"Our country i.e., India, holds the distinction of being the second-largest producer of the sugarcane globally just after Brazil."
Do you know that there is a lady because of whom we got this tag in the case of sugarcane production? Yes! You read it correctly. Janaki Ammal, a pioneering female Botanist and Cytogeneticist, put her efforts and knowledge to develop a sweet, high-yielding variety of sugarcane best suited for the Indian climate. Due to her efforts, India managed to reduce its imports of the product from other countries.
Ammal’s work is not just this one achievement, but also other significant contributions to her field. She really led a remarkable life only a handful of other women of her time had the opportunity to. At a time when only 1% of women in India were literate and most of the others were confined within the four walls of the house; Ammal managed to chase her dreams. This is the story of an extraordinary Indian woman whose status as a single woman from a lower caste did not dissuade her from achieving her academic achievements. She held out for herself and her dreams against the patriarchal, ultra-conservative society.
Early Childhood
Eddathil Kakkat, aka EK Janaki Ammal, was born in Tellicherry (today's Thalassery) in Kerala on November 4, 1897. Her father, Dewan Bahadur EK Krishnan, was a sub-judge in a subordinate court system of the then Madras Presidency. Due to his keen interest in the natural sciences, Janaki’s father maintained a garden in their home. He used to correspond often with the scholars of that time and maintain descriptive notes about his blooming garden. He even wrote two books about birds in the the North Malabar Region of India. He wanted to pass on his legacy to his 19 children- six from his first wife and thirteen from the second, the 10th of whom was Janaki. This was the reason behind Janaki’s affinity and love for the natural sciences.
Education
Instead of getting married into an arranged marriage set-up like her sisters, Ammal decided to chase her dreams. After completing her schooling, she went to Madras to obtain her degree from Queen Mary’s College and her honors in Botany from the Presidency College in 1921. After that she started working as a lecturer at Women’s Christian College. During this time she was offered the prestigious Barbour Scholarship at the University of Michigan in the US. She joined the Botany department there as a Barbour scholar in 1924. At the University Ammal focused on plant cytology (the study of genetic composition and genetic pattern of gene expression in plant cells).
She specialized in breeding interspecific hybrids and intergeneric hybrids. Ammal received her Master's degree in 1925. In 1931, she obtained her doctorate and became the first Indian female to receive that degree in Botany in the US.
In 1951, Ammal was invited to India by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to restructure the Botanical Survey of India (BSI). She was appointed as a Special Officer on Duty at BSI. She reorganized the BSI and helped the institute improve its operations. Her research about the hybridization of plants for India’s tropical climate helped in the speedy recovery of the country from a decade of brutal famines, including the Bengal famine of 1943 that killed close to 3 million people. During her tenure at BSI, she worked to record indigenous knowledge of plants and their use in tribal culture. She was always interested in looking beyond her work. She used to travel to remote areas of the country in search of the plant lore of the indigenous people of the subcontinent.
Role as an Environmentalist
Ammal was an environmental activist. In the later years of her career, she was alarmed by the level of deforestation happening due to the government's initiative to boost India’s food production. In the 1940s, under the "Grow More Food Campaign", the Indian government reclaimed 25 million acres of land. They were planning to grow food crops there. At this time Janaki began using her knowledge and status as a leading scientist to preserve indigenous plants under threat. She worked to catalogue India’s flora that she feared would be lost forever.
She was the only woman who was invited to the landmark international symposium on environmental history at Chicago in 1955, which was entitled as "Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth" and organized by the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
She played an important role in the movement called ‘Save Silent Valley’, a campaign held against the construction of a hydroelectric project across the river Kunthipuzha in Kerala’s Silent Valley that would flood the ancient forests of the Valley. This movement eventually caused the government to abandon its project and saved the forest from flooding. This forest was declared a National Park on November 15, 1984. But Ammal was not there to see this victory of hers. She had died nine months earlier. Today, this national park stands as one of the last undisturbed areas of forest in the country, blossoming with lion-tailed macaques, endangered orchids and about 1,000 species of endemic flowering plants.
Death
Janaki was a faithful Gandhian who believed in simplicity. She worked until her last breath on February 7, 1984.
To honor her extraordinary contributions in the field of science, she was awarded the ‘Padma Shri’ in 1977. The Ministry of Environment and Forestry instituted the National Taxonomy Award in her name in 2000.
In a tribute to Dr. Janaki Ammal's significant contributions, the John Innes Institute of England has announced the launch of a postgraduate scholarship program in her name, aimed at supporting students from developing countries.
Dr. Janaki was indeed an incredible woman who did amazing work in her field despite the limitations on women of lower caste at that time. She always believed that she should always be remembered through her work. Though today she is relatively unknown to the new generation, her story is written on the pages of India’s natural landscapes, which she saved during her lifetime. From the sweetness of Indian sugarcane and the eternal biodiversity of Silent Valley to the blooming magnolia plants of Wiseley, Dr. Janaki's work not only exists, but it also blooms.
References:
1. Janaki Ammal, trailblazer in botany. (n.d.). Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. https://www.mpg.de/19967547/janaki-ammal
2. Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan (2021, March 18). Janaki Ammal Edvaleth Kakkat » Rackham Graduate School
3. Pal, S. (2018). Meet India’s First Woman PhD in Botany – She Is The Reason Your Sugar Tastes Sweeter! The Better India. https://www.thebetterindia.com/75174/janaki-ammal-botanist-sugarcane-magnolia/
4. Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal - An Introduction. (n.d.-b). https://iiim.res.in/herbarium/edavaleth-kakkat-janaki-ammal.htm
5. Janaki AMMAL. (n.d.). https://scientificwomen.net/women/ammal-janaki-111
6. Celebrating Janaki Ammal, Botanist and a Passionate Wanderer of Many Worlds. (n.d.). The Wire. https://thewire.in/science/janaki-ammal-magnolia-edathil
7. London, B. Z. M. I. D. a. a. E. I. (2022, November 14). EK Janaki Ammal: The “nomad” flower scientist India forgot. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63445015
8. Naina Ojha. (2022, February 11). Dr Janaki Ammal: India’s First Woman Botanist. Indian Liberals. https://indianliberals.in/content/dr-janaki-ammal/
