Locusts are powerful agents in history, and just like malaria and other diseases (especially those that affected empire) they helped fund a lot of biological research, both in India and elsewhere. Unlike India, with a short institutional memory, aided by governments that simply cannot maintain archives (or even actively erases inconvenient material), the Chinese rulers maintained meticulous records of locust (Locusta migratoria) damage that go back about 1900 years. As India slowly dismantles long-term government organizations to be replaced by supposedly more profitable contract-only private entities it is worth looking at some pioneers in locust research and what was achieved.
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| Locust reporting in China (A geographical), B (annual trend), C (decadal trend) over 2000 years Among the interesting findings was a strong 30-year cycle, as also 10-year cycles - recalling the era of sunspottery and perhaps an overemphasis on what are now called BEL cycles. |
The golden years of locust research were in the two decades following 1945 thanks to an exiled upper-class Russian, Sir Boris Uvarov. Nadia Waloff, herself a Russian emigre, writes in her biography of Uvarov (perhaps they were distantly related) that in the 20 years before his death there were nearly 7000 research papers (that is nearly 1 article a day!) published on locusts, largely from the London based Anti-Locust Research Centre (ALRC). The ALRC itself had been founded by Uvarov, who migrated shortly after the 1917 revolution to England.
The Russian class struggle of 1917 led to scientists (who were mostly from the upper classes) being either made ineligible for continued work at universities or worse. "White Russians" who conspicuously supported the Tsars or, in the later period, opposed leaders like Stalin routinely ended up in the Gulags, often vanishing without a trace. A few escaped to other parts and found work, Uvarov being among the lucky ones. He became interested in natural history at a very young age thanks to a present from his father of a Russian translation of the German 6 tome work Tierleben by Alfred Brehm. He then studied entomology, preferring interactive learning at the informal Russian Entomological Society, to the formal courses offered by Mikhail Rimsky-Korsakov (the entomologist son of the famous Russian composer, of flight of the bumble-bee fame). Uvarov's exit to England was possible because of chance encounters with wartime English entomologists, but he had also established a name already in Russia. Prior to his research, it was thought that the migratory locusts were a distinct species but he identified ecological conditions that altered a sedentary grasshopper that looks quite different, and found in smaller numbers to produce young with altered form that became gregarious and migratory. This has been called the Phase Theory (and of course theory does not mean hypothesis) and in a very far-sighted approach he and his team would later work out causes and mechanisms ranging from the spectrum of the ultimate to the proximate - looking at ecology, endocrine function, sensory functions etc. and how reduced "social distance" converted a sedentary high-fecundity breeder to a long-winged less-fecund migratory form. Waloff herself examined the polymorphism of winged- and wingless-ness in various groups of insects and compared them with ideas on ecological stability (and perhaps they were precursors to ideas on r-K selection). They also boldly experimented with new techniques such as using radioactive isotopes to study dispersion (albeit in bugs).
The ALRC had recognized the locust problem as being something that needed collaboration across artificial borders like nations (in other words, not atmanirbharata). Several Indian researchers also took part in this international network of locust research. These included H S Pruthi (who established the institutional framework for collaboration after Indian Independence), Afzal Hussain (now considered the father of entomology in Pakistan) and Y Ramachandra Rao (who retired to live in Bangalore). With the end of the Second World War and colonialism, research shifted from colonial sponsors to the United Nations, an attempt at a democratic trans-national institution.
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| Uvarov's Russian passport From Fedotova, Anastasia; Kouprianov, Alexei (2016). Archival research reveals the true date of birth of the father of locust phase theory, Sir Boris Uvarov, FRS. Euroasian Entomological Journal. 15(4):321–327. |
The ALRC had recognized the locust problem as being something that needed collaboration across artificial borders like nations (in other words, not atmanirbharata). Several Indian researchers also took part in this international network of locust research. These included H S Pruthi (who established the institutional framework for collaboration after Indian Independence), Afzal Hussain (now considered the father of entomology in Pakistan) and Y Ramachandra Rao (who retired to live in Bangalore). With the end of the Second World War and colonialism, research shifted from colonial sponsors to the United Nations, an attempt at a democratic trans-national institution.
