Page:Sharad Joshi - Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage.pdf/60

 vices that build a civilization rather than the virtues. He cherished books by Ayn Rand like The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, Anthem and The Virtue of Selfishness. Her philosophy of objectivism and the supreme value she attached to an individual had major influence on him. He had written that whenever he felt depressed he would pick up one of her books and start reading from any page. In non-fiction, his favourites were: The Wealth of Nations and The theory of Moral Sentiments, the classics by Adam Smith, Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin, Common Sense by Thomas Paine, The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek, The Economics of Welfare by Arthur Pigou, The Nature and Significance of Economic Science by Lionel Robbins, Economic Consequences of Peace by John Maynard Keynes and Accumulation of Capital by Rosa Luxemburg, a brilliant and dynamic Polish woman, a former Communist who was brutally assassinated by the rulers of that country in 1919. He had written that Luxemburg was the original inspiration behind his theory of India versus Bharat. He had also appreciated Silent Spring by American writer Rachel Carson published in 1962 which documented the adverse impact on environment from the indiscriminate use of pesticides and chemicals in agriculture. Joshi continued to remain a staunch supporter of frontier technology as a benefactor of farmers but he agreed with the need to protect the crops and environment by minimizing the harmful side effects. This was about the books he read while in Switzerland; after his return to India also he read a lot and there were many other books which influenced him. Joshi wrote in 1997 a series of Marathi articles about some of the books mentioned above. They were compiled in a book form in 2010 with the title, jag badalnari pustake (The books that changed the world). Years in Switzerland

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