Advocate Prashant Bhushan points out that GM mustard is being promoted on the basis of a lie – that it will increase yield – when the government itself admits there’s no evidence that it will do so

GM mustard DMH 11 is being promoted in India on the basis of claims that it will improve yield.

In the letter to India's environment minister featured in the article below, Advocate Prashant Bhushan writes, “conclusions were drawn and disseminated to mean that DMH 11 is a superior hybrid-making technology that will out-yield India’s best Non-GMO hybrids and varieties.”

However, Bhushan adds, “The fact is, Non-GMO hybrids and varieties out-yield HT DMH 11 hands down.”

Bhushan reminds the Indian government that it has admitted that there is no evidence that GM mustard out-yields non-GM. In an affidavit to the Supreme Court, the government stated, “No such claim has been made in any of the submitted documents that DMH 11 out-performs Non-GMO hybrids.”
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Withhold commercialization of GM mustard: Advocate Prashant Bhushan Writes To Environment Minister

By Apoorva Mandhani
LiveLaw.in May 14, 2017
http://www.livelaw.in/withhold-commercialization-gm-mustard-adv-prashant-bhushan-writes-environment-minister-read-letter/

In a letter addressed to Mr. Anil Dave, Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate, Advocate Prashant Bhushan has demanded to withhold the commercial release of GM Mustard, which was approved by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) on Thursday.

In the letter, Mr. Bhushan has “expressed great disquiet and anxiety at the opaque and unscientific regulatory oversight of this GM mustard”. Therefore, demanding that the plan of commercialization be nipped in the bud, the letter states, “The issue also is that with GMO contamination, our mustard will be changed at the molecular level. Any toxicity that there is will remain in perpetuity. Are we prepared to be the agents for such monumental risk and put India and its people in jeopardy without any recourse and remedy? For these reasons among others, and there are decidedly ‘others’, I would urge you on behalf of our Nation not to endorse this outrageous and antinational approval, but reject it in the public interest. You will be doing India a noble service in posterity.”

He thereafter, enlists three grounds for withholding the approval. First, he relies on the assurance given by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, in October, 2016 that the Union of India will not release DMH 11 “without the prior approval of the Supreme Court”.

Second, he highlights the issue of the biosafety of HT Mustard DMH 11, which, he says, is “critical for India’s agriculture in mustard, its food safety (both as a vegetable and seed oil), and furthermore, and of outstanding importance, the certain contamination that will occur of India’s mustard germplasm.”

Third, he emphasizes on the “lessons of history of GMO regulation in India”, averring that it is marred by “the most serious conflicts of interest and lack of expertise”.

“For this reason, self-assessed safety dossiers by crop developers are kept secret by our Regulators and governing Ministries,” he further points out, highlighting the fact that the GM mustard dossier has also remained unpublished.

The letter goes on to rely on certain statements made by the Centre and the GEAC in a reply affidavit filed before the Apex Court. For instance, the Centre had, in the affidavit, admitted that there has been no claim that DMH 11 out-performs Non-GMO hybrids.

“Therefore, we draw the conclusion that the stated regulatory intent is to deregulate HT DMH 11 as a policy agenda based on no science, and to convert India’s mustard agriculture, in a massive and dangerous experiment, to (GM) HT hybrid mustard, (variants of DMH 11),” the letter thereby states.

Read Prashant Bhushan’s letter here:
http://www.livelaw.in/withhold-commercialization-gm-mustard-adv-prashant-bhushan-writes-environment-minister-read-letter/