, and one alternative is the metaphor of membership in the biotic community, which entails responsibility and fairness to other community members and acknowledges the competing moral allegiances of agriculturalists. The following chapter delineates how alternative approaches to agriculture demonstrate the power of the ecological imagination to transform practice.

Growing Stories from India Sanford, A. Whitney, Shiva, Vandana

Published by The University Press of Kentucky Sanford, A. W. & Shiva, V.. Growing Stories from India: Religion and the Fate of Agriculture. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2011. Project MUSE., https://muse.jhu.edu/.

For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/13492

Access provided by Yale University Library (29 May 2017 18:30 GMT)

Chapter 7

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair Revising the Ecological Imagination To this point I have argued that narrative might help us view the task ahead of us: achieving more sustainable relations with the earth and the biotic community and rethinking human roles within that community, particularly with regard to agriculture. Studying the story of Balaram and the Yamuna River helps us understand human behavior in an agricultural context, and reflecting on this story helps us ask, In what ways do we act out our membership or citizenship within the biotic community? Although all members of the biotic community play, or have been assigned, roles in this drama, human choices of narrative have a disproportionate effect on nonhuman members of the biotic community. Industrial agriculture has caused much of this disparity, largely as the result of increasing demands for meat, processed food, and profit from newly commodified objects, such as genetic materials. The unsustainable pressure on the earth to increase production to feed humans necessitates an assessment of our narrative choices and their effects on members of the biotic community as well as the community as a whole. This chapter describes the lexicon that underlies alternative agricultural models and how this lexicon is enacted in agricultural praxis. Exploring the metaphors and narratives that underlie these alternative practices enables us to trace the consequences of both existing and alternative ones. Only then can we develop agricultural practices that reflect responsibilities to multiple biological and human communities. This is not a new call. More than fift y years ago, Aldo Leopold in “The Land Ethic” argued that human mores should expand to include the biotic community, and his work provided an alternate model to frame human interactions in that community. Today, organic agriculture and

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

195

practices such as agroecology, ecological agriculture, and restoration agriculture provide alternatives to industrial agriculture and offer a range of metaphoric structures that provide ways for us to think through different modalities for human relations with the biotic community. These practices rest upon metaphors such as reciprocity and interdependence, and these existing models reveal how the ecological imagination has shaped practice. Before we can construct and enact new agricultural narratives, we must recognize that the “scientific objectivity” of industrial agriculture is only one among many possible narratives. Then we need to explore how the underlying metaphors and narrative structure of industrial agriculture offer the opportunity to explore other metaphors and narratives. Once we understand existing structures, we can explore alternative metaphors, such as relationship and citizenship in the biotic community. Citizenship entails responsibility and fairness to other community members and acknowledges the competing moral allegiances of agriculturalists, for example, to themselves and to others in the biotic community. Relationship, drawing upon the context of our personal relationships, entails themes of respect and trust. Themes of reciprocity and mutual obligation—part of the community metaphor—are consciously enacted in the physical process of ecological restoration and in forms of sustainable agriculture, and we can see how shifts in metaphor emerge in alternative practices. The alternative agricultures I explore here demonstrate concrete practices and illuminate alternate agricultural paradigms. This work is rooted in the present but looks toward the future, so my exploration of these practices is a means to ask how we might move toward adopting the values and themes that underlie them. The urgency of the problems with our food systems demands that we rethink and revise agricultural practice at multiple levels, from individual food choices to larger-scale shifts to sustainable forms of agriculture. Alternative agricultures, such as ecological agriculture, can be scaled up or down for different needs and scenarios. For example, I might revise plant combinations in my garden based on insights I derive from restoration ecology, or a small farm seeking to improve soil fertility might adopt theories of agroecology. My exploration of the paradigms and metaphoric structures of these systems does not mean that I seek a grand narrative or universal

196

Growing Stories from India

answers, a one-size-fits-all solution, so to speak, because, in the spirit of biodiversity, variety and redundancy trump the single solution. We can learn from attempts to rethink food production at individual, group, and even corporate levels, while recognizing that solutions will emerge based on a combination of personalities, local structures, and biophysical realities. The narrative of modernity has preached the virtues of sameness, standardization, and efficiency. Now is the time to take up Fred Kirschenmann’s call for a postmodern agriculture, replacing the safety and predictability of the Happy Meal with the quirkiness of a backyard tomato. Concepts such as local foods and the French concept of terroir, as expounded by Amy Trubek, help us acknowledge the importance of pastiche and recognize that solutions will not be replicable everywhere, due to personalities and local conditions—in other words, we must reenact the saying “Think globally, act locally.”

Agriculture, Metaphor, and Narrative The narrative account of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River is foundational for Balaram devotees, and this narrative is reiterated not just in ritual behavior but also reflects social realities, as seen in Baldeo’s Holi festivities. Understanding how participants interpret Balaram as a protector of agricultural fertility exposes human attitudes of entitlement to the earth’s productivity. This Hindu narrative represents an honest wrestling with the dilemma of human need and human reliance on the natural world. My detailed analysis of Balaram’s diversion of the Yamuna River illuminated the complex dynamics of the relationship between Balaram and the Yamuna River. Balaram’s actions reveal the gender and power dimensions that exist in both agriculture and society, which is precisely why this story is an effective means to assess human relationships with the earth. The characterizations of Balaram and the Yamuna River in this story dramatize the relationality of agricultural practice and, drawing upon Martha Nussbaum’s analogy of legal justice, help us contextualize Balaram’s actions and, by extension, human behavior in the biotic community. His diversion of her waters is an aggressive and dominant act of control over this river. As king and naga,

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

197

Balaram is responsible for the fertility of Braj; but the question remains, What does it take to coax food from the earth? Devotees in Baldeo interpret this story in a Vaishnava context, in which deities and humans, males and females, humans and the earth are embedded in reciprocal, albeit unequal, relations of protection and obligation. Investigating narrative dimensions of human-earth relations as exemplified in this story illuminates social dynamics, such as class and gender, that are embedded in these narratives, which encode human behavior toward the earth and other human beings. Devotional practices toward Balaram and Krishna illustrate one way in which metaphor, relationships, and roles lead to changed practices and are thus transformative. The devotional poetry that is sung in honor of these deities invokes metaphoric realms that transform how devotees perceive Krishna’s world. Poets such as the sixteenth-century Braj poet-saint Paramanand detail the idyllic realm of Braj and its cowherding residents. His literary strategies operate upon the devotee by constructing the perceptual categories through which devotees understand both their own world and, especially, Krishna’s world. The devotees’ modes of perception are reconfigured. Sophisticated devotees are aware of their responses to the stimuli and cultivate different emotions and responses, but the important point is that they choose and consciously evoke different responses based on the roles and attitudes they assume.1 In reasoning through moral dilemmas, we play roles in narratives that allow us to imagine, in a linear fashion, the consequences of different actions. Narratives and their roles let us envision ourselves as inhabiting different roles within the context of our existing lives. For example, by riding my bicycle as a form of transportation, I see myself as an environmental actor, and dialectically, my role as an environmental actor leads to changed practices premised on my self-identity. Assuming roles is transformative, both cognitively and practically. The French concept of terroir illuminates the link between metaphor, values, and practice in an agrarian context. In response to growing urbanism and distance from their agrarian past, French tastemakers, including winemakers, bread bakers, and farmers, strengthened the real and aesthetic bond between the taste of a product and its geograph-

198

Growing Stories from India

ical location.2 This process relied on the French concept of terroir, which Amy Trubek broadly describes as the “taste of place,” meaning the physical, cultural, and regional characteristics that are embodied in, say, wine and cheese, thus making the geographic origins of a product clear and important and combating the growing “placelessness” of food, which affects consumers in the United States as well.3 Many of us might immediately associate this concept with wine, but the concept applies to a range of products. Although the French have long understood terroir, Trubek argues, tastemakers actively championed certain practices and locations over the past century so that these practices and products would not disappear. The French have responded to this novel form of contemporary mythmaking, and even today the agrarian past is used to respond to contemporary challenges. The metaphors and narrative structures of Balaram’s story and the French articulation of terroir offer options for us to reason through the dilemmas inherent in human relations with the earth. The concept of terroir moves us toward agricultural practices responsive to cultural and biophysical conditions of a given region, as in bioregionalism, that must emerge out of our direct engagement with land and multiple communities. Taking into account local cultural and biophysical conditions means accepting the agency of these communities and beings—as was the case with the Yamuna River—and relinquishing an ethic of dominance in favor of reciprocity. Metaphors influence how we understand the world and our own role in it. Mark Johnson’s cognitive theory and Braj devotional practice demonstrate a link between values and practice. In short, changing how we think leads to changes in how we act.

A Primer of Repair and Restoration In order to choose new stories and new roles we need new scripts, and these scripts must emerge from metaphoric and narrative structures that resonate with us. Our new stories in particular must account for the diverse postindustrial conditions of the United States. Creating new scripts requires that we recognize that our understanding of agriculture and our place within the biotic community itself constitutes a narrative. Balaram’s story is a means to think through existing agricul-

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

199

tural patterns and to identify tropes that might lead to an ethic of sustainability. Stories provide opportunities to explore and imagine the moral ramifications of alternate roles and actions. As our imaginations expand and we see ourselves in different roles, these roles will lead to changed actions. Leopold was one of the first to critique the modern scientific paradigm as it relates to agriculture. In a 1936 lecture, he argued that the study of ecology that emphasized interdependence represented a new holistic model for agriculture that would succeed the mechanistic industrial agricultural method. Scientific wildlife management, while far younger than scientific agriculture, has . . . forged ahead of it in one point of its philosophy: its recognition of invisible interdependencies in the biotic community. When some women’s club protests against the “control” of game-killing hawks, or the poisoning of stock-killing carnivores, or of crop-eating rodents, they are raising—whether they know it or not—a new and fundamental issue in land-use. Agriculture has assumed that by the indefinite pyramiding of new “controls,” an artificial plant community can be substituted for the natural one. There are omens that this assumption may be false. Pests and troubles in need of control seem to be piling up even faster than new science and new dollars for control work.4

Leopold was one of the first scientists to propose a holistic model of the biotic community, and this change parallels the shift in metaphors underlying medical diagnosis, such as the difference between the body as machine and the body as homeostatic organism, as I discussed earlier. Rather than concentrating on individual members and isolated processes of this community, Leopold recognized the interdependencies within the natural world. Further, he claimed that human beings were and should be “plain and simple members” of the biotic community, a concept that emerged from Darwin’s metaphor of the “web of life.”5 The status of humans as plain and simple members represented a radical departure from cultural and religious views that designated human beings as having a special status in the natural world. Contemporary religious and cultural views of humans range from conceiving of humans as stewards who have the responsibility to care for the world and humans as lords who have rights to absolute dominion; but this

200

Growing Stories from India

range of views all rests upon the idea that humans occupy a special role within the natural world. Leopold, however, argued that, as plain and simple members, we humans have no special status within the natural world and we must function within the restrictions of the biotic community. In this way, Leopold anticipated the subsequent environmental ideology of deep ecology, a philosophy that stresses the intrinsic worth of all beings. Leopold’s narrative is one of partnership and community, and humans must act in ways that maintain—and do not destroy— their biotic community. His land ethic succinctly articulates that human actions are judged as ethical to the extent that such actions maintain the integrity of the biotic community. Leopold’s thought is particularly relevant to discussions of interventions because Leopold himself both farmed and hunted. His notion of the biotic community recognized that humans are part of the natural world; but, more important, he acknowledged that humans do—and must—intervene in ways that alter our natural environment. For example, we must eat to survive, and that means that something—whether plant or animal—must die. Humans and other predators are part of the biotic community.6 Environmental ethicist Lisa Sideris rightly argues that Leopold’s use of the biotic community metaphor differs from that of many eco-theologians (theologians who constructively address the relationship between humans and nature), whose invocations of idealized community do not recognize the Darwinian struggle for existence, such as, for example, relationships between predator and prey.7 The narrative of the biotic community and the land ethic offers guidelines for evaluating these interventions. For example, Leopold’s narrative framework suggests that agricultural practices should function in ways that support the integrity of the biotic community and that no members of the biotic community have greater rights—or responsibilities—than others. Leopold acknowledges that narrative and metaphor shape how humans act upon and within the natural world. In describing the natural world, he chose the metaphor of the biotic community, a choice that reflected his ethical values toward this community. This metaphor entails the concepts of responsibility and fairness to other community members and structures a role for humans as actors within the cosmic drama. Ricardo Rozzi and his coauthors note that Leopold’s selection

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

201

of the community metaphor draws upon appeals of kinship and common origins, and the resulting obligations to kin can represent the basis of an environmental ethic. That Leopold chose the community metaphor is important; had he emphasized the metaphor of the “struggle for existence,” a radically different set of entailments would have emerged, in the same way that the concepts of competition and individualism reflected the social mores of Darwin’s nineteenth century.8 Leopold’s strategic choice demonstrates the relationship between facts and values that norms of objectivity typically separate. That is, the metaphors and narratives that shape how we know facts both emerge from and influence cultural values—regardless of whether the metaphoric origins of our knowledge are acknowledged. What terms might guide human participation in this community? My analysis draws Balaram and the Yamuna River into this conversation because their story helps us question human action in the context of community. Myth and metaphor are not didactic but instead provide a means for us to think through the possible qualities of our interactions. The entailments associated with community privilege certain elements in its constructions of human relations with the earth. For example, the term community—which is often idealized—tends to evoke notions of cohesiveness, sharing, and mutuality and omits themes of individualism, hierarchy, and power. Similarly, the concept of community evokes some facets of Balaram’s relationship to the Yamuna River while excluding other aspects; and revealing those facets related to community highlights attributes that describe (idealized) modes of human participation in the biotic community. As a rich metaphor, biotic community alludes to possibilities and problems of human participation, a complexity that parallels the character of Balaram. The concept of biotic community suggests that humans belong to a greater community; humans are not “outside” or “other” to the natural world. For example, membership in a community incurs privileges and responsibilities, and the concept of membership reveals the range of value-laden possibilities in community. Membership in the biotic community entails responsibility and fairness to other community members and acknowledges the competing moral allegiances of agriculturalists. Yet membership and belonging also imply

202

Growing Stories from India

exclusion and inclusion, or levels of belonging, notions that parallel both the tendency of environmental ethics to exclude agriculture and the marginalization of Balaram in Braj devotional practice. The trope of citizenship entails an even greater level of responsibility and participation than does membership. While membership accommodates perhaps a greater level of passivity, citizenship demands an active engagement and assumption of responsibility toward fellow citizens. However, the entailments associated with community can evoke romanticized ideals of community that are not borne out in existing communities. The community metaphor demands an assessment of, first, the obligations of (human) participants; and, second, the kind of community that is desired. Considering actual human communities extends the metaphoric and ethical possibilities of biotic community because examining existing communities exposes tensions, complex relations, and competing moral allegiances. The ambiguity inherent in these complexities can also be an asset because of the range of relationships inherent in community and because these relationships force recognition that community does automatically entail equity. The practice of agroecology, for example, demonstrates alternative and constructive approaches and presumes that humans have responsibility toward—and some control over—the health of our ecosystems, an important consideration given the enormous effect of our species on the environment. Philosophers of science such as Lorraine Code and Donna Haraway, sociologist Bruno Latour, historians Carolyn Merchant and Thomas Kuhn, and scientists such as Richard Lewontin have demonstrated how science is rooted in social and cultural constructs and how scientific explanations that appear to be rational and objective are in fact deeply shaped by social forces. Examining how metaphors and narratives have shaped both scientific inquiry and descriptions of the natural world clarifies that the Western scientific approach to the natural world, one of fragmentation and control, is one of multiple narrative choices. In controlling nature, humans’ role is one of conquistador, and the dominant metaphor is the war on nature. This view was not found or discovered as some sort of truth or fact; it was constructed. Facilitating a narrative that does not rest on idioms of domination and constraint allows us to construct an alternative narrative. For example,

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

203

systems of organic agriculture based on the concept of ecological community rely on tropes of complexity, emergent properties, and renewal.9 Recognizing the storied nature of scientific narratives highlights the potentially fruitful and collaborative relationship between science and environmental ethics. Once we acknowledge that science is not value-free, that the richly descriptive narratives and metaphors that appear in scientific discourse communicate social and cultural values, we can, as Rozzi put it, “recover the link between our ways of knowing and [ways of] living.”10 Acknowledging a dialectical relationship between how we understand the world and how we live in the world enables us to choose metaphors and narratives that reflect how we ought to live in the world, which can then shape how we do live in the world. A critical step in this process is unpacking these metaphors and their entailments in order for us to imagine and evaluate the potential consequences of the metaphors under consideration. That story, narrative, and metaphor influence behavior and, conversely, that behavior shapes narrative reflect the dialectical thinking of Michael Pollan and Richard Lewontin. In The Botany of Desire, Pollan articulates the reciprocity between humans and the natural world by suggesting that plants and some domesticated animals may have tamed and shaped human culture according to their needs. Further, Lewontin highlights the dialectical materialism of natural processes: organisms and environments coevolve—that is, the influences are bidirectional. While acknowledgment of this fact is not an attempt to derive the “ought” from the “is,” it does recognize that social values and cultural narratives reciprocally influence scientific explanations of natural processes. Paradigmatic stories, such as that of Balaram and the Yamuna River, both reflect an understanding of the dialectical relationships between organisms, including humans, and shape attitudes that in turn shape how we act toward other organisms that comprise our environment. Story, narrative, and metaphor provide the frameworks through which humans choose what roles they play in relationship to the other members of the biotic community. Narratives of control and domination have structured the human role regarding our contemporary industrial agricultural system, but it has become increasingly clear that

204

Growing Stories from India

the paradigm of dominion is not sustainable. As a potential alternate narrative, evolution offers the roles, narratives, and scope for humans to develop sustainable relationships with the biotic community. While we can derive multiple stories from evolution, let us focus on this particular narrative of evolution, as expounded by Leslie Paul Thiele, to reason through how a particular metaphoric framework and its entailments can create alternative paradigms for human practice. Thiele wrote: “The evolutionary narrative teaches us about the need to adapt to the times and about the human capacity, and responsibility, to learn. The evolutionary narrative is perhaps the only story sufficiently grand in scope, robust in fact, and rich in metaphor to aid us in resolving our ecological concerns today.”11 The evolutionary history of human beings reveals how we humans have been given—and how we have developed and refined—the abilities of both learning and moral reasoning. Given the significant ecological problems we now face, the narrative setting of evolution suggests that humans can adapt and take on roles that emphasize longterm sustainability rather than continue current patterns of unsustainable consumption. Such a stance anticipates the needs of future generations, generations of not only humans but fellow citizens in the biotic community who will be affected by whatever roles we adopt. Acting as a citizen of the biotic community incorporates consideration of the needs of fellow citizens, including human needs, and consideration of what forms of relationships could be mutually beneficial. Using an evolutionary narrative does not assume that the development of an environmental ethic is progress, as in a modern worldview or a step in teleological view of evolution; instead, this narrative suggests that humans should adapt to their environment in ways that can be mutually beneficial as well as necessary for long-term survival. As Thiele wrote, “The extension of ethics to the land-community was held by Leopold to be ‘an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity.’”12 Such a view, argues Thiele, represents successful human adaptation to contemporary environmental circumstances and the possibility for long-term survival of the human species. This evolutionary narrative of learning and adaptation offers humans alternate patterns for interactions within the interdependencies of the biotic community. Proposing this evolution-based model offers several benefits, among which are fa-

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

205

miliarity and adaptation—qualities that might facilitate incremental shifts as we incorporate new insights and patterns of behavior. The evolutionary narrative may serve as a useful way for us humans to shift both our metaphoric understanding and related behaviors, but other options exist for rethinking our actions in the biotic community. These become apparent when we acknowledge that industrial agriculture—labeled scientific and thus objective—also lies within a narrative that reflects social and cultural biases: it is not neutral. In fact, idioms of dominance and control shape practices of industrial agriculture, and although these metaphors have become naturalized and might appear “obvious,” they reflect attitudes about human control over the earth that appear in multiple agricultural scenarios. Balaram’s interactions with the Yamuna reflect deeply held views about human-earth relations that appear in multiple cultural settings. These demonstrate that other possible relations exist and free us to make choices about the narratives and metaphors that guide our actions within the biotic community. The image of Shiva’s household illustrates qualities of mutual obligation and reciprocity in human-earth relations that exist in contemporary, emerging agricultural narratives, such as restoration ecology, which emphasize mutual exchange, restoration, and acts of ritual atonement. Although agriculture will always be a system of control, incorporating such values as gift and exchange, reciprocity and balance might help us perceive—and perform—agriculture in a context akin to agroecology, the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.

