By Kavitha Kuruganti
The anti-GM battle in India has reached a crucial stage – soon, Mahyco, the Indian avataar of Monsanto, would be walking up to the regulators for permission for the second [and last] year of large scale trials this Kharif [starting June 2008] of Bt Brinjal, the first food crop in India and the first such GM vegetable crop with Bt gene anywhere in the world.
Elsewhere in the world, especially Europe, more countries are clamping bans on GM crops. More regions are declaring themselves GM-Free. In India, the central government is steamrollering ahead, with its support to the biotech industry and showing its lack of vision for Indian farming again and again. Certain state governments are fortunately taking a long term, holistic view on genetic engineering and are appreciating the environmental, human health, political, economic and socio-cultural implications of such a technology on Indian farming and society. However, the Union of India is not upholding even this Constitutional right of state governments and is blindly moving ahead with its approvals of various crop trials and experiments.
Bt Brinjal biosafety is questionable – in fact, we should not forget that the results of genetic engineering itself are very unpredictable and the very process of GE results in different unintended hazardous consequences. With Bt Cotton, the experiences of farmers across the country, as recorded by official sources too, range from newer and increased number of pests and diseases to fatal impacts on livestock, effects on human health and effects on soil with hardly any benefits as claimed by the industry. The stress intolerance of crops like Bt Cotton has also been recorded time and again. In this era of climate change, is this the technology that we want to rest our food and nutrition security on?
The regulators sitting in Delhi have also proven themselves to be unaccountable, unscientific, wedded to conflicting interests and apathetic to the real experiences of farmers on the ground. If we continue to keep silent, more of this undemocratic thrusting down of unwanted, corporate technologies will continue to smother Indian farming as well as all of us – after all, you and I will not have any choices left if Bt Brinjal and other GM foods is allowed in. No systems of labelling will let you know if you are consuming Bt Brinjal or not, in this country.
It is in this context that we invite all right-thinking, pro-farmer, concerned citizens to assemble at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on MAY 6TH 2008, for a one-day dharna. If you want the government to take our message seriously, you should be there to show that you are against GM crops too. Please block the date, plan your travel straightaway and bring as many people as you can to the dharna site. Try to get signatures of people endorsing a NO GMOs message on a long banner and we will join all the banners for display during the dharna. Also carry signature petitions with as many signatures as possible.
Hope to see you in Delhi – remember, if we don’t show our concern strongly now, it might be too late later on. Do join us.
Kavitha Kuruganti
For the ‘Coalition for GM Free India’
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Kavitha Kuruganti
Centre for Sustainable Agriculture
12-13-445, Street # 1, Tarnaka
Secunderabad 500 017
www.csa-india.org; www.indiagminfo.org
Phone: +91-9393001550