Rethinking the Green Revolution: Continuity and the Japanese Method in Postcolonial India.

Authors

Sujeet George

Published in

Technology and culture. Volume 67. Issue 4. Pages 1311-1330.

Abstract

Histories of agrarian modernization in postcolonial India have largely treated the Green Revolution as a decisive technological rupture centered on the introduction of high-yielding seeds in the mid-1960s. Recovering the earlier adoption of the Japanese method of rice cultivation reveals a different trajectory. Many practices later associated with the Green Revolution-including improved rice varieties, intensive fertilizer use, and assured irrigation-were first assembled and tested through this Japanese-inspired technological package. As these techniques moved through experimental stations, government programs, and village communities, they were selectively adapted, recombined, and absorbed into subsequent agricultural interventions. The history of the Japanese method thus uncovers a longer genealogy of agrarian modernization, one in which continuity, rather than rupture, shaped the making and diffusion of agricultural technology in postcolonial India.

PMID:
42929125
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 26 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.