Alternative Agricultures The increasing prevalence of farmers’ markets, small organic farms, and kitchen gardens demonstrates that producers and consumers are searching for alternative agricultural models. For example, the Abundant Edible Landscapes project in Gainesville, Florida, creates lowmaintenance, edible landscapes in backyards and other small spaces. The Chicago-based Growing Home, a nonprofit organic agriculture business and job training program, combines sustainability with social equity. Similarly, a 2009 New York Times article showcased a new program that allows consumers to trace the origins of flour to the grower.13

206

Growing Stories from India

School gardens create community and provide nutritional food for lowincome children and often their families as well. These initiatives draw upon values of reciprocity and mutual obligation, qualities important for citizenship in human communities, and illustrate how these qualities could be extended to relations with the land. Alternative models of agricultural practice, including agroecological restoration, agroecology, and restoration ecology, involve attempts to rethink human engagement with the land. These new systems draw upon models of agriculture that predate industrial agriculture, but do so creatively and reflexively and aim to replicate the long-term practices that that can be seen in some of the forms of indigenous agriculture discussed earlier. Some critics have found it easy to label advocates of sustainable and/or alternative agricultures unscientific or romantic because these systems do not resemble what is today seen as productive and efficient. These agricultural systems, however, have been articulated by scientists and/or agriculturalists who are grounded in contemporary research, science, and agricultural practice. For example, plant and soil scientist Fred Magdoff ’s research focuses on soil fertility and management and applies ecological principles to agricultural production.14 While these systems invoke the interdependencies and complexities that characterized older agricultural systems, they do not attempt to reclaim a romanticized agricultural past or to ignore knowledge gained through scientific inquiry. Scientist-agriculturalists at institutions such as Iowa State’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Land Institute are blending time-tested practices that rely on resilience and complexity with innovative research to meet contemporary needs, such as perennial polycultures. That these theories and practices have strong practical and scientific credentials answers an important critique of environmental narratives offered by Lisa Sideris, who argues that ecotheologians use terms such as harmony, stability, and interdependence to describe the biotic community, but that these terms that do not reflect trophic realities and fail to account for emerging views of ecosystems as changing and disorderly.15 This critique is important because scientist-agriculturalists, including Leopold, use the metaphor of the biotic community and its entailments to think through agricultural practices, an indication that these metaphoric structures can play an important role.

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

207

William Jordan coined the term restoration ecology to designate a set of restorative practices that he oversaw at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum. Although it is not agriculture, restoration ecology brings up questions that are important for agricultural restoration, such as, What are we restoring to? Working at the intersection of ecology, religion, and restoration, Jordan directs the New Academy for Nature and Culture, a think tank for restoration-based environmentalism. Although he coined the term restoration (or synthetic) ecology, scholars such as Leopold and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted preceded Jordan in these efforts. In 1934, Leopold himself dedicated the Arboretum to restoring the native Wisconsin ecosystem. According to Jordan, these practices combined the best elements of two forms of environmentalism—the conservationist’s willingness to participate in the ecology of a natural landscape, and the environmentalist’s insistence on the inherent value of that landscape, independent of its value to humans—into a single act that linked engagement with total respect. This act, it seemed to me, provided the basis for a new kind of environmentalism—actually a new environmental paradigm—that might remedy the shortcomings of these earlier paradigms, neither of which—who would dispute the point?—has proved adequate to the task of ensuring the survival of the world’s natural landscapes or of providing the basis for a healthy relationship with them.16

Restoration ecologists must deal with some of the same practical and ethical issues that agriculturalists face, and the process of restoration raises practical and ethical issues regarding how humans alter landscapes, questions that do not arise in regard to pristine landscapes.17 Agricultural restorationists must be conscious of, and make historical decisions about, which landscape they wish to re-create. That is, they must interrogate the “when” of their restoration, asking, for example, Is this a restoration to a precolonial or preindustrial landscape? In cases when human practices such as prairie burns resulted in greater biodiversity, for example, restorationists must decide what ecosystem to restore and what human practices, if any, are necessary to maintain that biodiversity. As agriculturalists rethink and transform agricultural systems, they, too, face similar questions. For example, as farmers choose to move away from monocultures and diversify their crops, they must decide what combinations of plants work together to increase soil health, and they might gain insight from studying the agricultural practices of different eras within a particular bioregion.

208

Growing Stories from India

While restoration ecology rests upon solid scientific foundations, writings on restoration ecology incorporate humanistic dimensions of ritual, renewal, and relationship, all of which offer possibilities for us to think through agricultural practices. For example, Jordan understands the physical process of restoring the land as a form of ritual atonement, a form of expiation for the harm we have inflicted upon the biotic community. He writes, “Just as the first farmers invented ritual sacrifice as a way of dealing productively with the intensification of shame they encountered in the acts of domestication and cultivation, a similar step into the dimensions of performance will be needed to make science an occasion for sacrament and the creation of higher values.”18 In other words, when the physical labor of restoration becomes ritualized, the penance of labor becomes a means to heal both the earth and humans’ relationship to the earth. This healing and resolution, Jordan writes, places restoration in the realm of comedy because comedy, by definition, entails resolution. The labor of restoration celebrates renewal and begins to resolve the rifts that have arisen between humans and the land.19 To the extent that religion addresses community and renewal, restoration ecology is religious practice in terms of healing our relationships with the entire biotic community.20 Jordan’s discussion of shame and ritual atonement draws on Jonathan Z. Smith’s argument that ritual sacrifice developed as a means for agriculturalists, not hunters, to deal with the shame of domestication and its associated killing.21 Smith argues that sacrifice is a societal means to consider domestication, a process in which humans alter the behavior and genetics of plants and animals. The domesticated animal is in a liminal position between humans and wild animals, and the sacrificed animal is in a parallel space between humans and the gods.22 Ritual sacrifice, Smith argues, and any related shame is an urban and/or agriculturalist phenomenon; hunters view killing as part of the course of life, and hunts and kills are guided by an elaborate set of rules and etiquette.23 For agriculturalists and pastoralists, domesticating plants and animals is the primary means of relating to the biotic community; they do not have the same close kinship or familial relationships with plants and animals that hunter-gatherers maintain. Ritual sacrifice mediates shame about the “selective” killing of plants and animals within agricultural, urban, and pastoral societies.24 Native peoples of the Americas employ ritual means to regain the harmony between humans and the cosmos that could be lost as the result of

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

209

killing of plants and animals. The humans apologize to the guardian spirits of the plants and animals, a ritual that functions within an ethos of harmony and reciprocity between humans, plants, and animals.25 Traditional cultures—whether hunter-gatherer or agricultural—typically have had to confront the reality that continued human survival relies upon the killing of plants and animals, and they have developed rituals to acknowledge that the earth’s gifts restore harmonious relationships between entities in the food chain. It is only recently, with the development of processed foods and packaged meats, that humans have created not only a physical but also a psychological distance from the sources of food and sustenance. Philosopher Paul Shepard writes that this remove and the lack of an adequate philosophy of death render the realization of our participation in the killing for food incredibly painful to us. Tribal cultures, however, understand food as a “larger gift of life rather than a victory over nature.”26 Shepard’s words provide an alternate and improved metaphoric foundation for relationships between humans and the land and thus for agriculture. Conceiving of the bounty of the earth as a gift enables us to re-create human-earth relations with qualities of mutual obligation and reciprocity. Situating the metaphor of the gift in the context of reciprocity and mutuality, though, is also necessary, because these characteristics ensure that the gifting is bidirectional. That is, we must give something back. Without reciprocity, the metaphor of the gift becomes justification for exploitation. Clearly, themes of gift, reciprocity, and obligation do not constitute a panacea in healing human-earth relations; the human presence upon the earth is simply overwhelming, and humans—and particularly residents of the United States—will most certainly continue to demand more than their fair share of the earth’s resources. However, these themes do allow us to begin the hard work of redefining this relationship. Both the Yamuna River and the earth Prthvi’s situations force us to confront the frustrating reality of dominance in agriculture and expose human illusions of control over the earth’s processes. The response—or agency—of the Yamuna and Prthvi reveals the concept of agency as a way of understanding and discussing agriculture. Relationships, whether between humans or between humans and the biotic community, are not always fair or egalitarian— some, in fact, are explicitly exploitive—but the tropes of gifting, obligation, and reciprocity offer criteria that incorporate responsibility and

210

Growing Stories from India

obligation into human relationships with the land and other agents in the biotic community. Gifting, reciprocity, and mutual obligation are keys to rethinking agriculture in the context of restoration. Imagining agriculture as a relationship with the land in which we must give something back in return for receiving gifts suggests new lines of inquiry. For example, how can the process of agriculture restore or enhance biodiversity or soil health? Jordan writes that while restoration ecology is a form of agriculture, it necessarily transcends agriculture because restoration is constructive while agriculture is consumptive.27 Certainly agriculture is consumptive, but can it also be restorative, or at least beneficial, to the ecosystem? Agricultural systems that meet these criteria do exist: for example, the agroecological systems of India’s Adivasi populations discussed earlier. The Adivasi agricultural systems, while not necessarily restorative, are creative and beneficial to the ecosystems. They do not degrade the ecosystem as do some other agricultural practices. Because India is remote, however, we must bring our attention closer to home and turn to our own backyard: the midwestern prairie, the heart of agricultural production in the United States. Though Dana and Laura Jackson have lamented the apparent designation of the Midwest as an “ecological sacrifice zone,” their collection of essays in The Farm as Natural Habitat heralds what they call an “agroecological restoration.” The term refers to the restored relationship between farming and natural habitats that “welcomes greater biodiversity and the use of free ecological services in their operations.”28 Although agroecological systems assume a certain amount of control, such as choosing cereals and legumes for planting, these systems rely upon native and indigenous natural processes as much as possible. Their vertically integrated natural processes range from soil properties, such as soil-carbon ratios, to water movements to migratory bird patterns, and the free flow of these processes promotes a resilient and robust biotic community.29 While the Jacksons acknowledge that agroecological restoration is clearly in its beginning phase, recent initiatives indicate that agriculture can have a restorative effect on the ecosystem. Both restoration ecology and agroecological restoration aim to repair relations between human beings and the land, changing the trope from one of domination to one of reciprocity. As we revise our roles within the

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

211

biotic community, these changes will also benefit many human communities. This is important because systems of restoration require the active participation of human beings as communities, not individuals; the needs and processes of restoration are simply too large and complex for any single individual. The necessity of human participation situates these systems outside the mainstream of earlier generations of environmental thought. For example, the environmental writings of John Muir and Henry David Thoreau suggested that entering the biotic community can only be achieved by withdrawing from the human community.30 The new paradigm of restoration represents an innovative—and yet traditional—model for environmental thought because it relies on human participation. The metaphors of gift, reciprocity, and mutual obligation inherent in restoration offer criteria that can help us imagine constructive relationships with our fellow citizens of the biotic community. For example, gifts imply mutuality and relationship—that is, when we receive gifts, the transactions establish relationships and obligations of reciprocity between givers and recipients. A relationship of obligation established through the metaphor of gifting entails continuity and the responsibility to maintain the relationship, a different form of relationship than the commodified monetary transaction or extractive, short-term relationships characteristic of intensive monocropping. Themes of obligation and reciprocity imply both continuity and mutual benefit, both of which characterize the relationship of these midwestern farmers to their ecosystems. This discussion of restoration ecology and agroecological restoration only begins to suggest models for how humans might function more sustainably and equitably within the biotic community. Humans should not dominate the biotic community but should seek to maintain integrity and equilibrium. The image of the Hindu deity Shiva’s household provides a counter-, though idealized, example to Balaram’s story and offers a model for how we humans might function in our relations with the land and its flora and fauna.

Agriculture as Comedy and Resolution Shiva’s household depicts an ideal of a balanced biotic community, but some human communities that are bound to the rhythms and abundance of their local bioregions do exist. Ramachandra Guha’s “ecosystem peo-

212

Growing Stories from India

ples” and Frederique Apffel-Marglin and Pramod Parajuli’s “ecological ethnicities” refer to nonwestern or indigenous groups whose lifestyles exist outside of—and are threatened by—patterns of Western development and consumption. Dana and Laura Jackson’s collection of essays on agroecological restoration represents contemporary attempts to live more sustainably within local biological and natural processes. Each of these groups represents people maintaining—or attempting to maintain—a healthy relationship with the land; their intimate knowledge of the land is linked to their patterns of living upon the land, a dialectical linkage of knowledge and ethics. For example, interviews with midwestern farmers demonstrate that farmers who become intimately acquainted with their land and its flora and fauna become committed to integrating conservation practices within their agricultural processes. This linkage of knowledge and ethics— respect for the land—is dialectical and represents a goal for improving our own relations with the land and the biotic community. As Beth Waterhouse writes: Land we love becomes part of us as we talk about it, spend our time learning about it, drink its water, and then teach others. Becoming one with the land leads a person to protect the land organism as if in self-protection. Living inside our heritage on the land, we are also held accountable by family and duty and memory. We are given a legacy to uphold; a grandfather’s boyhood joy in the return of the warbler resounds in our own ears. We become connected to the land, one with the land, in ways we can hardly put into words. Yet this oneness leads us, decision by small decision, towards a set of behaviors that may later be called restoration.31

This quotation illustrates the critical connection between knowing the land and acting upon the land and includes both social and natural commitments. Knowing and acting are dialectical, and human interventions upon the land reflect a growing intimacy with the land as relationships deepen. “Family and duty and memory” hold us accountable, and Waterhouse’s words demonstrate the relevance of thought to action. Heritage and family commitments are an integral part of an individual’s relationship with the land. Maintaining the land’s health is a means of honoring family and heritage, and honoring family necessitates a commitment to family lands. These commitments echo the relationship of agricultural to social health

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

213

in Baldeo’s Holi festivities. The farmers depicted in Michael Ableman’s book Fields of Plenty demonstrate the interconnection of ecological, agricultural, and social health. A farmer himself, Ableman traveled through the United States interviewing farmers who are creating new forms of food production and new forms of social relations as well. He writes that technological attempts to control agricultural production have resulted in what is “essentially a biological and spiritual problem.” Solving this problem requires creativity. “Making things up,” he continues, “requires humility, a sense of wonder, and a willingness to pay attention—close attention.”32 How we think about the land or make up a new story— constructed and communicated through narrative and metaphor—shapes action; the narrative framework entails qualities, such as reciprocity, that construct human obligation to the land. If a person’s moral framework links honoring family to honoring the land, then that person will treat the land differently than if the land were merely a commodity with little emotional resonance. An ideal reciprocity in human-earth relations would be dynamic, a robust system in which each responds to the ever-changing needs of the other. Such a system recapitulates Lewontin’s descriptions of genetics and cell biology as coevolving, contingent, and adaptive; the system is not teleological but responds freely to the needs of the participants. Evan Eisenberg describes this process as “earth jazz,” a form of improvisation in which all elements of the biotic community are accorded space and time in the cosmic score, and each riffs off of the others.33 Similarly, Ableman describes the juxtaposition of treasured varieties of pear as “agricultural jazz,” as a riff in a spontaneous and unique composition.34 The stories and practices of Baldeo offer yet another model: that of dance. Like jazz, this dance often includes many participants, and the dancers respond to nuances in the others’ movements. The ritual dance between the younger brother and sister-in-law (devar and bhabhi) that occurs in Baldeo during Holi provides a visual analog for this concept. In this free-form dance, the younger brother dances with his sister(s)-in-law, each holding the end of a scarf, and the group moves according to the steps of the other. As such, the tropes of jazz and dance illustrate an ideal of agricultural relationality that is dynamic and responsive, not one-sided and static. While the trope of jazz resonates because it points to an ideal of agricultural relationality that is dynamic and responsive, the inclusive nature

214

Growing Stories from India

of jazz overlooks some very real shortcomings in our social and agricultural practices, highlighted by the metaphor of the dance in Baldeo story and practice. First, Balaram was not invited to Krishna’s dance with the cowherd girls; he hid behind a rock and later had his own dance at Holi. Second, not everyone participates in the devar-bhabhi dance in Baldeo: the participants are primarily those of the Ahivasi Gaur Brahmins who serve the Dauji Temple, and the women of the more elite families do not participate. The idealized image of the dance overlooks forms of social exclusion, and this exclusion, it may be said, points to the exclusion of agriculture—and agriculturalists—from their due consideration within environmental thought. While earth jazz is an ideal, Balaram’s dance better reflects social realities. Balaram and the Yamuna River’s relationship facilitates our rethinking of the metaphoric entailments of human-earth relations and the nature of agricultural manipulations. This story illuminates the dangers of relationship based on control and protection, which can lead to exploitation and an overemphasis on productivity at the expense of a long-term, sustainable partnership. These cautions direct us to the importance of agency and freedom in regard to relationships within the biotic community. Emerging forms of agriculture, such as agroecology, presume the importance and relative freedom of interactions between different agents and participants. The metaphor is one of homeostatic organism, and the goal is the long-term stability of the system. This language of stability reflects the long-term relationship between deity and devotee within Vedic and later Hindu ritual systems. In this system, deity and devotee participate in long-term relationships of mutual obligation and reciprocity; the pervasive metaphor is not one of extraction, which is finite and one-sided. Instead the narrative is comedic, and the metaphor one of renewal and regeneration. The stories collected by Dan Imhoff in Farming with the Wild demonstrate how these metaphors of renewal, restoration, and reciprocity are enacted in existing agricultural practices in the United States. He visited farms, ranches, and habitat restoration projects to see how these entities integrated the wild into agriculture—which, of course, necessitates some degree of control. “Farming with the wild,” Imhoff states, involves “people tuning in to both the small picture of their own farms and ranches and to