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| From Haskell, P.T. (1970). The future of locust and grasshopper control. Outlook on Agriculture 6(4):166-174. The range of influence of Schistocerca gregaria |
Now, it is hard to imagine what might have happened to Uvarov if he had stayed on in Russia. The future for people who understood Darwinian evolution and were capable of synthesizing it with ideas from genetics was positively bleak. Russian science went from this class struggle which evicted traditional intellectual actors from the leisure class (often assisted by royal patronage) [with access to books, intellectual circles (often with entry bars), space to hold material, and ability to buy tools] to a more accessible system with tax-payer funded universities, supported by libraries, museums, journals run by democratized organizations, and other infrastructure. The transition was truly ugly and sad. On its way it had to encounter demagogues like Trofim Lysenko who drew an easy to understand (simple but wrong) connection between the idea of genes determining organism outcomes, to eugenics, and to fascism - and that simple communication to the powers-that-be led to the killing of many scientists, and the removal of many into the margins. Lysenko's appeals were what ordinary people wanted to hear, he came from a working class upbringing unlike the supposed snobs he was up against and, in his breeding experiments with wheat, or in his tree-planting methodologies (to combat a famine that was thought to be climate-induced) he made use of ideas that organisms could change their characteristics when faced with challenges, the idea that outcomes were not limited by genes - ideas which had a social appeal that fitted with egalitarianism.
It would be wasteful to write more here about the political history of Soviet science as there are numerous works on the topic. It is worth noting however that Russian scientists, contrary to Mayr's version of biological history, had indeed synthesized ideas on evolution with ideas from genetics. Unfortunately there seems to be little written about it in English, but it includes scientists like Nikolai Koltsov (who was probably poisoned), and many of his students including A S Serebrovsky (who is credited with coining the word gene pool, producing an early evolutionary synthesis, and thinking up the sterile male technique of pest management - fortunately he was spared his life - Mayr credits Dobzhansky (escaped to the West) among others in the synthesis but many of his ideas may well have come from Serebrovsky), Efroimson, Simon Levit (killed), Izrail Agol (killed), Nikolai Vavilov (killed) ... the list goes on.
India is now in a very interesting phase where ordinary plants, cow dung, and urine, with miraculous properties are touted as cures for coronaviruses. We will soon see similar claims to rid us of locusts. These are claims that appeal to those without resources. These claims are made by many including politicians and while they receive sniggers from the English speakers across social media, it is hard not to sense that this is a reaction against the snobbery of the English speaking and scientific upper classes. There is an opportunity for progressive thought and action in this disaster but it is not going to be an easy one, most certainly not if gross inequalities cannot be seen and tackled.
Further reading
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| A S Serebrovsky (c. 1925) who worked on chicken breeding, conservation, genetics, and evolution - a little-known figure in science. |
It would be wasteful to write more here about the political history of Soviet science as there are numerous works on the topic. It is worth noting however that Russian scientists, contrary to Mayr's version of biological history, had indeed synthesized ideas on evolution with ideas from genetics. Unfortunately there seems to be little written about it in English, but it includes scientists like Nikolai Koltsov (who was probably poisoned), and many of his students including A S Serebrovsky (who is credited with coining the word gene pool, producing an early evolutionary synthesis, and thinking up the sterile male technique of pest management - fortunately he was spared his life - Mayr credits Dobzhansky (escaped to the West) among others in the synthesis but many of his ideas may well have come from Serebrovsky), Efroimson, Simon Levit (killed), Izrail Agol (killed), Nikolai Vavilov (killed) ... the list goes on.
India is now in a very interesting phase where ordinary plants, cow dung, and urine, with miraculous properties are touted as cures for coronaviruses. We will soon see similar claims to rid us of locusts. These are claims that appeal to those without resources. These claims are made by many including politicians and while they receive sniggers from the English speakers across social media, it is hard not to sense that this is a reaction against the snobbery of the English speaking and scientific upper classes. There is an opportunity for progressive thought and action in this disaster but it is not going to be an easy one, most certainly not if gross inequalities cannot be seen and tackled.
Further reading
