After his son completes Class 10, his father takes a bold decision. Accordingly, he should take leave from school for a year and go to different parts of the country for practical education. The son does the same. At the end of one year, he returns to him as a different person, standing as a testimony. The book he wrote compiling that year’s learning became a textbook in a few universities. Claude Alvarez was the father who gave such freedom to his son and opened up the dream space for him.
Hailing from Goa, he is considered one of India’s most important environmentalists. He has written some of the best books on organic farming and is also known as an organic farming scholar. He is the editor of Other India Publications and the Director of the Organic Farming Association of India. He is instrumental in carrying forward the work of the Gandhian historian of India, Dharampal. Alvares has worked extensively on natural education, creativity, as well as organic farming and has developed a holistic philosophy of life. He is also the ideator of the multiversities alliance movement, which seeks broadly to decolonise thinking and curricula in our universities.
An eminent lawyer, he is also a member of the Monitoring Committee of the Supreme Court of India, which monitors hazardous waste. His book ‘The Great Gene Robbery’ is one of the most important Indian books on genetic piracy.
In the Cuckoo Live Conversations, Claude Alvarez spoke to us on 15.04.2020. This conversation with a contemporary personality with a multitude of ideas based on travel and experience opened up for us.