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

215

the broader landscape, working in partnership with, rather than against, the surrounding natural world.”35 These practices adapt to natural cycles, including those of migratory birds, native pollinators, and natural waterflows, and so balance human direction with the agency of the biotic community. Similarly, Kirschenmann’s own transition from conventional to organic agriculture illustrates different human roles in these forms of agriculture. His original impulse, Kirschenmann states, was to control and eradicate wildness on his farm; but he later realized that “the appropriate role for humans” is to “engage in a dance with other species in the biotic community in a manner that enables the community to renew itself—both its wild and domestic parts.” Agricultural stories such as Kirschenmann’s and those collected by Ableman exemplify how farmers literally enact metaphors of reciprocity as depicted in the tropes of jazz and dance.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves and the Ways We Live Metaphors of dominance and a mechanistic nature have led us to an agrarian crisis, yet it is one that provides opportunities for change. The social and environmental damage associated with industrial agriculture as well as the myriad uncertainties about how and what we should eat present an ideal occasion to explore different options for agriculture and food production. How can the metaphoric resonances of the biotic community help us rethink agricultural practice? Beginning with the question “Does this action reflect good citizenship in the biotic community?” is a practical step toward tracing the consequences of the different entailments of this metaphor. This question challenges us to employ our ecological imaginations to determine whether an action is appropriate and just for all members of the biotic community and so is a means to critique existing narratives and practices. Narratives become transformative to the extent that they alter actual practice; and, in an iterative cycle, the changed practice reinforces new modes of thinking as new values, concepts, and ideas transform practice. We must transform agricultural practice at multiple levels, and our ecological imagination provides guidance for individual as well as group practice, from the gardener deliberating methods of pest control to government entities debating agricultural subsidies. The ecological imagina-

216

Growing Stories from India

tion then becomes ecological action, and our new story becomes practice. When we take seriously the ramifications of citizenship in the biotic community, agriculture can become a practice of restoration and renewal. Balaram and the Yamuna River’s story can help us think through the complex issues of how humans intervene upon the earth in terms of agricultural practice. So, whether as small-scale gardeners or larger-scale agriculturalists, we must consider our responses when the earth does not produce as planned. In the past, how have we asked for the earth’s gifts? Have we, rather, demanded the earth’s gifts? I suggest that we have made such demands through using toxic chemicals indiscriminately, diverting waters, destroying genetic diversity, and privileging profit over restorative practices. Balaram demanded and the Yamuna River refused, and her refusal suggests that we should rethink how we ask the earth to produce food. If the Yamuna River refused to respond to harsh demands, then perhaps we should rethink our requests to acknowledge the agency of the biotic community, as exemplified by the adaptation and reciprocity of agriculturalists who farm with the wild. By engaging our moral imagination, we can envision what sort of actors we want to be as we assume and play the role of citizen in the biotic community and accept the potential consequences of our actions within this community. Balaram’s dragging the Yamuna River reflects existing human behavior and so is an implicit critique of existing human practice. Yet this story illustrates the competing responsibilities regarding sustenance and tensions extant in agricultural practice. Balaram’s story ends in resolution, and resolution situates it in the realm of comedy rather than tragedy or even irony. The comedic emphasis on resolution overrides legitimate concerns about hierarchy and equity; yet this story draws our attention to issues about maintaining the earth’s fertility. The story of Balaram and the Yamuna River is situated within the springtime festival of Holi, and the practices of Baldeo’s Holi—the bonfire and the comedic elements of the parade and dance—reaffirm this festival as one of fertility and renewal. It is not tragedy, as in the biblical Fall and expulsion from the garden, nor is it the irony of progress to wasteland, as William Cronon argues. The metaphors and narrative structures of Balaram’s story help us reason through dilemmas inherent in human relations with the earth and acknowledge the relationality of agriculture. Balaram’s actions demonstrate a set of conflicting moral allegiances: he

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

217

must negotiate his responsibilities to his family, to the river, and to those he is bound to protect, and these competing responsibilities parallel the obligations of agriculturalists. His festival directs us toward resolving our damaged relations with the earth, and the possibilities and pitfalls illustrated by his story offer narratives and metaphors for us to envision agriculture as a form of restoration. Balaram’s story gives us the chance to create new models that reflect our responsibilities to multiple biological and human communities so that we can repair human relations with the biotic community. I have been thinking about Balaram’s story for a number of years now. During this time, I have lived in both Iowa and Florida and have made numerous trips to India. Considering the food and agriculture in each of these locations has offered me perspectives from which to consider the others. For example, my most recent trips to India, during which I have visited Vandana Shiva’s farm Navdanya in Uttarkhand and several farms associated with Gandhian philosophies and practices in Maharashtra, have demonstrated to me that Indian farmers and consumers share similar concerns about the social and environmental problems associated with large-scale agricultural systems. Indians, like many of us in the United States, recognize that we must create alternatives to existing food systems, and demands for change are now emerging from multiple segments of society, ranging from the urban middle class to subsistence farmers. The Gandhian farmers, in particular, have stressed regional self-sufficiency, and my discussions with these farmer-activists echo conversations with friends in Florida. More important, these Gandhians exemplify how their moral framework shapes their agricultural and social practices, and their commitment to enacting these values has inspired my own ventures into self-sufficiency. Industrial agriculture is becoming increasingly prevalent in India; yet there is a growing demand for organic and local foods in urban regions, amidst a general trend toward “greening.” While some examples, such as farmers’ markets, reflect middle-class trends, a small but growing interest in rooftop or kitchen gardens broadly appeals to both green and economic concerns, much as in the United States.36 Farmers’ markets in both Bangalore and Delhi debuted in March 2010, and Bangalore, a thriving city typically associated with India’s IT industry, boasts numerous outlets for organic foods, including stores, restaurants, and Our Native Village, an

218

Growing Stories from India

eco-resort located just outside the city.37 Our Native Village, which I visited in January 2010, reflects and caters to the growing interest in sustainable foods and green technologies, especially among India’s growing middle class. Most of the foods are produced locally, and guests can tour the surrounding agricultural lands. As one might expect, this experience of “going native” was not cheap, and the costs demonstrate that going green is beyond the reach of many Indians. Indians and North Americans share the irony that low-input organic foods cost far more to the consumer than industrially produced and highly subsidized conventional products. As is the case in the United States, in India a significant percentage of the demand for organic foods is urban and middle- to upper-class driven, but not exclusively. For example, Aparna Pallava describes efforts in rural Maharashtra to reintroduce traditional (and nearly extinct) intercropping methods, in which women plant vegetables and pulses amidst rows of cotton. As agricultural practices in the region became increasingly commercialized, the practice of intercropping faded, and those families who could not afford to purchase lentils and vegetables suffered nutritional deficiencies. This initiative, supported by two local organic farmers, “lent” the women the seed, which they later returned and distributed to other local women.38 Seed-saving practices provide economic security to the poor, especially women, who cannot afford to purchase seeds or inputs. Vandana Shiva, a globally recognized environmental and agricultural activist, has become an icon for seed-saving practices. Her seed-saving network, Navdanya, has provided farmers in India access to traditional seed stocks. Through her books and public lectures, Shiva has educated many beyond the agricultural world about the issue of seed saving, and she has demonstrated that India and the United States—and the rest of the world—face parallel questions regarding food production. She articulates her advocacy in terms of earth democracy, water democracy, and seed democracy: that control over necessities of life should not be restricted to a privileged few.39 The means of food production, she argues, should be broadly and democratically accessible, and this means both maintaining species biodiversity and ensuring public rights to save and share seeds. Seed-saving organizations in the United States, such as the nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange (founded in 1975), mirror Shiva’s concerns, and the growing demand for local and organic foods has stimulated interest in heirloom foods and animals as well.40

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

219

Shiva’s trope of democracy demands that we consciously acknowledge relations among multiple communities, both human and nonhuman, when thinking through food production. Agriculture presents a special dimension of human-earth relations: agriculture is human manipulation of biological processes to produce food. The relationality of agriculture suggests that humans and the earth have agency, but we humans can— and should—decide how we choose and play our roles within the context of what it means to be a citizen within the biotic community. Investigating the metaphors that structure our participation in the biotic community helps us see how things play out in our decisions regarding what to eat, how that food is produced, and who produces it. For example, we ought to examine what citizenship in the biotic community requires of us and explore how qualities such as reciprocity and mutual obligation shape our practices. Exploring citizenship, mutual obligation, and reciprocity as agricultural concepts elicits the potential of food and agriculture to effect beneficial interventions that enhance biodiversity and support social equity. Practices that promote biodiversity exist at multiple levels, from home gardens to farmers’ markets, and recognizing genetic diversity and where the plants fit within their ecosystem acknowledges the plant’s agency. As a citizen of the biotic community, my food practices should enhance biodiversity, and because I eat tomatoes and corn I am obligated to maintain their continued existence as diverse species. For example, planting, purchasing, and eating heirloom and nonhybrid species preserve the physical existence and continuity of those foods, and preserving these foods and varieties contributes to the cultural continuity of groups for whom these foods are central. Currently, both consumers and producers face a vast array of choices regarding food and its production, and we are making these decisions at multiple levels, from national agricultural policy to individual decisions about a backyard garden. Today, food safety scares, financial woes, and higher food prices have prompted many to consider growing their own food. Any home gardener might adopt the prevalent narrative of modernity: better gardening though chemistry, with heavy applications of pesticides and herbicides to kill intruding bugs and weeds. This same gardener, however, might instead consider a range of reciprocities, including those between the soil and the gardener, between soil and plants, and between plants themselves, which might alter the choices made.

220

Growing Stories from India

My husband, Kevin, and I are among these new gardeners. Although both of us have gardened before, we are now working on a much larger scale and in a new ecosystem—north-central Florida—which, fortunately, like much of India, has two growing seasons. We are working to transform our yard into an edible landscape, and we are committed to the philosophy and ethics of local and organic agriculture. Eating out of our yard means eating seasonally and growing plants that are native or have been adapted to our climate. In north-central Florida, this means citrus for much of the year, a range of vegetables during fall and spring, and endless greens of many varieties throughout the winter. Due to my Southern roots, I am inordinately fond of foods that have become local to this region, including okra, lima beans, and collard greens. When I was a child, these vegetables were flavored with a healthy dose of bacon grease. Today, however, I favor healthier methods of flavoring (and must be especially creative on week eight of kale). Further, by eating seasonally, our eating habits benefit both the local economy and the local ecosystem. As a gardener and consumer of food, I recognize that my role in the biotic community involves using—and eating—fellow community members: my fruits, vegetables, and herbs. In return, I attempt to benefit elements of the biotic community, particularly through enhancing the soil, and do so in a spirit of reciprocity and mutual obligation. The soil of this region is generally quite sandy, so gardening tends to require either raised beds or building up the soil. At present, we are building rich soil through composting. My composting is uneven, and it is a humbling experience to botch the process of rotting leaves. We live on a small lake, and hydrilla, an invasive species that clogs bodies of freshwater along the eastern seaboard, is a great asset for enhancing the fertility of our soil. Simply by “weeding” our lake, we have pulled out hundreds of pounds of organic material and spread it around existing plants and new plots. In doing this work, we become covered with mud (which is fun) and are usually sore the next day (not fun). The work is meditative and an opportunity to let my mind wander; because being outside is a treat, it is never boring, especially after we saw the alligator in our lake. (I did not find Kevin’s explanation of how to shut an alligator’s jaw reassuring.) In addition, this labor will feed us, helps the soil, and beats sitting at a computer. Reflecting on this labor brings up several tensions regarding agriculture and agricultural labor. First, weeding the lake is fun because we di-

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

221

rectly benefit and because it is a break from our routine. However, I would not want to do it on a daily basis, so when I purchase food, I consider the laborers who produced that food, and I am aware of their compensation. Second, designating hydrilla or other plants as weeds is a value judgment— although a necessary one if we are to eat—and treating it as a weed results in its dying. While I, and many others, recoil at felling a large tree even if it is invasive, few of us have qualms about picking weeds. Practices such as weeding make it clear to us that the creative process of growing is also one of destruction. This brings us to my third point: agency and control. As gardeners and agriculturalists, we continually seek balance between controlling our plants and allowing an element of agency, or wildness. We saw Balaram’s frustration at the Yamuna River’s agency, and I have been frustrated by our three-year-long drought. We have been experimenting with rainwater harvesting as well as choosing plants that prosper in our water conditions. Similarly, I have empathized with Balaram’s rage when I see bug-eaten leaves on my tomatoes. I admit that at times my initial response is one of anger and a desire for big guns like DDT. Still, I try to recall my commitment to balance and to seeking alternatives to what I see as the harshness of Balaram’s response. I asked what would happen if Balaram had tried other methods to coax the Yamuna River, and currently I am exploring alternate remedies, such as companion planting. I am aware, however, that dealing with the agency and varying interests of the biotic community is maddening, which is why Balaram’s story is so potent. Our choice to eat primarily local and organic foods requires us to be attentive to the food we grow and the food we purchase. We purchase most of our vegetables through a local CSA and pick up our weekly share at the farmers’ market on Wednesday afternoons. Eating is a daily practice, and each meal either reinforces my choices or confronts me with my perceived shortcomings. We are not purists by any means and eat and drink a variety of nonlocal and nonorganic options; but, particularly as I grow more food, I am very aware of seasonal options. Our practices of eating, growing, and purchasing exist in a repeating cycle in which our narrative of reciprocity and growth of biodiversity both reflects and shapes our behavior, and we consider participating in the biotic community as a form of gift exchange. Considering these multiple reciprocities and considering the earth’s

222

Growing Stories from India

produce as a gift situate gardening in a moral framework in which gardeners consider their gardens in a context of multiple obligations and needs. While they still need the food they produce and recognize that they must use the earth for sustenance, reenvisioning the gardening context in an alternate paradigm changes their actual practice. In this way, gardeners can change their role in the biotic community, and this changed practice demonstrates how moral imagination can lead to altered behavior. The dialectic between a new or revised story and changed practice represents an iterative cycle in which the new metaphors and reexamined paradigms reinforce this changed behavior and lead to a reconceptualization of our own roles and participation in the biotic community. Engaging the moral imagination and acting upon it lead to seeing oneself as an ecological actor. This iterative cycle of changed self-perception and changed practice—filtered through the ecological imagination—is important, because this repeated cycle of scrutiny and reevaluation helps us keep newly forming habits in mind. The template of ecological imagination becomes integrated into daily practice, and this daily practice is the key to widespread and sustained environmental change. It must be part of our daily lives, much as the mantra that encodes Balaram’s story is recited in daily ritual practice. Many signs indicate that concerns about food are affecting our daily practice—for example, burgeoning farmers’ markets, wide distribution and discussion of popular books such as Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, films such as Food, Inc., and policies that mandate organic foods in university dining halls. Monsanto’s webpage now reflects new demands for sustainable agriculture.41 These trends then become essential parts of an iterative cycle as their presence both reinforces existing demands for organic or local produce and raises questions in those who might not yet have considered such options. What is important for us to move forward is that we bring the ecological imagination into practice, to keep it before us as a framework that encourages us to continually critique our actions toward others in the biotic community. Even as we bring the ecological imagination into practice, we realize that this is an ongoing process, an iterative cycle of story and practice, as we revise our practices and integrate these stories more deeply into selfidentification. As I look back on my journey from New York to Iowa to

Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair

223

Florida, I recognize how my own stories about food have changed and accept that they will continue to do so. I grew up thinking packaged foods were terrific, and nobody I knew thought much about the source of their food. In college, I stopped eating red meat, mostly for health reasons, and my environmental awareness developed much earlier than my agricultural awareness. Then, as I learned new stories about food during my years in Iowa, my practices changed accordingly. Today, no longer satisfied by food in cellophane or Styrofoam tomatoes, I am creating a narrative of myself as a producer of food, and my encounter with the material reality of doing so will certainly demand that I continue to revise my stories and practices in response to the lessons my garden teaches me. This narrative of myself as a gardener is on a small scale. However, I am also an actor in a larger societal drama, and we must revise our stories about food on a larger scale. Even though I might prefer to grow my food or to purchase it from a local farmer, I cannot meet all of my food needs within my small community. I enjoy coffee, wine, and chocolate; we often eat at local restaurants or at homes of friends; and I frequently shop for packaged foods at our local grocery store. In short, I remain heavily dependent on the existing food system, and few of us can—or want to—drop out of this system. Consider the social consequences of such a stance: it would entail a host of restrictions, such as no restaurants, that I am not willing to make. The massive egg recall in August 2010 brought home to me the issue of scale. As a result of the recall, many consumers have sought alternate sources of eggs. Articles with such headlines as “Alaska Flocks to Local Eggs after Salmonella Scare” documented a spike in demand for local eggs that are presumably outside the industrial food web, and I, along with many of my friends, checked our own refrigerators to confirm that we purchased locally produced eggs.42 Yet before I congratulate myself for buying eggs outside the prevailing food system, I must ask if stepping outside the system is enough or even possible for myself and others who have fewer resources that I do. For example, people in food deserts, places where safe, affordable food is unavailable, whether urban or rural, simply do not always have the means to acquire specialty foods such as locally produced eggs. Typically those living in poverty are much more dependent on conventional systems because they do not have the resources to buy their way

224

Growing Stories from India

out of the problem; for example, they cannot afford to buy bottled water in order to avoid contaminated tap water. An equitable solution would make safe and healthy foods available to all of us. The 2010 egg recall has prompted us to look beyond the seeming stability, efficiency, and abundance of the supermarket, to draw back the curtain that obscured the actual production of the recalled eggs, and this spectacle demands that we question the narratives that have rationalized these conditions: the indifference to repeated health and labor violations, the cruelty of hens packed in cages, and the refusal to use a relatively inexpensive vaccine against salmonella. The well-stocked shelves of supermarkets suggest to us that abundance will always be ours, yet this massive recall removed almost half a million eggs from shelves across the United States. While large-scale and vertically integrated systems—putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak—promises efficiency, smaller-scale and more numerous operations offer a redundancy that limits system failures. My purchasing of eggs from one small-scale farmer might appear unstable—what if that producer disappears?—but the presence of numerous small-scale producers offers stability. Further, the efficiency and productivity of the large-scale system have naturalized the cruelty of hens crammed into cages, and this prompts us to echo the question that Balaram has presented to us: How can we balance the human need for agricultural production with the needs of the broader biological community? If we revise our stories about food and food production to incorporate social and environmental concerns alongside economic ones, we can develop alternatives that are beneficial on all three fronts. By this I mean that we must recognize that the prevailing agricultural narrative, in which reverence for profit blinds us to failures in social and ecosystem health as well as gaps in human and animal welfare, is just one of many narratives. Having recognized this, we can fashion humane agricultural systems in which agriculture is not an extractive industry and in which basic human and nonhuman needs are adequately met. Developing such an ethic requires broad participation among numerous disciplines and intellectual communities. In particular, Hindu agricultural narrative provides us with an imaginative space in which to reenvision and reshape agricultural practice in a way that transcends the limited vision of contemporary industrial agriculture.

