This is the unusual story of a quiet, unassuming woman who won the Padma Shri in 2022 for one of the more remarkable reasons imaginable: she saved and resurrected a breed of indigenous cattle, the Vechur cow. Dr. Sosamma Iype’s story is located at the heart of India’s tussle to industrialise rapidly while seeking to preserve its sublime biodiversity, at a time when the former was fashionable and the latter was not.
Agrarian transformations, erasure of breeds
Steeped in abject poverty and food scarcity at the time of Independence, India had to lay the foundations of a vigorous industry, which would catapult us into the future, and simultaneously ensure that the most basic necessities of our citizens were met. Exacerbating our woes was the fact that the major bulk of our populace subsisted solely on agriculture and animal husbandry, thus making their modernisation vital. Establishing a host of agricultural universities soon after Independence, we embarked on the quest to modernise our farming and livestock rearing practices, hoping to retrieve them from the depths of antiquity. And though our agricultural output soared with the advent of the Green Revolution and dairy production spiked with the onset of the White Revolution, these miraculous transformations also came at a pernicious cost. They reduced indigenous breeds such as the Vechur cow to the brink of extinction.
Acknowledged as one of the world’s smallest cattle breeds, the Vechur cow had little value in the India of the White Revolution. In its pursuit to boost milk production through the crossbreeding of indigenous cattle with high-yielding foreign breeds, the White Revolution’s corollary was the erasure of smaller breeds such as the Vechur cow. Cross-breeding served to dilute the genetic purity of native breeds and diminish their population, and the Vechur cow, prized for its adaptability to local environmental conditions, found itself imperilled in the face of a sweeping shift towards larger, more commercially viable cattle. As the White Revolution gained momentum, traditional farming practices that relied on smaller-sized cattle breeds fell into disfavour. The Vechur cow, with its unique characteristics, became a casualty of changing agricultural dynamics and dwindling demand. Indeed, it would have disappeared altogether, had it not been for the selfless efforts of one unassuming Indian: Professor Sosamma Iype.
“I don’t remember drinking my mother’s milk,” writes Prof. Iype, “but I remember clearly the taste of the Vechur milk that my mother gave us to drink.” Having grown up in an idyllic era when Vechur cows abounded, with a mother and calf in the compound of her own ancestral home in rural Kerala, it must have been disheartening for Prof. Iype to realise, while teaching at a veterinary college in 1989, that the Vechur breed had all but disappeared. Neither in animal husbandry reports nor in official surveys could this cow be traced, leading many a Keralite environmentalist, including Prof. Iype, to conclude dejectedly that it had become extinct. Conveying as much to her students, she resigned herself to the loss of an animal she deeply loved.
A student’s search
But that is where the story takes a turn. Reluctant to accept the depressing reality of the Vechur’s loss, Anil Zachariah — one of Prof. Iype’s students who is today a renowned veterinarian — set out in search of an animal that, to him, had assumed mythical proportions. After much wandering and asking, he stumbled upon a Vechur cow in Vaikom, Kerala. Exhilarated beyond measure, and unable to keep the news from his mentor, he scaled the wall of Prof. Iype’s house at midnight and leapt into her compound, thrilled to be breaking the marvellous news.
No sooner was that first Vechur cow discovered than Prof. Iype poured herself wholeheartedly into a mission to resurrect and nurture not only the Vechur but several of Kerala’s other endangered indigenous breeds, such as the Kasargod, Vilwadri and Cheruvally cattle and the Attappady goat. Her Vechur Conservation Unit, founded at the Kerala Agricultural University with only eight cows, rose from strength to strength, boasting of more than 24 cows at the end of the first year itself — a tremendous testament to Prof. Iype’s ardour. Yet, the road ahead was ridden with landmines. As with all idealists in India, she and her team had to contend with various obstacles, even as they blazed a trail. Simultaneously contending with government officials averse to her outlook; envious colleagues who sought to foil her efforts, going so far as to cast bizarre aspersions on her; well-known environmentalists falsely claiming she had facilitated the “patenting” of an Indian animal abroad; and a brutish media accusing her of treachery and “gene theft,” Prof. Iype negotiated a perilous terrain. But not once did she flounder or cower. She persevered, she soldiered: a gentle colossus, Kerala’s “Vechur Amma”.
The project that became a template
The allure of this pioneering movement was destined to transcend the bounds of Kerala; and it soon gained widespread traction, finding partners in national governmental institutions. Visiting the veterinary college and seeing the glory of the Vechur Conservation Project, R.M. Acharya, of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), incredulously asked Prof. Iype how she had conceived of such a project — and led it to fruition — when even the ICAR had not contemplated it. In the event, the ICAR adopted the Vechur Conservation Project, using it as a template for the whole of India.
For Prof. Iype, it has never simply been about performing a scientific miracle and making history with the astounding success of her mission. Instead, she believes firmly in giving back to society, especially to the destitute farmers and cattle rearers in whose homes the Vechur once occupied pride of place. It was in this spirit that, in 1998, she established the Vechur Conservation Trust, whose purpose was to evolve a culture of community participation and enable innumerable impoverished farmers to rear the Vechur by providing them its germ-plasm. This has empowered them and their families to attain a greater degree of self-reliance.
Prof. Iype does not project herself as a messiah. But she is one — a visionary for whom translating an ideal into reality was always more important than any exercise in self-aggrandisement. Not only has she saved the Vechur cow, but she has also left an indelible impression upon our cultural and agricultural landscape, for which we shall forever remain indebted to her. No one will make a movie about her, but she is an authentic Indian heroine.
Shashi Tharoor is the third-term Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (Congress) for Thiruvananthapuram, and the Sahitya Akademi award winning author of 25 books, most recently The Less You Preach, The More You Learn (co-authored with Joseph Zacharias). The writer acknowledges the assistance of Baawa Sayan Bajaj in the preparation of this article
