Father of modern biotechnology condemns report on NGOs by India's spying bureau

Dr Pushpa Bhargava, the father of modern biotechnology in India, joins Indian citizens and civil society organisations in condemning the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) report on citizens and NGOs that oppose GMOs and destructive "development" projects.

The IB report accuses these groups and individuals of threatening the national economic security of India and of being in the pay of foreign interests. This is a bad joke, since GMOs and the "development" projects concerned are nothing other than the profit-making schemes of multinational companies based in rich Western countries. And far from benefiting the majority of Indian citizens, they often have catastrophic impacts. Dr Bhargava (item 1 below) names the widespread failure of Bt cotton as one such destructive project.

As Dr Vandana Shiva notes (item 2): "Intelligence agencies are supposed to protect the safety and security of a nation and its citizens from external threats. Tragically, we now have a report from the Intelligence Bureau that promotes the very foreign interests that are threatening our seed and food sovereignty, the livelihood of our farmers and the health of our citizens."

EXCERPT (item 1): The ignorance of IB in regard to the Bt-cotton story in India, and of the problems with GM crops, is appalling. For example, Bt-cotton has totally failed in rain-fed areas that account for nearly two-thirds of cotton-growing area in the country.

As regards the negative impact of NGOs such as Greenpeace, on growth of GDP to the extent of 2-3 per cent as IB has claimed, even if it is so, so what? Our experience of high growth rate in some recent years has been by no means satisfactory, for it has barely touched the bottom 80 per cent of our population and has vastly increased the economic gap between the top 20 and the bottom 80 per cent.

1. The importance of dissent in democracy – Pushpa Bhargava
2. Generously motivated – Vandana Shiva
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1. The importance of dissent in democracy
Pushpa M Bhargava
The Hindu, June 18 2014
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-importance-of-dissent-in-democracy/article6123745.ece

* In a democracy, non-governmental organisations provide a platform to civil society to dissent in an informed and reasoned manner

On 31st October 1570, Martin Luther nailed on the door of a church in Germany 95 objections to the Catholic faith that led to the emergence of Protestantism. Soon afterwards, Galileo challenged the Church by stating that our Earth and other planets went round the Sun; he died under house arrest.

In 1927, Heinrich Wieland received the Chemistry Nobel Prize for discovering a structure of cholic acid which was proven to be wrong within a year. In 1959, Severo Ochoa and Arthur Kornberg shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of enzymes that carry out the synthesis of RNA and DNA in living organisms. It turned out that these enzymes were not the right ones.

In fact, the history of progress of mankind is a history of informed dissent; much of creative activity of high quality in all areas of human endeavour at any given time has been a reflection of such dissent.

Today we favour democracy as the most acceptable form of governance because, in a democracy, a citizen has a right to dissent without fear of victimization, as long as such dissent does not lead to inhuman or unconstitutional action. By contrast, such dissent in an authoritarian, dictatorial or colonial regime could lead to the severest of punishments – that is, loss of life, as happened in colonial India, Hitler’s Germany, or Stalin’s USSR.

In a democracy, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) provide a platform to civil society for informed and reasoned dissent. They provide a mechanism for people who are ruled, to keep a check on the rulers.

There are, of course, NGOs that engage in illegal or manifestly objectionable activities using Indian and/or foreign funds, much like how 34 per cent of newly elected MPs in Parliament have criminal cases against them. Just as the majority of MPs do not have cases against them, a large proportion of our NGOs operate transparently and legally.

The power that NGOs wield has increased concurrently with the increased demand for real and operational democracy. If it were not for our NGOs, we would not have had the system of obligatory declaration of assets, now required by all those aspiring to be MPs. We would also not have the Right to Information Act, or the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act.

Therefore, denigrating good NGOs would imply that our democracy is only notional and not functional. Such denigration will smack of a dictatorial attitude.

The recent Intelligence Bureau (IB) report on the impact of “Select foreign funded NGOs” on development casts serious aspersion on some of our best NGOs and distinguished citizens. The report also alleges that these NGOs would have a negative impact on GDP growth by 2-3 per cent by stalling, through agitation, development projects such as nuclear power plants, uranium mines, coal-fired power-plants, GMOs, projects by POSCO and Vedanta, hydel projects, and “extractive industries” in the North-East.