Acknowledgments

In 1996, when Alan Entwistle, now deceased, first planted the seeds of a Balaram project in my mind, neither one of us could have imagined how Growing Stories from India would take shape. Nevertheless, over many years this project grew, and I am profoundly grateful to the many people who have nourished it and me. Th is book would not be possible without your insights, criticisms and support: David Aftandilian, Corinne Dempsey, Nancy Falk, Joyce Fluekiger, Maxine Grossman, Janet Krengel, Rebecca Manring, Vasudha Narayanan, Cynthia Packert, Laurie Patton, Robin Rinehart, and Clark Wolf. Special thanks to Jeri Neal for pushing me to articulate why this particular story was so important. Friends and colleagues in Iowa State University’s Sustainable Agriculture group and at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture provided numerous opportunities for me to think through the book’s main arguments. I thank my anonymous reviewers, whose comments were insightful and greatly improved the readability of this manuscript. Anna Peterson deserves special thanks for slogging through multiple drafts of this work, and once again, I reserve a special appreciation for Tony K. Stewart, who helped me see Balaram’s narrative potential. I cannot thank enough Christianna White, who started as my editor, but has become a friend and coach. Her insights and excellent editorial skills polished this manuscript; my mistakes are solely my responsibility. I also want to thank my parents, Mary and Charles Sanford, and my husband, best friend, and partner, Kevin Veach. Many people in India have offered great assistance and hospitality, including Shrivatsa Goswami and his family, the Pandey families of

226

Acknowledgments

Baldeo, Robyn Beeche, and C. B. Rawat. Many individuals associated with Dauji Temple in Baldeo were more than generous with their time. My research in India was made possible by a grant from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the National Endowment to the Humanities, and Iowa State University supported most generously the research and travel necessary for this work. Earlier treatments of this material have been published in Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology; Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics; International Journal of Hindu Studies; Sacred Play: Ritual Levity and Humor in South Asian Religions (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010); and Alternative Krishnas: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005).

Notes

Introduction 1. Pollan, “Farmer in Chief,” 9. 2. Neumann, “Egg Recall Expanded after Salmonella Outbreak,” August 18, 2010; Philpott, “A ‘Habitual Offender’ Unleashes Nearly Half a Billion Salmonella-Tainted Eggs,” August 19, 2010. 3. Martin, “Egg Recall Exposes Flaws in Nation’s Food Safety System,” August 24, 2010. 4. Otto, “How the Egg Industry Changed,” August 24, 2010. 5. Neumann, “U.S. Rejected Hen Vaccine Despite British Success,” August 24, 2010. 6. Burros, “Industry Is Critical of Michelle Obama’s Organic Garden.”

1. The Ecological Imagination 1. W. Berry, Home Economics, 138–139. 2. See Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden, and Ableman, Fields of Plenty. 3. Parajuli, “No Nature Apart,” 94. 4. http://www.sierraclub.org/truecostoffood. 5. Willard, “The Future Is Green.” 6. Altieri, “Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture and the Possibilities for Truly Sustainable Farming”; Magdoff, “Ecological Agriculture.” 7. W. Berry, The Unsettling of America, 27–48; Wirzba, The Essential Agrarian Reader. 8. DeVore, “Why Do They Do It?” 9. J. Soule, “Conservation and Agriculture as Neighbors,” 172. 10. Waterhouse, “A Refined Taste in Natural Objects.” 11. http://www.ser.org/content/ecological_restoration_primer.asp#3. 12. M. Soule, “What Is Conservation Biology?” 727.

228

Notes to Pages 18–36

13. Leslie Roberts, Richard Stone, and Andrew Sugden, “The Rise of Restoration Ecology,” 555. 14. Dwivedi, “Dharmic Ecology,” 122. 15. Patton, “Nature Romanticism and Sacrifice in Rgvedic Interpretation,” 45. 16. I wish to thank the American Institute of Indian Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and an Iowa State University Foreign Travel Grant for their support of my fieldwork in Baldeo, India, August 1998–July 1999 and August–September 2000. 17. Sanford, Singing Krishna. 18. Welch, Sweet Dreams in America, 16.

2. Narratives of Agriculture 1. See Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma, 15–22, for a discussion of corn and its role in the food system. 2. “In Downturn, Cities Grow Fresh Food Where They Can,” New York Times. For LocalHarvest, see http://www.localharvest.org. 3. Florida Organic Growers Public Workshop, March 23, 2009. 4. Barbour, “You Say Tomato, I Say Agricultural Disaster.” 5. Lewontin, “The Maturing of Capitalist Agriculture,” 94–95. 6. Heffernan, “Concentration of Ownership in Agriculture,” 62. 7. Steinfeld et al., Livestock’s Long Shadow. 8. D. Jackson, “The Farm as Natural Habitat,” 14. 9. Foster and Magdoff, “Liebig, Marx, and Soil Fertility,” 43–45. 10. Altieri, “Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture,” 77–78. 11. Soule and Piper, Farming in Nature’s Image, 37. 12. Ibid., 45. 13. Gulf Hypoxia Home Page, U.S. Geological Survey, http://toxics.usgs. gov/hypoxia/hypoxic_zone.html. 14. Heffernan, “Concentration of Ownership in Agriculture,” 62. Shiva, Violence of the Green Revolution, 74. 15. Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1935, Public Law 74–46, (16 U.S. C. 590a–590g-3). 16. Lowdermilk, “Conquest of the Land through Seven Thousand Years,” 16. 17. Lowdermilk, “The Eleventh Commandment,” 14. 18. Howard, An Agricultural Testament, 22–23. 19. Altieri, “Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture,” 88. 20. Takacs, The Idea of Biodiversity, 1–2. 21. Code, Ecological Thinking, 245. 22. Bacon quoted in Merchant, The Death of Nature, 171, 186.

Notes to Pages 36–49

229

23. Ibid., 171. 24. Kirschenmann, “Spirituality in Agriculture,” 3. 25. Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, “‘Sacred Grove’ and Ecology,” 300. 26. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 152–153. 27. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, 27, 30. 28. Johnson, The Body in the Mind, 127–135. 29. Kirschenmann, “Spirituality in Agriculture,” 4. 30. Altieri, “Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture,” 88. 31. Howard, An Agricultural Testament. 32. Kirschenmann, “Spirituality in Agriculture,” 6. 33. Goldstein, “Earl L. Butz,” New York Times, February 4, 2008. 34. Badgley et al., “Organic Agriculture and the Global Food Supply.” 35. “Telling Porkies.” 36. Borlaug, “Ending World Hunger,” 487–490. 37. Shiva, Violence of the Green Revolution, 243. 38. Charles, Lords of the Harvest, 218. 39. http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep00/tomato0900.htm. 40. Kirschenmann, “Spirituality in Agriculture,” 5. 41. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 113. 42. Ibid., 115–116. 43. Lewontin, It Ain’t Necessarily So, 354–355; Levins and Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist, 88. 44. Altieri, “Agrocecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty,” 4. 45. Rozzi, Hargrove, and Arnesto, “Natural Drift as a Post-modern Evolutionary Metaphor,” 14. 46. Lowdermilk, “Conquest of the Land through Seven Thousand Years,” 38. 47. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 204. 48. W. Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place, 22. 49. Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 85. 50. Wilderness Act of 1964, Public Law 88–577 (16 U.S. C. 1131–1136). 51. Guha, How Much Should a Person Consume? 52. Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 85; W. Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place, 67. 53. Baumgartner, “Making Organic Wild,” 105. 54. Kirschenmann quoted in Imhoff, Farming with the Wild, 84–85. 55. Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil, 4. 56. Nussbaum, Poetic Justice, 7, 66. 57. Cunningham, The Heart of What Matters, 84, 86. 58. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 29, 216. 59. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 5. 60. Johnson, Moral Imagination, 45–47.

230

Notes to Pages 50–65

61. Ibid., 53–60. 62. Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation.” 63. Russell, “Speaking of Annihilation.” 64. “Fritz Haber, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1918”; Russell, “Speaking of Annihilation,” 1510–1511. 65. Alexander, “Nobel Award to Haber.” 66. Russell, “Speaking of Annihilation,” 1520–1521. 67. Barlett, “No Longer Waiting for Someone Else to Do It.” 68. A. Agarwal, Environmentality. 69. T. Berry, The Dream of the Earth, 123. 70. Cheney and Weston, “Environmental Ethics as Environmental Etiquette”; Gare, “MacIntyre, Narratives, and Environmental Ethics”; Raglon and Scholtmeijer, “Shifting Ground.” Additionally, scholars in the field of ecojustice and environmental justice, such as environmental sociologist Robert Bullard, Dumping in Dixie; sociologist Deborah Barndt, Tangled Routes; and historian Angus Wright, The Death of Ramón González, have drawn attention to the social consequences of environmental deterioration. 71. Raglon and Scholtmeijer, “Shifting Ground,” 22. 72. W. Berry, What are People For? 145–152. 73. Snyder, A Place in Space, 70–71. 74. Wirzba, “Introduction,” 4–5. 75. Nussbaum, Poetic Justice. 76. White, Tropes of Discourse. 77. Code, Ecological Thinking, 217–224.

3. Balaram and the Yamuna River 1. Sanford, “Yakshas on the Margin of Contemporary Practice,” 90. 2. Read, Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos, 59. 3. Gold and Gujar, “Sin and Rain,” 182. 4. Jamison and Witzel, “Vedic Hinduism,” 67–69. 5. Chapple, “Toward an Indigenous Indian Environmentalism,” 21. 6. Jamison and Witzel, “Vedic Hinduism,” 67–69. 7. Ibid., 68. 8. Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, 178–179. 9. Jamison and Witzel, “Vedic Hinduism,” 38. 10. Ibid., 63. 11. Ibid., 60, 71. Jamison and Witzel note that in this concept of sacrifice and obligation, the deities are not “imprisoned” by the ritual. The deities have some latitude, although it is not clear how much. 12. Dwivedi, “Dharmic Ecology,” 125.

Notes to Pages 65–84

231

13. Ibid., 13. 14. Vaudeville, “Multiple Approaches to a Living Hindu Myth,” 112. This concept of serpents drawing water highlights an important detail. Balaram’s plow is typically used to pull water, not for actual plowing. Vemsani, Hindu and Jain Mythology of Balarama, 75, n. 44. 15. Vogel, Indian Serpent-Lore, 4. 16. Bloss, “The Buddha and the Naga,” 43. 17. Singh and Nath, Hindu Festivals, 118. 18. There was not always agreement between these leaders regarding specific sites, so in some cases there are multiple sites assigned to one incident. 19. Bhagavata Purana 6.16.33–46. 20. The Harivamsha provides an alternate narrative of these births. Based on her reading of this text, Charlotte Vaudeville argues that Krishna’s sister must be the dark goddess, Kali. The Harivamsa also states that Vishnu took birth through both Devaki and Rohini and so descends through both brothers (Harivamsa 45): Vaudeville, “The Great Goddess,” 6. Vemsani, Hindu and Jain Mythology of Balarama, 60. 21. Bhagavata Purana 10.2.7–13. 22. Jaiswal, The Origin and Development of Vaishnavism, 56. Jaiswal argues that the authors of the Bhagavata Purana forgot the original meaning of Samkarshan and reinterpreted it in light of this story. 23. Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution, 149–151. 24. Bhagavata Purana 10.16.1–67. 25. Bhagavata Purana 10.17.1–16. 26. Bhagavata Purana 9.6.39–55. 27. Entwistle, Braj, 41. 28. Bhagavata Purana 9.3.27–36. 29. Garga Samhita, “Balabhadra Mahatmya,” 3: 6–15. The Garga Samhita actually refers to Samkarshan, but again I use Balaram for consistency. 30. Ibid., 4: 1–24. 31. Ibid., 4: 25–36. 32. Mahabharata 2.19.20–45; Bhagavata Purana 10.6.27–29; Kinsley, Hindu Goddess, 152–153. Lavanya Vemsani also notes the (indirect) link of Balaram to the welfare of children through Rohini, herself a matrika: Hindu and Jain Mythology of Balarama, 65–69. 33. Bose, Cultural Anthropology and Other Essays, 93–94; Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, 315–318. 34. Sanford, “Holi through Dauji’s Eyes,” 102. 35. Bhagavata Purana 10.65.1–32; Garga Samhita, “Balabhadra Mahatmya,” 2.1–20. 36. Bhagavata Purana 10.33. 37. Vemsani, Hindu and Jain Mythology of Balarama, 116. She argues that

232

Notes to Pages 85–100

Balaram’s status as a fertility deity becomes diminished as his subordination to Krishna becomes more pronounced. So, by the Bhagavata Purana, the story emphasizes less the fertility of the land and parallels Krishna’s Maharasalila story: 121, 124–125. 38. Jamison and Witzel, “Vedic Hinduism,” 68. 39. Rajagopalachari, Mahabharata, 287–291. 40. Harlan, Religion and Rajput Women, 127. Interestingly, Vemsani notes that the association of liquor with martial heroes does not appear until the time of the Mahabharata; liquor was associated with farmers in the Vedas: Hindu and Jain Mythology of Balaram, 123, n. 90. 41. Bhagavata Purana 10.61.22–40. 42. Bhagavata Purana 10.67.1–18. 43. Bhagavata Purana 6.16.33–46. 44. Alter, The Wrestler’s Body, 138–139. 45. L. Jackson, “The Farmer as Conservationist?” 56–57. 46. Gold, “From Demon Aunt to Gorgeous Bride,” 208–210. 47. Eells, “Loving the Land Is Not Enough.” 48. Kristof and WuDunn, “Saving the World’s Women.”

4. Borrowing Balaram 1. Altieri, “Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty”; Badgley et al., “Organic Agriculture and the Global Food Supply.” See also Halweil, “Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?” for studies assessing productivity of organic and small farms. 2. Bhagavata Purana 4.14–24. 3. Herman, “Ideal Kingship and the Feminine Power,” 39–40. 4. Ibid., 28–33. 5. Merchant, The Death of Nature; Warren, “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism.” 6. Feldhaus, Water and Womanhood, 84–85. 7. Narayanan, “Wood, Wind and Wisdom,” 136–137. 8. Ibid. 9. Jamison and Witzel, “Vedic Hinduism,” 68. 10. Entwistle, Braj. 11. Dube, Anthropological Explorations in Gender, 121–123. 12. B. Agarwal, A Field of Her Own, 212–214; Gold, “From Demon Aunt to Gorgeous Bride,” 224–226; Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, “‘Sacred Grove’ and Ecology,” 293–296. 13. Gold, “From Demon Aunt to Gorgeous Bride,” 212–213. 14. Gadgil and Guha, Ecology and Equity, 91–92. 15. Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, “‘Sacred Grove’ and Ecology,” 294–295.

Notes to Pages 100–118

233

16. B. Agarwal, A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, 212–214. 17. Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, “‘Sacred Grove’ and Ecology,” 304–305. 18. Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, 67, 70. 19. Lutgendorf, “City, Forest, and Cosmos,” 274. 20. Nagarajan, “The Earth as Goddess Bhu Devi,” 272. 21. Gonda, Aspects of Early Vishnuism, 133. 22. That boars and pigs destroy both agricultural systems and the social order is illustrated in Gold and Gujar, Of the Time of Trees and Sorrow, 260–275. 23. Mumme, “Models and Images for a Vaishnava Environmental Theology,” 155. 24. Dube, Anthropological Explorations in Gender, 121–126; Sherma, “Sacred Immanence,” 96. 25. Entwistle, “Kaila Devi and Lamguriya,” 89–90; Jaiswal, The Origin and Development of Vaishnavism, 56; Vaudeville, “Multiple Approaches to a Living Hindu Myth,” 112. 26. Entwistle, Braj, 303; Vaudeville, “Multiple Approaches to a Living Hindu Myth,” 112. 27. Halweil, “Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?” 18. 28. Bourne, “The End of Plenty,” 46–48. 29. Lal quoted in ibid., 47. 30. Ibid., 48. 31. Jamison and Witzel, “Vedic Hinduism,” 68. 32. Shiva, Violence of the Green Revolution, 243. 33. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology, 63. 34. Pollan, The Botany of Desire, xiv–xv. 35. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology, 113, 117. 36. Lewontin, It Ain’t Necessarily So, 354–355; Levins and Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist, 88. 37. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology, 67. 38. Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden, 163. 39. Siegal, Laughing Matters, 274–276. 40. Jordan, The Sunflower Forest, 165, citing Susanne Langer, “The Great Dramatic Forms: The Comic Rhythm,” 331. 41. Siegel, Laughing Matters, 77. 42. Ibid., 57. 43. Ibid., 60. 44. See W. Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place, and Merchant, “Reinventing Eden.” 45. Siegel, Laughing Matters, 7. 46. Mills, In Service of the Wild, 110. 47. Foster, Marx’s Ecology, 156–157.

234

Notes to Pages 118–139

48. Foster, Marx’s Ecology, 138. 49. Peterson, Being Human, 4. 50. W. Berry, The Unsettling of America, 70.

5. The Festival of Holi 1. Marriott notes that Holi must represent the assimilation of local festivals with sixteenth-century Vaishnavism: “The Feast of Love,” 209–210. 2. The Indian subcontinent has developed numerous calendrical systems, both solar and lunar, and there are even regional differences among these. Braj and Uttar Pradesh follow the Purnimant calendar, in which the lunar month goes from full moon to full moon, but the month is named for the new moon, which occurs a fortnight after the first of the two full moons (i.e., between them). The Indian lunar calendar is adjusted to the solar calendar, which is eleven days longer, so technically this calendar is a lunisolar calendar. An intercalary month, adhik mas, is inserted every few years to readjust this schedule, Chatterjee, Indian Calendrical System, 40. 3. Marriott, “The Feast of Love,” 204–205. Also see Haberman, Journey through the Twelve Forests, 174–175. 4. I found a similar version in Ghanashyam Pandey’s Srihaladhar Nityarcana. 5. “Disturbing Reality of Dairy Land.” 6. Marriott, “The Feast of Love.” 7. Vaudeville, “Multiple Approaches to a Living Hindu Myth,” 112. 8. Narayan Bhatt’s sixteenth-century Vrajabhaktivilasa discusses the division of Braj and notes that Braj rests upon the central head of Shesh’s one thousand heads. This image reiterates the concept of Shesh as the support of Braj and the earth. Entwistle, Braj, 252–254. 9. The Bhagavata Purana uses the word Ahivas. In the Brahma Vaivartapurana, the word is Sarpavas. Pandey, Srihaladhar Nityarcana, 3. 10. Vaudeville, “Multiple Approaches to a Living Hindu Myth,” 114; Bhagavata Purana 9.6. 11. Vaudeville mentions numerous parallel stories in which a cow or cowherd (Ahir or Gval) discovers a deity and suggests that this story is not of Vaishnava origin: “The Govardhan Myth in North India,” 30–31, n. 30. 12. Some versions of the story state that Gokulnath himself unearthed the images. See Sanford, “Negotiating for Srinathji, Dauji, and Jakhaiya.” 13. Sanadhya Brahmans do not consider Pandas to be Brahmans and just refer to them as Ahivasis, not Ahivasi Gaur Brahmans. 14. The Vallabh Sampraday has developed elaborate rules regarding food preparation in addition to the pakka-kacca classification discussed here. See Bennett, The Path of Grace, 123–147; Toomey, “Food from the Mouth of Krish-

Notes to Pages 140–168

235

na,” 64–70, 78, n. 18. Appadurai, “Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia,” and Babb, “The Food of the Gods in Chhattisgarh” discuss hierarchy-producing aspects of food ritual. 15. In this case, the local Braj folk retained primary control of the image. According to Baldeo temple guides, a close connection between Balaram’s temple and the Vallabh Sampraday in Gokul existed historically and continues to a lesser extent today. Today, Kalyandev’s descendants perform ritual service daily, except for one day a year when the Gokul Vallabh Sampraday come to Baldeo during the Caurasi Kos Yatra, an annual circumambulation around Braj. 16. Bose, Cultural Anthropology and Other Essays, 98–99; Marriott, “The Feast of Love.” 17. Langer, Feeling and Form, 331. 18. “Lord Haskins on World Food Debate,” February 20, 2002, www .news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/1825840.stm. 19. Harlan, Religion and Rajput Women, 127. 20. Entwistle, “Kaila Devi and Lamguriya,” 89. 21. Wald, “Meat Packer Admits Slaughter of Sick Cows.” 22. Berry, Bringing It to the Table, 227–234.

