GM crops

Won just the battle and not the war yet

Bt brinjal has been put in cold storage for now. The danger has not passed as yet but is only deferred. The democratic pressure from the farmers and environmentalists has proved to be stronger than the monetary pressure from the ‘Moath ka Saudagars’ – ‘Merchants of death – American Bt companies’, but we can not say ‘sense has prevailed’, as it is only a temporary reprieve. Farmers have just won round one.

I have a basic question. ‘Who told the Government that there is any shortage of brinjal? And where is the need to introduce a higher yielding [effectively] variety of brinjal? Brinjal is ‘one of the’ if not ‘the’ cheapest vegetable in the market and again ‘one of the’ if not ‘the’ most abundantly available item in the market [may be next only to cell phones] in a country of shortages. Supply and demand theory wants us to believe that prices fall when supply is high and demand is low. The farmers get a very poor price for brinjal. Increasing yield [even by improving pest resistance] will only lower the prices further though there can be no two opinions about improving pest resistance. If the Government could care, they should help the farmers to get better price for brinjal, as also all the other farm produce instead of driving them to suicide by forcing them to sell for a minimum support price which is much lower than the average cost of production. They have to fix a fair remunerative price for all agro products.

But looking at it politically, many amongst us have been dreaming of India becoming a superpower. The testing of ‘Nuclear weapon’ did not make us a superpower. The wiping out of negative BOP [Balance of payment] and building a huge ‘Forex’ reserve [read Dollars], did not make us a superpower. Striking the nuclear deal with US did not make us a superpower either. In fact these things only made us a virtual slave to US. The rejection of pressure from the US to commercialise Bt brinjal has made us stand tall and we can now claim to be a superpower capable of standing up to them. Hats off to the farmers and environmentalists! It may be short live like our No 1 status in test cricket. How one wonders sense had prevailed during the ‘nuclear deal drama’ in 2008 too, when the whole country except the two hundred and odd [‘Rs 25 crore’] MPs, were against it but the American nuclear lobby prevailed instead of sense, then.

Introduction of Bt cotton resulted in the death of more than 300,000 farmers in India in recent times. It is actually Genocide going by the numbers. The case of cotton was at least indirect. The farmers lured in to cultivating Bt cotton dreaming of high yield, lost heavily due to high cost and poor yield and consequently they committed suicide by consuming pesticide. Introduction of GM vegetables will expose the entire population – not just the farmers – to the dangerous consequences of GM crops directly. This will be much worse than the havoc caused by pesticides through food/ water [mainly bottled mineral water] and atmospheric pollution. The consequences will be unimaginable – death toll will be not in thousands or lacs but a billion plus. This will be manifolds worse than the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US. GM crops will also pollute the atmosphere and water like pesticides, apart from directly poisoning the food, causing deceases hitherto unknown. This is also the creation of the ‘Moath ka Soudagars’ – merchants of death – Americans, as the weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, biological, chemical weapons as well as the Cola drinks and cell phones [I call colas liquid bomb and cell phones electronic bomb] – which are already at work trying to render not only humanity but all forms of life extinct on this beautiful planet. Acidic Colas are dissolving the teeth and bones, the cell phones are virtual micro wave ovens baking not only the cells of human beings, but also animals and plants, rendering them prone to cancers, mutations and mutilations. They are affecting not only the users, but the non users as well like passive smoking. GM crop is nothing short of a biological or a genetic weapon – a bio or a geno bomb.

It is time to replace ‘Science’ with ‘Con Science’ [conscience].

Even if the farming community resists cultivating the branded GM crops, the hawks will push it through the unbranded seeds market. Hence, the farmers should buy seeds from their fellow farmers – certified personally and not by any corporate/ government agencies – to ensure that the seed is not a GM/ Bt one. The consumers on their part should avoid buying the GM products even if it is cheaper, looks more attractive and has longer shelf life. Our own history has shown that when the consumer decides to say ‘No’ even the mighty empires have to bow out and Manmohan, Monsanto and the other MNs [multi nationals] are not any bigger than the then ‘British Empire’. ‘MN’ sounds like Yaman – God of death – in Tamil. True – the above MNs do ring the death knell.

In India, rural population is 70 percent and they largely depend on agriculture. They constitute the majority of the voters. Any attempt to manipulate the rural economy, culture etc. not for their welfare but to placate the appetite of their foreign masters, will boomerang on the politicians one day. The so called economic reforms were introduced by the duo of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan singh much against the verdict of 1991 elections, which was won on the promise of continuing the policies of Jawaharlal and to some extent Indira. It was a total betrayal. The reforms were not intended for the good of the masses but only the MNCs and foreign powers – US to be specific. The electorate promptly showed Congress the doors at the earliest opportunity in 1996 elections and the 100 year old party was thrown in to oblivion. The genocide by 300,000 farmers is the direct result of the reforms – surrender to US. Earlier Indira tried to gag democracy in 1975 and the electorate threw her out in 1977 elections. Democracy is still vibrant though limping in India. The rulers have to do what is good for the people whom they claim to represent and not their maters across the globe.