Even while some of the most important legislations such as the Women’s Reservation Bill and the Food Security Bill are crying for an early passage in the Parliament, the Government has shown a surprising hurry, almost bordering on obscenity, to introduce a new Bill called the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India in the current session of Parliament. It does not need a detective’s skill to understand the reason for this urgency. The national debate around Bt Brinjal steered by the Environment Minister Shri Jairam Ramesh and the direction in which it moved the national consensus has put the cat among the genetically engineered pigeons. They are now ready to fight for their life; hence this coordinated aggression with their political agents.

The BRAI, still shrouded in secrecy, has a number of most disconcerting provisions that cause profound concerns among all of us who are demanding a democratic debate on the need to bring in genetic engineering technology into the arena of food and farming in India. The Bt Brinjal debate was the first of its kind and offered a glimmer of hope that we, as citizens of this country, can participate in making the decisions on what we grow and eat. But even before this glimmer can grow into a beacon, efforts are afoot to extinguish it by introducing the draconian BRAI Bill.

There is a need to look at the introduction of this Bill in the context of the developments that have taken place in the past week. The most significant is the letter shot off by the Agricutural Minister Mr Pawar, who has complained that “significant investment had already been made by private and public organisations in developing BT crops and all that would go waste if GM cultivation was banned.” Similar is the argument of the Science and Technology Minister Shri Prithviraj Chauhan, who is reported to have argued that “the moratorium was sending out wrong signals and was stopping investments in Indian agro-technology."

The other important development is the intervention of the PM’s economic advisory group led by one of our coldest economic thinkers, Dr Rangarajan. This Group has come up with the advise that “After the success of Bt cotton and the benefits it has brought to farmers in Gujarat and Maharashtra, it is imperative that the government must have a clear policy on genetically modified crops,” The council has also urged the government to “……bring the results into the public domain at the shortest possible time",

The insistence on shortest possible time is significant for the reason that it is symptomatic of a stock market approach and not that of a sound science. Sound science in food, medicine and agriculture always looks at long term impacts of any organism introduced into environment, food and health systems. Short cutting this process can only result in unprecedented harm our environment, health and food systems.

All the above are not isolated, stray remarks or developments. They are very coherent, organized, and orchestrated attempts to push the GE agricultural policy to mutate and morph as an economic argument with scant regard to the issues of citizens’ health and what we grow and eat; nor has there been any concern shown for the natural environment of the country’s farming landscape. The overriding and dominant concern, sadly, is for the economic investment, whatever the cost!

This is a dangerous argument by itself. But the fact that this is being obviously forced by the biotechnology industry and their masters in the USA is scary. The way the Bill is being fashioned is an indication to this distance learning of its framers.

How does BRAI want to treat the environmental citizens of this country who would like to voice their concerns against genetic engineering? Read the following clause in the Bill:

63. Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products specified in Part I or. Part II or Part III of the Schedule I, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year and with fine, which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both.

Reading this, one doesn’t believe that one is living in a democratic country! Are the pressure, clout and power of the multinational agrochemical corporations and their government in the USA so powerful that our government is turning this country into a banana republic? We knew and had heard that in the Latin American countries which were completely dependent upon the USA for their economic survival, such USA-compliant laws were enacted to enforce a complete ban on dissent. But imagine similar laws in India, an emerging Economic Tiger! Just Unbelievable!.

What is the purport of this clause? What kind of evidences are admissible before an environment activist like me or a media person like you are put behind bars for pointing to the dangers of GE foods? The very core of the BRAI mandates the Authority to make a science-based evidence to clear any biotechnology product. The term science based itself is contentious, especially in the context of “modern biotechnology” the cause of which the Bill espouses.

Increasingly, the world over, the problems and limitations of Genetic Engineering are being seen clearly by all reputed world bodies. In the International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology for Development [IAASTD], in which over 400 world class scientists participated under the banner of the World Bank, FAO, WHO, UNESCO etc., there was clearly a refusal to endorse genetic engineering as a solution to food security. Last week, the Head of UNDP Ms Helen Clark, who was formerly the Prime Minister of New Zealand, clearly said, “I don’t think GE is the solution to the food security problem. Instead, I recommend more funding for agriculture that emphasizes solutions to the problems faced by poor farmers”.

While this rethiniking and soul searching is going on in the civilized sectors of the world, one of the hotheads of the GE industry who is on the payrolls of a major agrochemical company, recently termed the revered scientist Dr P M Bhargava “senile’ for opposing Bt Brinjal. Far more ominous is the fate encountered by the evidences brought by the Centre for Science and Environment [CSE] against the soft drinks Coca Cola and Pepsi. All the diligent research done by the CSE was demolished by the soft drink giants saying that India had no capacity to test their drinks. Similar arguments will be presented by the GE industry by creating a plethora of protocols and procedures if someone challenges them. For them science is what is defined by their market mechanisms. Science is not necessarily truth if it is opposed to them. This is the environment that will confront us tomorrow once the BRAI becomes an Act.

In the BRAI, the people who will decide what organisms can be permitted, imported and field-trialed will be a group of three who will all be composed of scientists in the area of biotechnology or medicine or industrial science. It has no place for environmentalists, farmers or food consumers. Thus, all our rights to decide for ourselves what we farm and what we eat will be snatched away from us. And we cannot go to normal courts to challenge them. The BRAI will set up its own Appellate Tribunal which will have the jurisdiction to hear arguments on the issues concerning biotechnology. If one wants to appeal against the decisions of this Tribunal, the only court we can go to is the Supreme Court of India. Who will have the time, money and energy to go into such lengthy and expensive legal processes? This is the surest way of disempowering citizen activists of the country.

The list of booby traps embedded in BRAI is long and dark. The only way it can be countered is to say a clear no to it. We don’t want a BRAI for this country. As Minister Jairam Ramesh said, giving the power to determine what we should grow and eat to a body of three persons is anti democracy and anti human rights. Therefore South Against Genetic Engineering calls on the government to quash the Bill even before it is tabled in the Parliament and earn the respect of its citizens while restoring faith that this government respects democracy and the well-being of its citizens.

A detailed reason for the Rejection of BRAI by the South Against Genetic Engineering is separately attached. This Position Document has already been endorsed by nearly 5000 individusls and groups including scientists, farmers, consumers, environmentalists and other citizens.

P V Satheesh
National Convenor, South Against Genetic Engineering
Director, Deccan Development Society, Hyderabad

click here for BIOTECHNOLOGY REGUALTORY AUTHORITY (BRAI) BILL, 2009