6. The Land in Between 1. Raglon and Scholtmeijer, “Animals Are Not Believers in Ecology,” 122. Interestingly, animal advocacy movements in India have tended to stress their dissimilarities with humans as rationale for protection. Gandhi, for example, saw cows as exemplars of “dumb creation” and thus worthy of human compassion. 2. Trubek, The Taste of Place, 41. 3. W. Berry, Home Economics, 151; Weston, Back to Earth, 131–134. 4. Williams, The Country and the City, 46. 5. Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden, 163; Marx, The Machine in the Garden, 22. 6. Alpers, What Is Pastoral? 1, 15; Marx, The Machine in the Garden, 23. 7. W. Berry, The Unsettling of America, 27. 8. D. Jackson, “The Farm as Natural Habitat,” 14. 9. Dasmann, “The Country in Between.” 10. Soper, What Is Nature? 190–191. 11. Alpers, What Is Pastoral? 134. 12. Entwistle, Braj, 136. 13. Ibid., 117. 14. Ibid., 288; Sanford, “Yakshas on the Margin of Contemporary Practice.” 15. Siegel, Laughing Matters, 272. 16. Entwistle, Braj, 301.

236

Notes to Pages 168–178

17. Falk, “Wilderness and Kingship in Ancient South Asia,” 13–14. 18. Vaudeville, “Braj: Lost and Found,” 211. 19. Sanford, “Negotiating for Srinathji, Dauji, and Jakhaiya,” 29–55. 20. Jindel, Culture of a Sacred Town, 201. 21. Entwistle, Braj, 88. 22. Vaudeville, “Multiple Approaches to a Living Hindu Myth,” 105–126. 23. Sanford, “Uneasy Partners,” 363–387. 24. Anil Agarwal, “Can Hindu Beliefs and Values Help India Meet Its Ecological Crisis?” 170; Goswami, “Lord Krishna”; Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution, 153–154. 25. Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution, 344. 26. Lutgendorf, “City, Forest, and Cosmos,” 275, 281. Alternatively, Guha reads this story as Arjuna and Krishna’s desire to clear land for agricultural use. Gadgil and Guha, This Fissured Land, 79–80. 27. Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution, 153–154. 28. Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic, 210, citing Wes Jackson, Altars of Unhewn Stone, 6, 64. See also L. White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” 29. Merchant, “Reinventing Eden,” 132. 30. Ibid. 31. Jordan, The Sunflower Forest, 40. 32. Strachey quoted in Marx, The Machine in the Garden, 41. 33. Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 35; Nash, Wilderness in the American Mind, 8, 13. 34. Eisenberg, Ecology of Eden, 242–243. 35. Also see W. Berry, The Unsettling of America. 36. Savyasaachi, “An Alternate System of Knowledge,” 53. 37. Gadgil and Guha, Ecology and Equity, 92–93; Kothari quoted in Talbott, “Wilderness Narrative and Capitalism,” 329. 38. Guha, How Much Should a Person Consume? 67. 39. Eisenberg, Ecology of Eden, 306. 40. Winthrop quoted in Merchant, Ecological Revolutions, 102. 41. Olwig, “Reinventing Common Nature,” 396–397. 42. Ibid., 396. 43. Ibid., 397. 44. Gomez-Pompa and Kaus, “Taming the Wilderness Myth,” 299–300. 45. Peterson, Being Human, 63. 46. While this book specifically discusses sites of intervention in terms of agriculture, I cannot resist noting my support for preserving some areas as “wilderness” despite the political, social, and rhetorical problems with the concept. 47. Marx, The Machine in the Garden, 5, 8–10. 48. Nash, Wilderness in the American Mind, 125.

Notes to Pages 178–187

237

49. Apffel-Marglin and Parajuli, “‘Sacred Grove’ and Ecology,” 306. 50. Talbott, “Wilderness Narrative and Capitalism,” 327–328. 51. Soper, “Feminism and Ecology,” 322; Soper, What is Nature? 8, 132– 133, 250–251. 52. Midgley, Beast and Man, 286, 295. 53. Peterson, Being Human, 64. 54. Ibid., 68. 55. Soper, “Feminism and Ecology,” 322. 56. Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic, 281; Descartes, “Animals are Machines.” 57. Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic, 136–137. 58. Ibid., 293; Gomez-Pompa and Kaus, “Taming the Wilderness Myth,” 297; Grim, “Peoples of the Land”; Peterson, Being Human, 90–91. In his critique of “wilderness,” Gary Nabhan argues correctly that Native American conceptions of the natural world are nuanced and vary among groups, and some groups distinguish land and species that are to be left untouched. Nonetheless, few indigenous groups maintain the pure-tainted dichotomy that manifests in environmental discourse. Nabhan, “Cultural Parallax,” 157. 59. Parajuli, “No Nature Apart,” 88. 60. Ibid., 83. 61. Savyasaachi, “An Alternate System of Knowledge,” 57–58. 62. Cheney and Weston, “Environmental Ethics as Environmental Etiquette,” 102. 63. Parajuli, “No Nature Apart,” 90. 64. Guha, How Much Should a Person Consume? 100; Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters,” 309. 65. Altieri, Agroecology, 130–131. 66. Posey, Indigenous Knowledge and Ethics, 812. 67. Gomez-Pompa and Kaus, “Taming the Wilderness Myth,” 302–303. 68. Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters,” 296–297; Posey, Indigenous Knowledge and Ethics, 60–61; Tanesini, An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies, 182. 69. Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic, 336. 70. Peterson, “Environmental Ethics and the Social Construction of Nature,” 89. 71. Soper, What Is Nature? 126. 72. Ibid., 46. 73. Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic, 219, 279. 74. Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters,” 309; Olwig, “Reinventing Common Nature,” 396–397. 75. Haraway, “The Promises of Monsters,” 310. 76. Gadgil and Guha, Ecology and Equity, 141–142. 77. Guha, How Much Should a Person Consume? 116, 127–129.

238

Notes to Pages 187–208

78. Tanesini, An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies, 177. 79. Cheney and Weston, “Environmental Ethics as Environmental Etiquette.” 80. Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 21. 81. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, 189. 82. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 201. 83. Ibid., 190; Tanesini, An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies, 177. 84. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology, 110. 85. Cheney and Weston, “Environmental Ethics as Environmental Etiquette,” 97. 86. Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 23. 87. Gould and Lewontin, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm,” 583. 88. Rolston, Environmental Ethics, 101, 162. 89. Hawley, Krishna, the Butter Thief, 261–287.

7. Restoration, Reciprocity, and Repair 1. Sanford, Singing Krishna, 15. 2. Trubek, The Taste of Place, 21–22. 3. Ibid., 54, 94. 4. Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic, 278, citing Leopold, “Means and Ends in Wildlife Management,” 237. 5. Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic, 83. 6. Leopold, Sand County Almanac, 211. 7. Sideris, Environmental Ethics, 174. 8. Rozzi, Hargrove, and Arnesto, “‘Natural Drift’ as a Post-modern Evolutionary Metaphor,” 11. 9. Kirschenmann and Gould, “Tame and Wild,” 21. 10. Rozzi, “The Reciprocal Links between Evolutionary-Ecological Sciences and Environmental Ethics,” 919. 11. Thiele, “Evolutionary Narratives and Ecological Ethics,” 31. 12. Ibid., 30, quoting Leopold, Sand County Almanac, 239. 13. New York Times, March 28, 2009. 14. Magdoff, “Ecological Agriculture.” 15. Sideris, Environmental Ethics, 34–35. 16. Jordan, The Sunflower Forest, 3. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 128–129. 19. Ibid., 165. 20. Ibid., 62. 21. Ibid., 39; Smith, “The Domestication of Sacrifice,” 191–205.

Notes to Pages 208–223

239

22. Smith, “The Domestication of Sacrifice,” 199–201. 23. It is only within urban and agricultural societies that hunting becomes an activity apart from normal life and becomes a means for urbanites to either conquer nature or reconnect with it. Smith, Imagining Religion, 57–58. 24. Smith, “The Domestication of Sacrifice,” 200–201. 25. Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 23. 26. Shepard, The Only World We’ve Got, xi. 27. Jordan, The Sunflower Forest, 89–90. 28. D. Jackson and L. Jackson, The Farm as Natural Habitat, 6. 29. Ibid., 6. 30. Jordan, The Sunflower Forest, 44. 31. Waterhouse, “A Refined Taste in Natural Objects,” 239. 32. Ableman, Fields of Plenty, 237. 33. Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden, 293–294. 34. Ableman, Fields of Plenty, 127. 35. Imhoff, Farming with the Wild, 9. 36. V. Agarwal, “In India, How Do Rooftop Gardens Grow?” March 5, 2008; Jayan, “Kitchen Gardens a Hit in City,” April 12, 2010. 37. Patrao, “The Grand Organic Food Opera,” September 8, 2010; Timms, “Eat and Dust,” March 24, 2010; Varghese, “Back to Our Roots, Eating Healthy,” March 17, 2010. 38. Pallava, “What’s for Lunch, Mother?” June 8, 2008. 39. Shiva, Earth Democracy. 40. Muhlke, “Evangelists for Heirloom Vegetables,” August 11, 2010. 41. http://www.monsanto.com/. 42. Rettig, “Alaska Flocks to Local Eggs after Salmonella Scare,” August 26, 2010.

Bibliography

Ableman, Michael. Fields of Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Produce It. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2005. Agarwal, Anil. “Can Hindu Beliefs and Values Help India Meet Its Ecological Crisis?” In Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky and Water, edited by Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker, 165–182. Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2000. Agarwal, Arun. Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Agarwal, Bina. A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Agarwal, Vibhuti. “In India, How Do Rooftop Gardens Grow?” Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2008. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120460488471909 759.html. Albanese, Catherine. Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Alexander, Jerome. “Nobel Award to Haber.” Op-ed, New York Times, January 28, 1920. Alpers, Paul. What Is Pastoral? Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Alter, Joseph S. The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Altieri, Miguel. Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995. ———. “Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty.” Monthly Review Press, July–August 2009. http://monthlyreview.org/090810altieri.php. ———. “Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture and the Possibilities for Truly Sustainable Farming.” In Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Food, Farmers, and the Environment, edited by Frederick H. Buttel, John B. Foster, and Fred Magdoff, 77–92. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.

242

Bibliography

Apffel-Marglin, Frederique, and Pramod Parajuli. “‘Sacred Grove’ and Ecology: Ritual and Science.” In Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky and Water, edited by Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker, 291–316. Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2000. Appadurai, Arjun. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2007. ———. “Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia.” American Ethnologist 8, no. 3 (1981): 494–511. ———. “Kings, Sects, and Temples: 1350–1700 a.d.” In South Indian Temples: An Analytical Reconstruction, edited by Burton Stein, 47–74. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1978. Babb, Lawrence. “The Food of the Gods in Chhattisgarh: Some Structural Features of Hindu Ritual.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 26 (1970): 287–340. Badgley, Catherine, Jeremy Moghtader, Eileen Quintero, Emily Zakem, M. Jahi Chappell, Katia Avilés-Vásquez, Andrea Samulon, and Ivette Perfecto. “Organic Agriculture and the Global Food Supply.” Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 22, no. 2 (2007): 86–108. Baleé, William. “The Research Program of Historical Ecology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 35 (2006): 75–98. Banerjea, Jitendra Nath. “Hindu Iconography, Part I.” Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art 13 (1945): 55–129. ———. “Hindu Iconography, Parts II–III.” Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art 14 (1946): 1–74. ———. “The Holy Pancaviras of the Vrishnis.” Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art 10 (1942): 65–68. Barbour, Dan. “You Say Tomato, I Say Agricultural Disaster.” New York Times, August 8, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber. html. Barlett, Peggy F. “No Longer Waiting for Someone Else to Do It: A Tale of Reluctant Leadership.” In Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change, edited by Peggy F. Barlett and Gregory W. Chase, 67–90. Boston: MIT Press, 2004. Barndt, Deborah. Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008. Barz, Richard. The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhacarya. Haryana, India: Thomson Press, 1976. Baumgartner, Jo Ann. “Making Organic Wild.” In Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature: Essays in Conservation-Based Agriculture, edited by Daniel Imhoff and Jo Ann Baumgartner, 103–113. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2006.

Bibliography

243

Bennett, Peter. “Image Worship and Pushti Marga.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 1, no. 4 (Summer 1993): 109–134. ———. The Path of Grace: Social Organization and Temple Worship in a Vaishnava Sect. Delhi: Hindustan Publishing Corp., 1983. Berry, Thomas. The Dream of the Earth. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 2006. Berry, Wendell. “The Agrarian Standard.” In The Essential Agrarian Reader, edited by Norman Wirzba, 23–33. Washington, DC: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2003. ———. Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2009. ———. Home Economics: Fourteen Essays by Wendell Berry. Berkeley: North Point Press, 1987. ———. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1997. ———. What Are People For? Essays by Wendell Berry. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. Bloss, Lowell W. “The Buddha and the Naga: A Study in Buddhist Folk Religiosity.” History of Religions 13, no. 1 (1973–1974): 36–53. Borlaug, N. E. “Ending World Hunger: The Promise of Biotechnology and the Threat of Anti-Science Zealotry.” Plant Physiology 124 (2000): 487–490. Bose, Nirmal Kumar. Cultural Anthropology and Other Essays. Calcutta: Indian Association Publishers, 1953. Bourne, Joel K., Jr. “The End of Plenty: Special Report—The Global Food Crisis.” National Geographic Magazine, June 2009, 26–59. Brockington, J. L. Hinduism: The Sacred Thread in Its Continuity and Diversity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981. Bullard, Robert H. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990. Burros, Marian. “Industry Is Critical of Michelle Obama’s Organic Garden.” Politico, June 17, 2009. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23838. html. Callicott, J. Baird. Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Callicott, J. Baird, and Michael P. Nelson, eds. The Great New Wilderness Debate. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. Chapple, Christopher Key. “Toward an Indigenous Indian Environmentalism.” In Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, edited by Lance Nelson, 13–38. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Charles, Daniel. Lords of the Harvest. New York: Perseus, 2002. Chatterjee, S. K. Indian Calendric System. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1998.

244

Bibliography

Chattopadhyaya, B. D. “Mathura from the Shunga to the Kushana Period: An Historical Outline.” In Mathura: The Cultural Heritage, edited by Doris Meth Srinivasin, 19–28. New Delhi: Manohar Publications for American Institute of Indian Studies, 1989. Cheney, Jim, and Anthony Weston. “Environmental Ethics as Environmental Etiquette: Towards an Ethics-Based Epistemology.” In Environmental Ethics, 3rd ed., edited by Susan J. Armstrong and Richard G. Botzler, 95– 106. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003. Code, Lorraine. Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Cohen, Richard S. “Naga, Yakshini and Buddha: Local Deities and Local Buddhism: Local Deities and Local Buddhism at Ajanta.” History of Religions 37, no. 4 (1998): 360–400. Comstock, Gary. “Do Agriculturalists Need a New, an Ecocentric Ethic?” Agriculture and Human Values 12 (1995): 2–15. Coomaraswamy, Ananda. Yakshas: Essays in Water Cosmology. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993. Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronin, 61–90. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. Crooke, William. The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, Vol. 2. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1896. Cunningham, Anthony. The Heart of What Matters: The Role for Literature in Moral Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Dasmann, Ray. “The Country in Between.” In Sierra Club Engagement Calendar. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1982. De, S. K. Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources. 2nd ed. Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyaya, 1961. Descartes, René. “Animals Are Machines.” In Environmental Ethics, 3rd ed., edited by Susan J. Armstrong and Richard G. Botzler, 274–277. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003. DeVore, Brian. “Why Do They Do It?” In The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems, edited by D. L. Jackson and L. L. Jackson, 107–118. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002. Dimmitt, Cornelia. “Sita: Fertility Goddess and Sakti.” In The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, 210–223. Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, 1982. Dimock, Edward C. The Place of the Hidden Moon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Bibliography

245

Dimock, E. C., and Tony K. Stewart, trans. Caitanya Caritamrita of Krishnadasa Kaviraja. Harvard Oriental Series 56. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. “Disturbing Reality of Dairy Land: Do You Know Where Your Milk Really Comes From?” ABC News, January 27, 2010. http://abcnews.go.com/ video/playerIndex?id=9671990. Dogra, Chander Suta. “Alpine Aloos.” Outlook 23 (June 2008): 66–68. Dube, Leela. Anthropological Explorations in Gender. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001. DuPuis, E. M., and David Goodman. “Should We Go ‘Home’ to Eat? Towards a Reflexive Politics of Localism.” Journal of Rural Studies 21, no. 3 (July 2005): 359–371. Dwivedi, O. P. “Dharmic Ecology.” In Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment, edited by Richard C. Foltz, 119–129. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Thompson, 2003. Eells, Jean Crim. “Loving the Land Is Not Enough: Empowering Women Landowners to Prevent Environmental Degradation.” Ecopsychology 2, no. 3 (2010): 179–185. Eisenberg, Evan. The Ecology of Eden. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. Entwistle, Alan W. Braj, Centre of Krishna Pilgrimage. Groningen, The Netherlands: Egbert Forsten, 1987. ———. “The Cult of Krishna-Gopal as a Version of Pastoral.” In Devotion Divine, edited by Diana Eck and Francoise Mallison, 73–90. Groningen, The Netherlands: Egbert Forsten, 1991. ———. “Kaila Devi and Lamguriya.” Indo-Iranian Journal 25 (1983): 85–101. Falk, Nancy E. “Wilderness and Kingship in Ancient South Asia.” History of Religions 13, no. 1 (1973): 1–15. Feldhaus, Anne. Water and Womanhood: Religious Meaning of Rivers in Maharashtra. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. Foster, John Bellamy, and Fred Magdoff. “Liebig, Marx, and Soil Fertility: Relevance for Today’s Agriculture.” In Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Food, Farmers, and the Environment, edited by Frederick H. Buttel, John B. Foster, and Fred Magdoff, 43–60. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage, 1977. “Fritz Haber, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1918—Biography.” http://nobel_ prize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1918/haber-bio.html. Gadgil, Madhav, and Ramachandra Guha. Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1995.

