Voices From the Lab and the Field: Oral Histories of Agrarian Change : A Report

On Wednesday, September 24, 2025, the 

Foundation for Agrarian Studies

, in collaboration with the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) and the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), organised a discussion “Voices From the Lab and the Field: Oral Histories of Agrarian Change.” This event was part of the 69th edition of the Archives Public Lecture Series, which is a history of ideas series that features explorations in and around archives.

Nazneen, Programs Associate at BIC, opened the event with a brief welcome on behalf of the Bangalore International Centre (BIC).

Venkat Srinivasan, Head Archivist at NCBS, spoke about the Archives at NCBS and introduced its website. He noted that the Archives Public Lecture Series (APLS), started in 2018, has been a platform to present such initiatives.

The moderator, Professor Madhura Swaminathan, Head of the Economic Analysis Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, offered introductory remarks on the Foundation’s work in agrarian studies before inviting Sandipan Baksi, Director of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies, to present the Oral Histories of Agrarian Change project. The project aims to build a rare and unique Oral History archive of the first few generations of agricultural scientists in India. Such Archives are rare in India.

Sandipan spoke about

ten interviews with eminent Indian agricultural scientists, including four World Food Prize winners such as M. S. Swaminathan and Gurdev Khush.

He highlighted the ethos of nation-building and self-sufficiency that informed the Indian agricultural research institutions in the mid-twentieth century, and the role it played in motivating the contemporary scientific community.

Parvathi Menon, veteran journalist and historian, spoke about her book project on the social history of the Kilvenmani massacre of December 1968, which took place in the Thanjavur region of Tamil Nadu. On December 25, 1968, the goons of landlords burnt alive 44 Dalit agricultural workers in the village for refusing to disband the union of agricultural workers. The massacre proved to be a template for many such atrocities on Dalit agricultural workers in other parts of the country. Parvathi gave a glimpse of the interviews of survivors and witnesses of the massacre that she conducted. These interviews offer a new perspective and a concrete context to the atrocity. Oral histories of this nature, noted Parvathi, help in making the past more grounded and comprehensible.

This was followed by an interactive Question & Answer session.

The YouTube recording can be accessed on our event page.