‘Millet Man’ PV Satheesh dies at the age of 77 after prolonged illness

The recent efforts to incorporate millets into the public distribution system owes much to the work of Deccan Development Society under his guidance

SANGAREDDY

‘Millet Man of Telangana’ PV Satheesh, founder and executive director of the Deccan Development Society (DDS), passed away on Sunday morning while undergoing treatment at a corporate hospital in Hyderabad after prolonged illness. He was 77. The last rites will be performed on Monday at 10.30 am in Pastapur village of Sangareddy district.

As one of the icons of civil society activism in India, Mr. Satheesh, through the Zaheerabad-based organisation in rural Telangana, championed issues of agri-biodiversity, food sovereignty, women’s empowerment, social justice, local knowledge systems, participatory development, and community media. The women’s sanghams of DDS and their steadfast adherence to millet cultivation and organic agriculture led the way nationally in offering demonstrable alternatives to the dominant agricultural paradigm. The recent efforts to incorporate millets into the public distribution system owes much to the work of DDS under his guidance.

Born on June 18, 1945 in Mysore, Periyapatna Venkatasubbaiah Satheesh was a graduate from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi, and started out as a journalist. He went on to work as a pioneering television producer for nearly two decades for Doordarshan, making programmes related to rural development and rural literacy in the then-united Andhra Pradesh. He played an important role in the historical Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in the 1970s.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Satheesh, along with a few friends, initiated the Deccan Development Society in the semi-arid Zaheerabad region by collectivising poor dalit women in the villages for a range of programmes that together challenged hunger, malnutrition, land degradation, loss of biodiversity, gender injustice, and social deprivation. He led the organisation for nearly four decades to become an internationally acclaimed NGO and an inspiring example that has motivated similar experiments in millet revival and promotion across the country.

As the director of DDS, P.V. Satheesh’s long-standing efforts resulted in improving the livelihoods of thousands of poor women across 75 villages in Telangana. He also led several national and international networks like Millet Network of India (MINI), South Against Genetic Engineering (SAGE), AP Coalition in Defence of Diversity and was also the India Coordinator for SANFEC, the South Asian Network for Food, Ecology and Culture, a five-country south-Asian network with over 200 ecological groups. He was formerly board member, Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN), Barcelona, Spain, and was also a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), Brussels, Belgium. He is also credited with the initiation of India’s first Community Media Trust, a grassroots media centre where non-literate dalit women were trained in film-making to democratise media spaces, and also with the launching of India’s first rural, civil society-led community radio station, Sangham Radio.

He was a tireless worker and leader in the NGO sector who remained committed to his principles and was a generous mentor to many young people.