246

Bibliography

———. This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992. Gare, Arran. “MacIntyre, Narratives, and Environmental Ethics.” Environmental Ethics 20, no. 1 (1998): 3–21. Goetz, H. “The Earliest Representations of the Myth Cycle of Krsna Govinda.” Journal of the Oriental Institute 1 (1952): 51–59. Gold, Ann Grodzins. “From Demon Aunt to Gorgeous Bride: Women Portray Female Power in a North Indian Festival Cycle.” In Invented Identities: The Interplay of Gender, Religion, and Politics in India, edited by Julie Leslie and Mary McGee, 203–230. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Gold, Ann Grodzins, and Bhoju Ram Gujar. Of the Time of Trees and Sorrow: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. ———. “Sin and Rain: Moral Ecology in Rural North India.” In Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, edited by Lance Nelson, 165–197. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Goldstein, Richard. “Earl L. Butz, Secretary Felled by Racial Remark, Is Dead at 98.” New York Times, February 4, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/ 02/04/washington/04butz.html. Gomez-Pompa, Arturo, and Andrea Kaus. “Taming the Wilderness Myth.” In Great New Wilderness Debate, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson, 293–312. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. Gonda, Jan. Aspects of Early Visnuism. (Reprint.) Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1969. Goswami, Srivatsa. “Lord Krishna: Preserver and Protector of the Environment.” India: Magazine of Her People and Culture 12 (August 1992): 78–83. Gould, Stephen Jay, and Richard C. Lewontin. “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptionist Programme.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, 205, 1161 (1979): 581–598. Grim, John. “Peoples of the Land: Indigenous Traditions and Deep Ecology.” In Deep Ecology and World Religions: New Essays on Sacred Ground, edited by David Barnhill and Roger Gottlieb, 35–58. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. Growse, F. S. Mathura: A District Memoir. (Reprint.) New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1979. Guha, Ramachandra. How Much Should a Person Consume? Environmentalism in India and the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. ———. “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique.” In Great New Wilderness Debate, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson, 231–245. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998.

Bibliography

247

Guthman, Julie. Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Haberman, David. Journey through the Twelve Forests. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. ———. River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Halweil, Brian. “Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?” In Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature: Essays in Conservation-Based Agriculture, edited by Daniel Imhoff and Jo Ann Baumgartner, 187–199. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2006. Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism for the 1980s.” In Feminism/Postmodernism, edited by Linda J. Nicholson, 190–233. New York: Routledge, 1990. ———. “The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for the Inappropriate/d Others” In Cultural Studies, edited by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler, 295–337. New York: Routledge, 1992. ———. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. Hardy, Friedhelm. “Madhavendra Puri: A Link between Bengal Vaishnavism and South Indian Bhakti.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 (1979): 23–41. ———. Viraha-bhakti: The Early History of Krsna Devotion in South India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983. Harlan, Lindsay. Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1992. Hawley, John S. “A Feast for Mount Govardhan.” In Devotion Divine, edited by Diana L. Eck and Francoise Mallison, 155–180. Groningen, The Netherlands: Egbert Forsten, 1991. ———. Krishna, the Butter Thief. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. “Krishna’s Cosmic Victories.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 47, no. 2 (1979): 201–220. Hecht, Susannah, and Alexander Cockburn. The Fate of the Forest. London: Verso, 1989. Heffernan, William D. “Concentration of Ownership and Control in Agriculture.” In Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Food, Farmers, and the Environment, edited by Frederick H. Buttel, John B. Foster, and Fred Magdoff, 61–77. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. Hein, Norvin. “A Revolution in Krsnaism: The Cult of Gopala.” History of Religions 25, no. 4 (1986): 296–317. Herbert, Frank. Dune. New York: Penguin Publishing, 1965. Herman, Phyllis K. “Ideal Kingship and the Feminine Power: A Study of the Depiction of Ramarajya in the Valmiki Ramayana.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1979.

248

Bibliography

Hillel, Daniel. Out of the Earth: Civilization and the Life of the Soil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Howard, Sir Albert. An Agricultural Testament. Goa: Other India Press, 1940. Hudson, Dennis. “Vasudeva Krsna in Theology and Architecture: A Background in Srivaisnavism.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 2, no. 1 (1993): 139–170. Imhoff, Daniel. Farming with the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity of Farms and Ranches. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2003. Imhoff, Daniel, and Jo Ann Baumgartner. Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature: Essays in Conservation-Based Agriculture. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2006. “In Downturn, Cities Grow Fresh Food Where They Can.” New York Times, August 12, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/12/business /AP-US-Farm-Scene-Urban-Gardens.html?_r=1&scp=11&sq=food%20 gardens&st=cse. Jackson, D. L., and L. L. Jackson, eds. The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002. Jackson, Dana L. “The Farm as Natural Habitat.” In The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems, edited by D. L. Jackson and L. L. Jackson, 13–26. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002. Jackson, Laura L. “The Farmer as Conservationist?” In Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature: Essays in Conservation-Based Agriculture, edited by Daniel Imhoff and Jo Ann Baumgartner, 48–59. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2006. Jackson, Wes. Alters of Unhewn Stone: Science and the Earth. New York: North Point Press, 1987. ———. Becoming Native to This Place. New York: Island Press, 1994. Jaini, Padmanabh. “Political and Cultural Data in References to Mathura in the Buddhist Literature.” In Mathura: The Cultural Heritage, edited by Doris Meth Srinivasin, 214–222. New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1989. Jaiswal, Suvira. The Origin and Development of Vaishnavism. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1967. Jamison, Stephanie, and Michael Witzel. “Vedic Hinduism.” www.people.fas .harvard.edu/~witzel/vedica.pdf. 2002. Jayan, Arun. “Kitchen Gardens a Hit in City, Professional Help on Offer,” Indian Express, April 12, 2010. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/kitch en-gardens-a-hit-in-city-professional/604861/. Jindel, Rajendra. Culture of a Sacred Town: A Sociological Study of Nathdwara. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1976. Johnson, Mark. The Body in the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. ———. Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Bibliography

249

Jordan, William R., III. The Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Joshi, N. P. Iconography of Balarama. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1979. Kinsley, David. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. Delhi: Motilal Benarsidass, 1987. Kirschenmann, Frederick. “Spirituality in Agriculture.” Paper presented at the Concord School of Philosophy, Concord, MA, October 8, 2005. Kirschenmann, Frederick, and David Gould. “Tame and Wild.” In Farming with the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity of Farms and Ranches, edited by Daniel Imhoff, 14–25. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2003. Kristof, Nicholas, and Sheryl WuDunn, “Saving the World’s Women: The Women’s Crusade.” New York Times Magazine, August 23, 2009. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Langer, Susanne K. Feeling and Form. New York: Scribner, 1953. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Leopold, Aldo. “The Land Ethic.” In A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There, 237–263. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949. ———.“Means and Ends in Wildlife Management.” In The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, edited by S. L. Flader and J. B. Callicott, 235–238. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. ———. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949. Levins, Richard, and Richard C. Lewontin. The Dialectical Biologist. (Reprint.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Lewontin, R. C. Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992. ———. It Ain’t Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions. New York: New York Review of Books, 2001. ———. “The Maturing of Capitalist Agriculture: Farmer as Proletarian.” In Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Food, Farmers, and the Environment, edited by Frederick H. Buttel, John B. Foster, and Fred Magdoff, 93–107. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. Lowdermilk, Walter C. “Conquest of the Land through Seven Thousand Years.” http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010119lowdermilk.usda /cls.html. 1942. ———. “The Eleventh Commandment.” American Forests 46 (January 1940): 14–15. Lutgendorf, Philip. “City, Forest, and Cosmos: Ecological Perspectives from

250

Bibliography

the Sanskrit Epics.” In Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water, edited by Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker, 269–289. Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2000. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Reasoning. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1981. Magdoff, Fred. “Ecological Agriculture: Principles, Practices, and Constraints.” Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 22, no. 2 (2007): 109–117. Marriott, McKim. “The Feast of Love.” In Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes, edited by Milton Singer, 200–212. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Martin, Andrew. “Egg Recall Exposes Flaws in Nation’s Food Safety System.” New York Times, August 24, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/ business/25eggs.html?scp=3&sq=egg%20recall%20salmonella&st=cse. Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, Nature, and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. ———. Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. ———. “Reinventing Eden: Western Culture as a Recovery Narrative.” In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronin, 132–170. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. Midgley, Mary. Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978. Mills, Stephanie. In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Rehabilitating Damaged Land. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Muhlke, Christine. “Evangelists for Heirloom Vegetables.” New York Times Magazine. August 11, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/maga zine/15food-t-000.html?scp=1&sq=heirloomm%20foods&st=cse. Mukherji, S. C. “The Cult of Ekanamsha.” Indian Historical Quarterly 35 (September 1959): 189–208. Mumme, Patricia Y. “Models and Images for a Vaishnava Environmental Theology: The Potential Contribution of Srivaishnavism.” In Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, edited by Lance E. Nelson, 133–161. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Nabhan, Gary. “Cultural Parallax: The Wilderness Concept in Crisis.” In Cultures of Habitat: On Nature, Culture, and Story, 152–165. Washington, DC: Counterpoint Press, 1997. Nagarajan, Vijaya Rettakudi. “The Earth as Goddess Bhu Devi: Toward a Theory of ‘Embedded Ecologies’ in Folk Hinduism.” In Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, edited by Lance E. Nelson, 269–296. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

Bibliography

251

Narayanan, Vasudha. “Wood, Wind, and Wisdom: Ecological Perspectives from the Hindu Tradition.” In Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment, edited by Richard C. Foltz, 130–143. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Thompson, 2003. Nash, Roderick F. “The Greening of Religion.” In This Sacred Earth, edited by Roger Gottlieb, 194–229. New York: Routledge, 1995. ———. Wilderness in the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Neumann, William. “Egg Recall Expanded after Salmonella Outbreak.” New York Times, August 18, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/business /19eggs.html?scp=1&sq=egg%20recall%20salmonella&st=cse. ———. “U.S. Rejected Hen Vaccine Despite British Success.” New York Times, August 24, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/business/25vac cine.html?pagewanted=all. Nussbaum, Martha. Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997. Olwig, Kenneth R. “Reinventing Common Nature: Yosemite and Mount Rushmore—A Meandering Tale of a Double Nature.” In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronin, 379–408. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. Otto, Daniel. “How the Egg Industry Changed.” New York Times, August 24, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/8/24/why-eggs-became -a-salmonella-hazard/how-the-egg-industry-changed. Pallava, Aparna. “What’s for Lunch, Mother?” Hitavada, June 8, 2008, Section 3, 1. Pandey, Ghanashyam. Srihaladhar Nityarcana. Baldeo: Srihaladhar Samagradarshan Shodh Samsthan, 1998. Parajuli, Pramod. “No Nature Apart: Adivasi Cosmovision and Ecological Discourses in Jharkhand, India.” In Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics: Planting a Tree, edited by Philip P. Arnold and Ann Grodzins Gold, 83–113. Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2001. Patrao, Michael. “The Grand Organic Food Opera.” Deccan Herald, September 8, 2010. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/81682/grand-organicfood-opera.html. Patton, Laurie L. “Nature Romanticism and Sacrifice in Rgvedic Interpretation.” In Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water, edited by Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker, 39–58. Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2000. Peterson, Anna L. Being Human: Ethics, Environment, and Our Place in the World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. ———. “Environmental Ethics and the Social Construction of Nature.” In Environmental Ethics, 3rd ed., edited by Susan J. Armstrong and Richard G. Botzler, 89–94. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003.

252

Bibliography

———. “In and Out of the World: Christian Theological Anthropology and Environmental Ethics.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 12, no. 3 (2000): 237–261. ———. Seeds of the Kingdom: Utopian Communities in the Americas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Philpott, Tom. “A ‘Habitual Offender’ Unleashes Nearly Half a Billion Salmonella-Tainted Eggs.” Grist, August 19, 2010. http://www.grist.org/article/ food-a-habitual-offender-unleashes-nearly-half-a-billion-salmonella-t/. Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s View of the World. New York: Random House, 2001. ———. “Farmer in Chief.” New York Times Magazine, October 9, 2008. http:// www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html. ———. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual. New York: Penguin Press, 2009. ———. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2007. Posey, Darrell Addison. “Cultural Landscapes, Chronological Ecotones and Kayapo Resource Management.” In Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity, edited by Darrell Addison Posey, 363–364. Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Environment Programme, 1999. ———. Indigenous Knowledge and Ethics: A Darrell Posey Reader. New York: Routledge, 2004. Raglon, Rebecca, and Marian Scholtmeijer. “‘Animals Are Not Believers in Ecology’: Mapping Critical Differences between Environmental and Animal Advocacy Literatures.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 14, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 121–140. ———. “Shifting Ground: Meta-Narratives, Epistemology, and the Languages of Nature.” Environmental Ethics 18, no. 2 (Winter 1996): 19–38. Rajagopalachari, C. Mahabharata. Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1996. Read, Kay Almere. Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Rettig, Molly. “Alaska Flocks to Local Eggs after Salmonella Scare,” Health on MSNBC.com, August 26, 2010. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38868619 /38867063. Roberts, Leslie, Richard Stone, and Andrew Sugden. “The Rise of Restoration Ecology.” Science 325, no. 1176 (July 2009): 555. Rocher, Ludo. The Puranas. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1986. Rolston, Holmes. Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World. Philadelphia, PA.: Temple University Press, 1988. Rozzi, Ricardo. “The Reciprocal Links between Evolutionary-Ecological Sciences and Environmental Ethics.” BioScience 49, no. 11 (November 1999): 911–921. Rozzi, Ricardo, E. Hargrove, and J. J. Arnesto. “‘Natural Drift’ as a Post-mod-

Bibliography

253

ern Evolutionary Metaphor.” Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 71 (1998): 5–17. Rukmani, T. S. A Critical Study of the Bhagavata Purana. Varanasi: The Chowkambha Sanskrit Series Office, 1970. Russell, Edmund P. “Speaking of Annihilation: Mobilizing for War against Human and Insect Enemies, 1914–1945.” Journal of American History 82, no. 4 (March 1996): 1505–1529. Sanford, A. Whitney. “Holi through Dauji’s Eyes: Alternate Views of Krishna and Balarama in Dauji.” In Alternative Krishnas: Vernacular and Regional Views on a Hindu Deity, edited by Guy Beck, 91–112. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. ———. “Negotiating for Srinathji, Dauji, and Jakhaiya: Narrative as Arbiter of Contested Sites in Braj.” International Journal of Hindu Studies 6, no. 1 (2003): 29–55. ———. Singing Krishna: Sound Becomes Sight in Paramanand’s Poetry. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. ———. “Uneasy Partners: Balarama as Embodiment of Wilderness.” In The Banyan Tree: Essays on Early Literature in New Indo-Aryan Languages, vol. 2, edited by Mariola Offredi, 363–387. New Delhi: Manohar, 2000. ———. “Yakshas on the Margin of Contemporary Practice.” In Through the Unorthodox Eyes of Yaksh(a)s and Yogis: Fresh Perspectives on Religion in South Asia. Special issue of Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73, no. 1 (March 2005): 89–110. Savyasaachi, Dr. “An Alternate System of Knowledge: Fields and Forests in Abhujhmarh.” In Who Will Save the Forests: Knowledge, Power, and Environmental Destruction, edited by Tariq Baruri and Frederique ApffelMarglin, 53–79. London: Zed Books, 1993. Schomer, Karine. “Divali: The Study of a Hindu Festival.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 7, no. 2 (1999): 5–36. Sengupta, Somini. “In Fertile India, Growth Strips Agriculture.” New York Times, June 22, 2008. http://www.nyt.com/2008/06/22/business/22india food.html. Shastri, Pandey Ramtej, ed. Gargasamhita. Delhi: Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishthan, 1996. Shepard, Paul. The Only World We’ve Got. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996. Sherma, Rita DasGupta. “Sacred Immanence: Reflections of Ecofeminism in Hindu Tantra.” In Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, edited by Lance E. Nelson, 89–132. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Shiva, Vandana. Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace. London: South End Press, 2005. ———. The Violence of the Green Revolution: Agriculture, Ecology, and Politics

254

Bibliography

in the South. (Reprint.) New Delhi: Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, 1992. Sideris, Lisa H. Environmental Ethics: Ecological Theology and Natural Selection. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Siegel, Lee. Laughing Matters: Comic Tradition in India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989. Singh, Chitralekha, and Prem Nath. Hindu Festivals, Fairs, and Fasts. New Delhi: Crest Publishing House, 1999. Slater, Candace. “Amazonia as Edenic Narrative.” In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronin, 114–131. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996. Smith, Jonathan Z. “The Domestication of Sacrifice.” In Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, Rene Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, edited by Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, 191–205. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. ———. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Snyder, Gary. A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1995. Soper, Kate. “Feminism and Ecology: Realism and Rhetoric in the Discourses of Nature.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 20, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 311–331. ———. What Is Nature? Culture, Politics and the Non-Human. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1995. Soule, Judith D. “Conservation and Agriculture as Neighbors.” In The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems, edited by D. L. Jackson and L. L. Jackson, 169–188. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002. Soule, J. D., and J. K. Piper. Farming in Nature’s Image: An Ecological Approach to Agriculture. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1992. Soule, Michael. “What Is Conservation Biology?” BioScience 35, no. 11 (December 1985): 727–734. Srimad-Bhagvata-Mahapurana: Sri Subodhini. Jodhpur: Sri Subodhini Prakashak Mandal, 1971. Srinivasan, Doris Meth. “Early Vaishnava Imagery: Caturvyuha and Variant Forms.” Archives of Asian Art 32, no. 79–80 (1979): 39–54. ———. “Vaishnava Art and Iconography and Mathura.” In Mathura: The Cultural Heritage, edited by Doris Meth Srinivasin, 383–392. New Delhi: Manohar Publications for American Institute of Indian Studies, 1989. Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, and Cees de Haan. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Opinions. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006.

Bibliography

255

Suzuki, David, with Amanda McConnell. The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. Vancouver, B.C.: Greystone Books, 1997. Tagare, Ganesh, trans. and annotat. Bhagavata Purana. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989. Takacs, David. The Idea of Biodiversity: Philosophies of Paradise. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Talbott, Carl. “The Wilderness Narrative and the Cultural Logic of Capitalism.” In The Great New Wilderness Debate, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson, 325–333. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. Tanesini, Alessandra. An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies. Boston: Blackwell Press, 1999. “Telling Porkies: The Big Fat Lie about Doubling Food Production.” Bristol, UK: Soil Association, 2010. www.soilassociation.org. Thapar, Romila. Interpreting Early India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992. Thiele, Leslie Paul. “Evolutionary Narratives and Ecological Ethics.” Political Theory 27, no. 1 (February 1999): 6–38. Thompson, Paul. The Spirit of the Soil. New York: Routledge, 1997. Timms, Pamela. “Eat and Dust: Food Adventures in India.” March 24, 2010. http://eatanddust.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/1089/. Toomey, Paul. “Food from the Mouth of Krishna: Socio-Religious Aspects of Sacred Food in Two Krishnaite Sects.” In Food, Culture and Society: Aspects of Food in South Asian Food Systems, edited by R. S. Khare and M. S. Rao, 55–83. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1986. ———. “Krishna’s Consuming Passions: Food as Metaphor and Metonym for Emotion at Mount Govardhan.” In Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India, edited by Owen Lynch, 157–181. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990. Trubek, Amy B. The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Van Buitenin, J. A. B., ed. and trans. The Mahabharata. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. ———. “On the Archaism of the Bhagavata Purana in Krishna.” In Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes, edited by Milton Singer, 23–40. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Varghese, Theresa. “Back to Our Roots, Eating Healthy.” Citizen Matters: Bangalore, March 17, 2010. http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/ view/1857-organic-healthy-food-bengaluru. Vaudeville, Charlotte. “Braj: Lost and Found.” Indo-Iranian Journal 18, no. 3–4 (1976): 195–213. ———. “The Cowherd God in Ancient India.” In Pastoralists and Nomads in South Asia, edited by Lawrence Saadia Leshnik and Gunther-Dietz Sontheimer, 92–115. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1975.

256

Bibliography

———. “The Govardhan Myth in North India.” Indo-Iranian Journal 22 (1980): 1–45. ———. “Krishna Gopala, Radha, and the Great Goddess.” In The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, 1–12. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. ———. “Multiple Approaches to a Living Hindu Myth: The Lord of Govardhan Hill.” In Hinduism Reconsidered, edited by Gunther Sontheimer and Herman Kulke, 105–126. New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1991. Vemsani, Lavanya. Hindu and Jain Mythology of Balarama: Continuity and Change in an Early Indian Cult. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. Vogel, J. P. H. Indian Serpent-Lore. (Reprint.) New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1995. ———. “Naga Worship in Ancient Mathura.” Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report 1908–9 (1912): 159–163. Wald, Matthew L. “Meat Packer Admits Slaughter of Sick Cows.” New York Times, March 18, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/business/ 13meat.html. Warren, Karen. “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics 12, no. 2 (1990): 125–146. Waterhouse, Beth E. “A Refined Taste in Natural Objects.” In The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems, edited by D. L. Jackson and L. L. Jackson, 235–246. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002. Welch, Sharon. Sweet Dreams in America: Making Ethics and Spirituality Work. New York: Routledge, 1999. Weston, Anthony. Back to Earth: Tomorrow’s Environmentalism. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994. White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. White, Lynn, Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767 (March 10, 1967): 1203–1207. Willard, Tim. “The Future Is Green.” July 1, 2008. http://greenfuture.blogspot .com/2008/07/perennial-polyculture-farming.html. Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Wirzba, Norman. “Introduction.” In The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land, edited by Norman Wirzba, 1–20. Frankfurt: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Wright, Angus. The Death of Ramón González: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma. Rev. ed. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2005.

Index

Italic page numbers refer to photographs and illustrations

Ableman, Michael, 13–14, 213, 215 Abundant Edible Landscapes, 205 Adivasi land use, 182–183, 184, 192, 210 Agarwal, Anil, 172 Agarwal, Arun, 51 Agarwal, Bina, 91 agricultural runoff, 25, 32–33, 59, 162 agriculture in France, 162, 191 agriculture in India animals and, x, 168, 235n1 degradation and, 59–62, 63 dharma and, 63, 66 fallow periods and, 183–184 Green Revolution and, xii, xiv, 107 industrial agriculture, xiii–xiv, 31, 60, 217 irrigation and, 58, 60, 98 organic agriculture, ix, xiv, 34, 217–218 plowing, 66, 98–99, 100, 103–104 in religious festivals, xi, 125–126, 234n2 as sacred, x, xiii, 24, 100, 109, 125–126 seeds and, x–xiii, 40, 107, 218 social and agricultural health, 62, 63, 64 traditional cropping systems, 42, 110, 218 Vedic rituals and, 63, 64, 230n11 water and, 65, 66, 81

women and, 91, 98–99, 100 See also Balaram and Yamuna River story; Hinduism; indigenous agriculture; myth and agriculture; nagas; pastoral idyll, the agriculture in the United States, 91, 184 animal abuse and, 25, 158–159, 162, 224 concerns about, 5–6, 8–9, 23, 24–25, 31–33, 222 conservation practices in, 17, 212, 214–215 current practices, 1–4, 25, 59 family honor and, 212–213 human intervention and, 43–48, 76 land ethic and, 43, 117, 194, 200 narratives of, 35–36, 50–51, 53, 118–120 Puritans and, 174–175, 176, 177–178 reciprocity and, 190, 213 relationships and social situatedness in, 36, 37, 191–192 sociopolitical context of, 109–110 See also alternative agricultures; environmental discourse; food production; indigenous agriculture; industrial agriculture; myth and agriculture; small-scale farms; wilderness

258 agroecological restoration, 16, 17, 44, 206, 210, 211, 212 agroecology, 6, 13, 16, 18, 34, 38, 44, 182–183, 202, 205 agroforestry, xiii, 182–183 Ahivasi Gaur Brahmans. See Pandas Akbar, Emperor, 169 Alpers, Paul, 163 alternative agricultures, 9–10, 16–18, 44, 90–91 examples of, 18, 34, 105, 205–211, 217 food as gift and, 209–210, 211, 216 intimacy and familiarity with food and, 131, 196, 197–198 intrinsic worth of all beings and, 200–201 jazz and, 13–14, 27, 213–214, 215 narratives of, 6, 52–53, 194, 202–203, 204, 224 reciprocity and, 6, 189, 205, 219 relationships and social situatedness in, 188–189, 195–196 seeds and, 40, 41–42, 107, 218 See also agroecology; conservation biology; organic agriculture; restoration ecology; small-scale farms; sustainable agriculture Altieri, Miguel, 16, 34, 38, 94 Anant. See Balaram; Shesh animal abuse, 25, 158–159, 162, 235n1 Apffel-Marglin, Frederique, 36, 178, 212 Arcadia, 112, 163, 165, 167–168 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), 45 Aurangzeb, Emperor, 86 Aztec religion, 62 Bacon, Francis, 35, 36, 37 Badgley, Catherine, 94 Balabhadra Mahatmya, 78, 123 Balaram anger of, 86, 88–89, 100, 116 bhang taking, 88, 139, 156, 157 dharma and, 57, 62, 76, 85, 86, 114, 167, 192

Index discovery of, as deity, 137–138, 234nn11–12, 235n15 family of, 69–71, 73–76, 129–130, 231nn20, 32 fertility of earth and, 58, 76, 77, 81, 85, 86, 154, 192–193, 231–232n37 gopis and, 78, 79, 80, 84, 85, 125, 214 intoxication of, 58, 79, 80, 83, 85, 86– 89, 113, 114, 116, 155, 156 Kalyandev and, 136–137, 138, 139– 140, 235n15 as king of Braj, 58, 67, 68–69, 79, 101, 113, 120, 124, 133, 191, 196 Krishna and, 22, 62, 67, 69–71, 86, 103, 112, 125, 132, 165–167, 214 Krishna and Demon Kamsha and, 72–73, 78–79 Krishna status and, 23, 57–58, 59, 113, 114, 130, 156, 231–232n37 as naga, 66, 69, 72, 75, 85, 103, 124, 134, 135, 138, 170 the pastoral idyll and, 22, 112, 113, 154, 165–167, 170–172 as patron of agriculture, 8, 67, 79, 112, 123, 136, 166, 167, 171, 191, 192 plow of, 58, 74–75, 78, 80, 89, 103, 106, 112, 123, 125, 144, 156, 167, 231n14 prasad from, 88, 141, 142, 146–147, 148, 149, 152 propriety and, 79, 80, 84–85, 86, 88, 113, 114, 129–130, 132 as protector, 58, 63, 69, 76, 77, 120, 130, 133, 140, 147, 155 as provider of water, 60, 69, 78, 83, 84, 155, 231n14 responsibilities of, 10, 19, 79, 83, 128, 197, 216–217 return to Braj, 58, 73, 76, 84 ritual service to, 58, 134–136, 138– 139, 150 rules of conduct and, 87, 88–89, 113 as satirical figure, 114, 116, 161, 167 Shesh as, 66, 67–70, 78, 89, 103, 136

Index strength and power of, 74, 87, 88, 129, 156 as subordinate in the pastoral realm, 160, 161–163, 165, 171, 202 temple images of, 68, 134–135, 135 worship of, 8, 23–24, 58, 60–61, 67– 69, 68, 71, 87, 112, 134–140, 167, 197 See also Balaram and Yamuna River story; Baldeo, India; Braj; Holi harvest festival Balaram and Yamuna River story aggression inherent in agriculture and, 19, 24, 59, 85–86, 99, 108, 155, 159, 185, 221 agriculture and human behavior and, 5, 15, 19–21, 23, 42, 57, 59, 83, 192– 193, 196–197 comedic resolution and, 111, 114–118 details of, 78–80 gender and agriculture and, 59, 83, 84, 96, 99–100, 103–104, 196–197 geographical and agricultural context of, 59–62, 125 human action in context of community, 201, 205, 216 human entitlement to earth’s produce, 8, 10, 55, 60, 76, 82, 95, 121–122 human frustration at illusion of control and, 8, 56, 84, 93, 99, 103, 104, 105, 154, 209, 221 male aggression over female earth, 60, 75, 82, 83, 94–95, 106 as narrative for agriculture, 26, 27, 81–83, 194, 198–199 overview of, 57–59 the pastoral idyll and, 111–114, 162–163 practical implications of, 80–81, 91–92 protection and subordination in, 101–108, 214 reciprocity and, 93–95, 97–98, 108– 110, 119–120, 185, 203, 209 religious and cultural context of, 62– 69, 83–86, 231–232n37

259 social obligations and, 93, 97–98, 105, 119–120, 121–122, 185–186, 191 Yamuna River-Balaram relationship, 24, 69, 79–80, 81, 84–85, 96, 97– 98, 101, 119–120, 187, 216 Yamuna River diversion, 58, 60, 75, 76, 79–80, 81, 83–85, 105, 108, 114, 192–193, 196–197 Yamuna River diversion as sexual act, 99, 122, 125 Yamuna River non-response to Balaram, 85, 99–100, 104, 105, 110, 116, 216 See also Holi harvest festival Balaram Eco Sena, 172 Baldeo, India agricultural fertility and, 101, 114 Balaram’s diversion of Yamuna River and, 76, 80–81, 83–86, 196–197 Balaram worship, 8, 23–24, 60–61, 67–69, 68, 71, 76, 112, 134–140, 167, 197 discovery of Balaram, as deity, 137– 138, 234nn11–12, 235n15 Holi harvest festival and, 27, 77, 81, 121–158, 159–160, 213, 214, 231n18 location, 61 See also Balaram; Balaram and Yamuna River story; Braj; Holi harvest festival; Pandas Baldev Research Institute, 83, 127, 147 Barbour, Dan, 30 Barlett, Peggy, 51 barley, xii, 61, 131, 146, 155 bears, 105, 179 Beeche, Robyn, 133, 150, 151 bees, 46, 86 Bentham, Jeremy, 188 Berry, Thomas, 51–52 Berry, Wendell, 12, 17, 46, 164 eating and, x, 52, 159 industrial agriculture and, 2, 8, 52, 119 Bhagavata Purana, 67, 167, 169 Balaram descriptions, 89, 103, 113

260 Bhagavata Purana (continued) Balaram stories, 73, 75, 76, 78, 84, 86, 231n22, 231–232n37 bhang, 88, 139, 149, 156, 157 Bharatamuni, 113, 115 Bhima, 87 Bhudevi, 101–102 biodiversity, 196 loss of, xiv, 25, 32, 46 promotion of, xi, xiv, 13, 18, 34, 38, 46, 108, 183–185, 207, 210, 219 seeds and, x, xiii, 218 biodynamic farming, 105, 108 biofuels, 108 biotechnology, 40–41, 42, 185 biotic community agency of earth and, 14, 17, 100, 105– 106, 108, 110, 216, 219, 221 agriculture and, 10, 14, 27, 48, 108, 131, 155 ecological imagination and, 55, 215– 216, 222 good citizenship and, 6, 215, 219, 220 holistic model of, 199 human participation and, 4, 8, 10, 13, 14, 21, 23, 26, 28, 47–48, 194–195, 209–211 humans as plain and simple members, 22, 34, 199–202 narratives and, 51–52, 82, 190, 191, 193, 204–205, 209–210 nonhumans and, 2, 4, 20, 100–101 reciprocity and, 42, 55, 157, 195, 203, 220 restoration ecology and, 18, 117, 208 social constructions of, 179–190 use of term, 4, 55, 117, 179–180, 206 See also biodiversity Blair, Tony, 154 boars, 101–102, 233n22 Body in the Mind, The (Johnson), 38 Borlaug, Norman, 40 Botany of Desire, The (Pollan), 203 Boyle, Robert, 37 Bradley, Nina Leopold, 117

Index Brahma, x, xi, 73–74, 75 Braj Balaram and Yamuna River story in, 76–81, 84 Balaram as king of, 58, 67, 69, 77, 79, 101, 113, 120, 124, 133, 191, 196 Balaram devotion in, 24, 57–58, 133– 134, 202, 234n8, 235n15 Balaram’s commitment to, 78, 79, 87, 129, 171, 197 Balaram’s return to, 58, 73, 76, 84 Holi harvest festival and, 58, 77, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128–129, 133– 134, 140, 144 Krishna and Balaram and, 62, 67, 69–71, 76, 125, 132 Krishna leaving, 58, 73, 78–79, 84 the pastoral idyll and, 62, 63, 70–71, 72, 111, 112, 160, 163, 165, 166– 171, 192, 197 See also Balaram; Balaram and Yamuna River story; Baldeo, India; Holi harvest festival; Yamuna River Butz, Earl, 39, 154 Callicott, Baird, 182, 185 cancer, 32 Center for an Agricultural Economy, 30 Cheney, Jim, 52, 187, 188 climate change, xiv, 31, 46 Code, Lorraine, 54, 202 coffee, 46 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), 46 conservation biology, 9, 18, 34, 164 corn, 13, 16, 24, 29, 32, 36, 83, 107 Corn Maiden, 173–174, 187 Cronon, William, 45, 216 darshan (sighting) of Balaram, 132, 134, 140–142, 147, 149, 153 Darwin, Charles, 199, 200, 201 Dasmann, Ray, 164 Dauji. See Balaram Dauji Temple, 60–61, 68, 74, 81, 130, 131, 135, 141, 148–153, 152, 214

Index Descartes, René, 35, 37, 182 Devaki, 69, 70, 73 Devi, 69 DeVore, Brian, 17 dharma agriculture in India and, 63, 66 Balaram and, 57, 62, 76, 85, 86, 114, 167, 192 defined, 64–65 upholding, 62, 87, 94, 114, 167 Dube, Leela, 98, 103 Durga, 80 Duryodhana, 87 Dust Bowl, 33 Dusyanta, King, 101 Dvivida, 88–89 Dwarka, India, 73 Dwivedi, O. P., 65 E. coli, 30 ecological agriculture, 16, 105 ecological imagination, 1, 5, 7, 10, 53– 55, 155, 193, 215–216, 222 ecological restoration. See restoration ecology Ecology of Eden, The (Eisenburg), 27 ecotheologians, 206 Eells, Jean, 91 eggs, 3, 223, 224 Eisenburg, Evan, 13, 27, 112, 213 “Eleventh Commandment, The” (lecture, Lowdermilk), 33 “End of Plenty, The” (National Geographic), 107–108 Entwistle, Alan, 75, 98, 166, 170 environmental discourse, 187–190, 200, 207–208, 211 avoiding agriculture, 9, 11, 13, 19, 44, 45, 47, 111, 112–113, 162, 164–165, 202 environmental ethics, 17, 52, 189, 200, 203, 230n70 humans vs. nature, 51–52, 110–111, 180, 181–182, 237n58 idealized vs. “tainted” land, 104–105,

261 111–113, 172–173, 174, 178–179, 184–185 in India, 172, 175, 182–183 Marx and, 118, 185, 190, 191, 192 the pastoral idyll and, 11, 192 wilderness vs. agriculture, 162, 163, 164–165, 177, 236n46 See also biotic community Essential Agrarian Reader, The (Wirzba), 17 famine, xiii, 62, 107, 112, 122, 124, 153, 154, 155, 159 Farm as Natural Habitat, The (D. Jackson and L. Jackson), 17, 210 farmers’ markets, 1, 5, 15, 29, 217, 221, 222 farming, 15 agency of farm in, 105 as process of agriculture, 30 See also agriculture in India; agriculture in the United States; alternative agricultures; biodynamic farming; indigenous agriculture; industrial agriculture; organic agriculture; small-scale farms Farming with the Wild (Imhoff ), 214 Feldhaus, Anne, 96 fertilizers, 32, 40, 41, 50–51, 92, 106, 116 Fields of Plenty (Ableman), 213 Florida Organic Growers, 30 Food, Inc. (film, 2009), 1, 222 food production anonymity of, 121, 130–131, 139, 160, 198, 223 changing eating practices and, 45, 46–47, 52, 54, 159, 160, 221 concerns about, 3–4, 5–6, 9, 15, 29, 131, 154–155, 158–159, 222 as gift, 209, 222 Green Revolution and, 107 locally grown, 221 narratives of, 14, 19, 39, 54 packaged foods, 56, 139, 209, 223 poverty and, 223–224

262 food production (continued) rethinking, 196, 198, 219 serving cooked food sacredly in India, 138–139, 234–235n14 U.S. policies and, 90 See also agriculture in the United States; industrial agriculture forests, 51, 91, 100, 172, 174–175, 177, 182–183, 185, 186, 187 Foster, John B., 32 Foucault, Michel, 188 Fraley, Robert, 107 Friends of Vrindavan, 172 Gadgil, Madhav, 175, 186 Ganges River, 20, 97 gardening, 15, 215, 223 agency of earth and, 14, 119 growth of, 29–30, 206 reciprocity and, 12–13, 219–222 Garden of Eden, 173, 174, 175 Gare, Arran, 52 Garga, 70, 73 Garga Samhita, 73, 75, 78, 123, 231n29 Garuda, 72, 136 gender and agriculture, 95–101 See also Balaram and Yamuna River story; women genetic modifications, 44, 107, 108, 116, 194 Goddess, the, 84 Gokul, 70, 134, 136, 137, 235n15 Gokulnath, 137–138, 140, 234n12 Gold, Ann, 63, 91, 99, 102 Gomez-Pompa, Arturo, 183–184 gopis, 72, 73, 78, 79, 80, 84, 85, 125, 147, 214 Goswami, Rupa, 115 Goswami, Srivatsa, 172 Gould, Stephen Jay, 189, 190 govar (cow dung), 145, 145–146 Green Belt Movement, Kenya, 91 Green Revolution, xiv, 40, 107 Grizzly Man (film, 2005), 179 Growing Home, 205

Index guano, 32, 118 Guano Island Act of 1856, 32 Guha, Ramachandra, 44, 50, 175, 186, 187, 211–212 Gujar, Bhoju Ram, 63 Haber, Fritz, 50–51 Haberman, David, 60, 172 Haladhar, 103, 167 See also Balaram Halweil, Brian, 106–107 Haraway, Donna, 184, 186, 187, 202 Harivamsha, 84, 231n20 Harlan, Lindsay, 87 Haskins, Lord, 154 Herschel, William, 41 Hillel, Daniel, 31 Hill Maria, 183, 185, 192 Hinduism, 101 and agriculture, 7–8, 18, 19–20, 21, 26, 57, 63, 64, 119, 125, 144 comedic resolution and, 115–116, 173 cosmos and, 64, 65–69, 106, 132 devotee-deity relationship in, 109, 214, 230n11 extent of, in India, 62 pastoral idyll in, 112, 163, 171 poetic tradition, 21–22, 26, 163, 197 rivers as goddesses in, 96–97, 109 See also Balaram; Balaram and Yamuna River story; dharma; Krishna; nagas; Vaishnava devotion Hiranyakashipu, King, 144 Hobbes, Thomas, 37 hog production, 25, 162 Holi harvest festival agriculture as central to social realm and, 121, 124 balancing tensions, 24, 82, 153–160 Balaram, daily darshan (sighting) of, 132, 140–142, 147, 149, 153 Balaram and Yamuna River story and, 19, 76–81, 121–123, 192–193 Balaram’s return and, 58, 76, 77–78, 80, 129, 161

Index bhang taking, 88, 157 bonfires, 127, 142, 144, 145, 146, 153 as carnival, 113, 116, 142–153, 159 comedic elements of, 144, 153–154, 157–158, 159–160, 193 comedic resolution and, 114, 116, 216–217 dancing between younger brother and sister-in-law, 146–147, 149, 152, 156–157, 158, 213, 214 dancing resolving social tensions in, 27, 156, 157–158 fertility and, 115, 133, 143, 145–146, 153, 155, 193 as game of love, 126, 128–129, 133, 148 Huranga, 132, 140, 147–152, 150–151, 156 playing Holi, 126, 127–134, 141–142, 146, 147, 149, 150, 160 renewal of social bonds during, 11, 77, 80, 115, 122–123, 124, 128–129, 131, 146 rituals of, 76–78, 122, 123, 124, 125– 134, 140–154, 156, 157–159, 234n1 throwing of color and/or water, 77, 124, 126, 132–133, 133, 140, 141– 142, 146, 147–153 wearing of silk prasad, 141, 146–147, 148 women and, 99, 125, 126–127, 128– 130, 144, 147, 149, 156–157, 214 See also Balaram; Balaram and Yamuna River story; Baldeo, India; Braj; Pandas Holika, 144–145 Howard, Albert, ix, 34 hunting, 200, 208–209, 239n23 Huranga, 132, 140, 147–152, 150–151, 156 See also Holi harvest festival hydrilla, 220–221 hypoxia, 32–33, 46 Idea of Biodiversity, The (Takacs), 34 Imhoff, Dan, 46, 214

263 indigenous agriculture, 10, 44, 119, 191, 206, 212 indigenous groups in India, 100, 182– 183, 184, 186–189, 192, 210 Native Americans, 176–177, 183, 186– 189, 237n58 seeds and, 31, 109 swidden agriculture, 183–184 wilderness communities and, 175– 177, 187 Indra, 75 industrial agriculture consequences of, 1–4, 8–9 domination of nature and, 6, 36, 101, 106, 108, 119, 203–204, 205, 215 “feeding the world,” 4, 9, 32, 35, 39, 40, 50, 53, 116, 139 high productivity of, xiii–xiv, 28, 40, 47, 86, 90, 94 human entitlement to earth’s produce and, 17, 82, 91, 118 in India, xiii–xiv, 31, 60, 217 Marxist view of, 118 meat and, 108, 194 monocropping, xiv, 2, 16, 25, 183, 211 narratives of, 3, 29, 30–34, 35–36, 40, 42, 56, 57, 60, 76 nature as a machine and, 35–36, 38, 41, 116 new narratives needed for, 28, 42–43, 52–53, 195 vs. organic farming, 15, 31, 38–39, 46, 106–107, 194–195, 215 as scientific, 35–36, 39, 40, 42, 195, 205 seeds and, xii, 31, 40–41 “war on nature,” 35, 50, 84, 106 “Whom do we wish to starve?,” 39, 92, 106, 154 See also agriculture in the United States International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), 172 intoxication, 87, 88, 89, 155–156, 232n40 See also Balaram; nagas

264 Iowa State University (ISU), Sustainable Agriculture Program, 16, 24–25, 90, 206 irrigation, 58, 60, 98 Jackson, Dana, 17, 31, 210, 212 Jackson, Laura, 17, 90, 210, 212 Jackson, Wes, 8, 16, 43, 44, 45, 52, 116, 164, 191 Jamison, Stephanie, 85 jazz, agriculture and, 13–14, 27, 213– 214, 215 jhand (adorned pole), 143, 144, 151 Jharkhand forest, 187, 192 Johnson, Mark, 9, 38, 49, 54, 198 Jordan, William, 10, 18, 114–115, 174, 207, 208, 210 Jyotishmati, 73, 75 See also Revati Kalindi. See Yamuna River Kaliya, 71–72, 136, 172 Kalpavriksh, 175 Kalyandev, 136–137, 138, 139–140, 235n15 Kamsha, King, 58, 69, 70, 71, 72–73, 78 Kanti, 80 Kaus, Andrea, 184 Kaveri River, 96–97 Kenner, Robert, 1 Khandava Forest, 172 Kirschenmann, Frederick, 8, 16, 35, 38, 41, 43, 46, 52, 196, 215 Kothari, Ashish, 175 Krishna Balaram and, 22, 62, 67, 69–71, 86, 103, 112, 125, 132, 165–167, 214 Balaram and Demon Kamsha and, 72–73, 78–79 Balaram status and, 23, 57–58, 59, 113, 114, 130, 156, 231–232n37 birth of, 61, 69–70 family of, 69, 231n20 gopis and, 72, 73, 79, 84, 85, 125, 147, 192, 214

Index as “green,” 172, 236n26 Holi harvest festival and, 77, 80–81, 125, 126, 147, 156, 166 Kaliya and, 71–72, 172 leaving Braj, 58, 73, 78–79, 84 the pastoral idyll and, 23, 58, 59, 79, 112, 165–166, 168–169, 170–172, 192 Vishnu as, 66, 69, 70, 71–72 worship of, 87, 134, 147, 166, 168, 197 Yamuna River and, 70, 71–72, 85, 134, 168, 172 Kristof, Nicolas, 91 Kuhn, Thomas, 37, 41, 202 Lakoff, George, 9, 49, 180 Lakshmi, 80 Lal, Rattan, 107 Land Institute, 16, 206 Land Stewardship Project, 17 Langer, Susanne, 114–115, 154 Langulin, 103, 156 See also Balaram Languriya, 104, 156 large-scale agriculture. See industrial agriculture lathi-Holi, 147–148 Latour, Bruno, 37, 202 Leopold, Aldo, 22, 34, 43, 117, 194, 199– 201, 204, 206, 207 Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 16, 24–25, 90, 206 Levins, Richard, 41, 109–110, 189, 190 Lewontin, Richard C., 41, 109–110, 119, 189, 190, 202, 203, 213 Liebig, Justus von, 118 Lincoln, Abraham, 176 livestock production, 31, 46 LocalHarvest, 30 Lowdermilk, Walter C., 33, 42 Lutgendorf, Philip, 101, 172 Maathai, Wangari, 91 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 48, 83 Magdoff, Fred, 16, 32, 206

Index Mahabharata, 67, 76, 86, 87, 88, 101, 103, 166, 172 Maharasalila dance, 79, 146–147, 231– 232n37 Maharashtra, India, 217, 218 Mahasvarasvati, 69, 80 Marriott, McKim, 133 Marx, Karl, 118, 185, 190, 191, 192 Marx, Leo, 178 maryada, 80, 86, 87, 113, 114, 132 Mathura, India, 61, 69, 70, 73, 78, 79, 134, 168 matrika, 76, 231n32 meat, 3, 29, 108, 223 Merchant, Carolyn, 36, 95, 116, 173, 174, 202 metaphors, 49–50 Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson), 49 Mid America CropLife Association, 4 Middle East, 33 Midgley, Mary, 180–181 milk, 66, 69, 131, 149, 192 Mills, Stephanie, 117 Mississippi River, 25, 32–33, 59 Monsanto, 24, 40, 107, 108, 222 Mooney, Pat Roy, 40 Moral Imagination (Johnson), 49 Mughals, 86, 169 Muir, John, 43, 173, 177, 178, 211 Mumme, Patricia, 103 murtis, 137 myth and agriculture, xi–xii, 14–15 Balaram and Krishna, 22, 23, 67, 69– 71, 165–172 comedic resolution and, 115–117 Corn Maiden, 173–174, 187 Garden of Eden, 173, 174, 175 Kaveri River and, 96–97 modern usage, 25, 26–27 Prthu and Prthvi, 94–95, 111, 120 Shiva’s household, 20, 205, 211 See also Balaram and Yamuna River story; indigenous agriculture; pastoral idyll, the

265 Nagarajan, Vijaya, 102 nagas, 59, 84, 231n14 agriculture in India and, 65–66, 69, 81, 102, 124 Balaram as naga, 66, 69, 72, 75, 85, 103, 124, 134, 135, 138, 170 intoxication and, 88, 89 Kaliya, 71–72, 136, 172 the pastoral idyll and, 166, 170 Shesh as naga, 67–70, 78, 89, 103, 136 underworld court of, 78, 89, 104 Nag Panchami festival, 66 Nanda, 70 Nandi bull, 20 Narada, 70 Narayanan, Vasudha, 96–97 narratives of agriculture. See agriculture in the United States; alternative agricultures; biotic community; food production; industrial agriculture; myth and agriculture National Geographic, 107–108 National Parks System, 45, 50, 162, 176– 177, 178 Native Americans land use and, 176–177, 183, 187–188, 237n58 rituals to atone for killing, 208–209 nature. See biodiversity; biotic community Nature Conservancy, 17 Natyashastra (Bharatamuni), 115 Navaratri, 84 Navdanya farm, x, xii, xiv, 217, 218 New Academy for Nature and Culture, 207 New York Times, 1, 91, 107, 158, 205 nonviolence, 52 North Africa, 33 Nussbaum, Martha, 48, 53, 83, 196 Obama, Barack, 90 Obama, Michelle, 4 oceans, 96, 100, 176

266 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 177, 207 Olwig, Kenneth, 177 Omnivore’s Dilemma, The (Pollan), 222 organic agriculture, 1, 4, 30, 203, 218 vs. conventional agriculture, 15, 31, 38–39, 46, 106–107, 194–195, 215 defined, 38 in India, ix, xiv, 34, 217–218 Our Native Village, 217–218 Out of the Earth (Hillel), 31 Pallava, Aparna, 218 Pandas, 24, 61, 84, 158, 214, 234n13 ancestors of, 72, 127, 136 Balaram lore and, 83, 85, 86, 123, 129, 134, 136–137 Balaram worship, 134–140 Holi harvest festival and, 123, 129, 132, 140–144, 146–147, 148–149 women and, 138 Pandey, Ghanashyam, 83, 84, 147, 148, 156 Pandey, Prem, 86, 147, 165–166 Pandey, Ravi, 128, 148 Pandey, Vikram, 61 Pandey, Yogendra, 127, 128 Panglossian Paradigm, 189 Parajuli, Pramod, 14, 36, 178, 182, 183, 212 Paramanand, 197 Parvati, 20 pastoral idyll, the, 111–114, 197 agriculture and, 21–22, 114, 171–172 Balaram and, 22, 112, 113, 154, 165– 167, 170–172 Balaram as subordinate in, 161–163, 165, 171, 202 Krishna and, 23, 58, 59, 79, 112, 168– 169, 170–172, 192 See also Balaram and Yamuna River story; Braj Patala, 89, 104 patalas, 89 Patton, Laurie, 21 Perfecto, Ivette, 94

Index pesticides, ix, 32, 46, 50, 52, 92, 106, 116 Peterson, Anna, 119, 177, 184 Phalgun, 77, 125, 127, 131, 132, 140, 142, 146 pigs. See boars; hog production plowing, 98–99, 100, 103–104 Poetic Justice (Nussbaum), 48 poetry, 21–22, 26, 163, 197 Pollan, Michael, 1, 109, 203, 222 polycultures, 16, 42, 206 Posey, Darrell, 183, 184 Prahlad, 144–145, 153 prasad, 88, 141, 142, 146–147, 148, 149, 152 Prthu, 63, 94–95, 111, 120 Prthvi, 64, 94–95, 111, 120, 209 Punjab Agricultural University, 107 Puranas, xi, 144 See also Bhagavata Purana Puritans, 174–175, 176, 177–178 pushti, 87 Radha, 126, 147 Raglon, Rebecca, 52 Raja Parbha, 100 Rajasthan, 62, 63, 87, 99, 102, 104, 147 Ram, King, 168 Ramanaka, 72 Rang Pancami, 126 Read, Kay, 62 religious festivals, xi, 125–126, 234nn1–2 See also Holi harvest festival restoration ecology, 6, 34, 114–115, 195, 206, 207–208, 210–211 defined, 18 Revata, King, 73, 75 Revati, 147, 156 Balaram and, 73–76, 106, 129–130, 139–140 children and, 75–76 worship of, 74, 134, 137, 141 rice, xi, xii, xiv, 97, 146, 150, 152 ritual sacrifice, 208 River of Love in an Age of Pollution (Haberman), 60

Index Rohini, 70, 129, 231nn20, 32 Rolston, Holmes, 189 Rozzi, Ricardo, 42, 200, 203 rta, 62, 63, 64, 85 Rukmin, King, 73, 88 Rukmini, 73, 146 Rural Advancement Foundation International, 40 Russell, Edmund P., 50 salmonella, 3, 30, 223, 224 samaj (singing), 140, 141 Samkarshan, 58, 70, 81, 103, 231nn22, 29 See also Balaram Sand Country Almanac, A (Leopold), 43 Saubhari, 72, 136, 138 Schlosser, Eric, 1 Scholtmeijer, Marion, 52 science, 35–42 agriculture and, 35–36, 39, 40, 42, 195, 205 alternative agricultures and, 38–39, 42, 206, 208 as seemingly objective, 36, 37, 39, 40, 195, 202, 203 seeds agriculture in India and, x–xiii, 40, 107, 218 in alternative agricultures, 40, 41–42, 107, 218 exchange of in Holi harvest festival, 125, 131 in indigenous agriculture, 31, 109 in industrial agriculture, xii, 31, 40–41 Seed Savers Exchange, 218 seed-to-plate system, 31 Selye, Hans, 38 serpents. See nagas Shenandoah National Park, 177 Shepard, Paul, 209 Sherma, Rita D., 103 Shesh, 66, 67–70, 72, 75, 78, 89, 136, 234n8 Shiva, 20, 166, 205, 211 Shiva, Vandana, xv, 95, 217, 218, 219

267 Shrinathji, 169 Sideris, Lisa, 55, 200, 206 Siegel, Lee, 113, 116, 167 Sierra Club, 15, 164, 177 Sitala, 99 small-scale farms, 29, 33, 185, 195 vs. conventional agriculture, 31, 46, 94, 224 food per acre, 94, 106–107 romanticization of, 162, 191 Smith, Jonathan Z., 208 snakes, 66, 72, 128 See also nagas Snyder, Gary, 52 Society for Ecological Restoration, 18 soil, 16, 42, 102, 116, 206, 210 composting, 220–221 depletion, 25, 31, 32, 33, 118, 184 erosion, 31, 32, 33 fallow periods and, 183–184 songbirds, 46, 104 Soper, Kate, 165, 181–182 Soule, Judith, 17 soybeans, 16, 24, 32, 107 Spirit of the Soil, The (Thompson), 47 “Spirituality in Agriculture” (Kirschenmann), 35 Sri Caitanya Prem Samsthan, 172 Srushtikarta. See Brahma Stearns, Tom, 30 Strachey, William, 175 Sunflower Forest, The (Jordan), 10, 18, 174 sustainable agriculture, ix, xiii, 3, 5, 12, 16, 19, 39 svarups, 137 Takacs, David, 34 “terminator” gene of seeds, 40 terroir, 196, 197–198 Thiele, Leslie Paul, 204 Thompson, Paul, 47 Thoreau, Henry David, 22, 23, 43, 211 tigers, 168 Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos (Read), 62

268 tomatoes, 30, 41 Totuya, 177 Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade Organization, xii “Transgenics for a Better Tomato” (USDA), 41 Treadwell, Timothy, 179 “Trouble with Wilderness, The” (Cronon), 45 Trubek, Amy, 162, 196, 198 “True Cost of Food” (film), 15 U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 45 U.S. Soil Conservation Act of 1935, 33 U.S. Soil Conservation Service, 33 University of Michigan, 39 University of Wisconsin Arboretum, 207 Vaishnava devotion, 115, 121, 153, 234n1 Balaram and Krishna and, 67, 112 Balaram and Yamuna River story and, 57, 60, 62, 78, 80, 83, 94, 197 maryada and, 87, 114 nagas and, 66 pastoral narrative, 11, 116, 161–162, 163, 166–171 protection and subordination of earth, 101–102, 103 Yamuna River and, 69, 84 Vallabh Sampraday, 87, 134, 136, 137– 138, 167, 169, 234–235n14, 235n15 Varaha, 102 Varanasi, India, 97 Varuna, xi, 79 Varuni, 79, 89 Vasant Panchami, 77, 125 Vasudeva, 69, 70, 73, 129 Vaudeville, Charlotte, 104, 170, 171 Vedas, 63, 64, 73, 94, 232n40 Vedic ritual, 63, 64, 85, 97, 109, 214, 230n11

Index Vena, King, 94 Vishnu, 72, 80, 94, 168, 231n20 Krishna as, 66, 69, 70, 71–72 Prahlad and, 144, 145 protection of earth and, 101–102 Vrindavan, India, 172 Walmart, 1, 13, 15 Warren, Karen, 95 Waterhouse, Beth, 17, 212 water pollution, 31–32, 59, 60, 62 Welch, Sharon, 27 Weston, Anthony, 52, 187, 188 White, Hayden, 53 wilderness vs. agriculture, 44–46, 111, 113, 162– 165, 168, 179, 236n46 in India, 44–45, 111, 175 purity of, 174, 175, 177, 178, 190 romanticization of, 22–23, 45, 173, 178, 179 as unpeopled, 43, 44, 104–105, 175– 177, 184 Wilderness Act of 1964, 44 Williams, Raymond, 163 Winthrop, John, 176 Wirzba, Norman, 52 Witzel, Michael, 85 women agriculture in India and, 91, 98–99, 100 earth as female, 60, 69, 94–96, 100, 103 Pandas and, 138 rivers as goddesses, 96–97 See also Holi harvest festival Worldwatch Institute, 106 World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 172 WuDunn, Sheryl, 91 yakshas, 59, 65, 166, 168, 170, 171 Yamuna River agency of, 20, 69, 93–94, 99–100, 104, 105, 110, 121, 187, 216, 221 diminishment of, 59–60, 61–62

Index division of land around, 134, 234n8 as goddess, 19, 69, 84, 96 irrigation and, 58, 98 Kaliya and, 71–72, 136, 172 Krishna and, 70, 71–72, 85, 134, 168, 172 location, 61 propriety and, 84–85 in Vaishnava theology, 69, 84

269 See also Balaram; Balaram and Yamuna River story; Baldeo, India; Braj Yashoda, 70 Yellowstone National Park, 176, 178 Yogamaya, 69, 70 Yosemite National Park, 176–177, 178 Zyklon-B gas, 51