By casting unwarranted and unproven aspersions on highly reputed NGOs such as Greenpeace and Nobel Prize-winning Amnesty International, and individuals such as Dr Suman Sahai, Dr Vandana Shiva, Ms Aruna Rodrigues, Mr Prashant Bhushan, Dr Udayakumar, Admiral Ramdas and Mr Praful Bidwai, the IB has indirectly indicted every individual and NGO that has voiced reasoned dissent in the interest of our country and its people, within our constitutional framework. Such an attitude on the part of IB makes a mockery of our democracy.

What is wrong in receiving funds from well-meaning individuals or bona-fide organisations abroad who want to help a worthwhile cause in India? Doesn’t Indian Government, for example, help worthwhile causes in Afghanistan? In fact, the Bureau should have looked at the damage caused by Government funding to organisations like Salwa Judum in Chattisgarh.

Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Aandolan started a fully justified campaign on the 12th June against the illegal raising of the height of Sardar Sarovar dam from 122 to 139 metres, which will adversely impact over 2.5 lakh persons engaged in various occupations. We know from past experience that nothing would be done for those who stand to be displaced by this move. But, IB would probably condemn the above campaign in its next report!

Let us look at how specious and ridiculous the arguments in the IB report are. There is a massive opposition to nuclear power plants around the world, and many countries such as Japan and Germany have decided to abrogate them in a time-bound fashion. In our own country, many highly distinguished individuals such as a former Chairman of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, a former Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission, and several former Secretaries to the Government of India who are knowledgeable in the area, have opposed further investment in nuclear energy. None of them have any connection with Greenpeace, nor do they have any vested interest. They have provided valid reasons for their views.

Let us take another example – of coal mining for coal-fired thermal power plants. Such mining requires destroying India’s forest wealth and livelihood of the forest-dwelling tribals. What about our national commitment since Independence to have over 30 per cent of our area under forest?

Why should we invest so heavily in nuclear, thermal, or large hydel power plants, none of which will be environment or people-friendly, when we have far better alternatives staring us in our face: solar power, wind power, micro and mini hydel, biomass, and biogas – lot of which can be produced and used locally (for details see our books, Saga of Indian Science since Independence, Universities Press, 2002; An Agenda for the Nation: An untold story of the UPA Government, Mapin Publishing, 2014). Isn’t it strange that our country does not have even one single institute totally devoted to research on solar power? We want to spend enormous amount of money to buy nuclear reactors from the US but we do not want to learn cheap lessons from the experience of Germany in regard to solar power. What is then wrong with NGOs in our country such as Greenpeace for taking a courageous stand against nuclear, coal-fired thermal or large hydel power plants?.

It is hilarious that possession of a map showing nuclear installations in India and a list of Indians who oppose nuclear power – all of which is public knowledge – is a crime in the eyes of IB.

The ignorance of IB in regard to the Bt-cotton story in India, and of the problems with GM crops, is appalling. For example, Bt-cotton has totally failed in rain-fed areas that account for nearly two-thirds of cotton-growing area in the country.

It is only proper that the Government takes action against those organizations that obtain foreign funds illegally and/or are not transparent in using them as required by law. Many organizations do not take money from Government or business houses. It is admirable that they survive on donations by individuals in India and/or abroad. They follow the provisions of FCRA and their accounting is transparent. I believe that in the long-term interests of inclusive growth in the country, it is much wiser to support such organizations than to have FDI in retail which will benefit a select few but adversely affect millions of people in the country.

(Pushpa M. Bhargava is the founder director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology at Hyderabad, and chairman of the Southern Regional Centre of Council for Social Development.)
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2. Generously motivated
Vandana Shiva
The Asian Age, 18 June 2014
http://www.asianage.com/columnists/generously-motivated-526

* Upholding our laws to defend biosafety is in national interest. But this is not the motivation guiding the IB, whose report repeats the false claims of the GMO industry about Bt cotton

Intelligence agencies are supposed to protect the safety and security of a nation and its citizens from external threats. Tragically, we now have a report from the Intelligence Bureau that promotes the very foreign interests that are threatening our seed and food sovereignty, the livelihood of our farmers and the health of our citizens. The IB report, which was commissioned by the UPA government but submitted to the newly elected NDA government, blindly promotes genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs are the source of genetically modified foods.

The report names seven agitations pursuing “anti-developmental activities”. The “Anti-Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)” activism is ranked third and this section begins with this sentence: “The pro-GMO debate in India centres round the resounding success of Bt cotton in the last 10 years.” This sounds more like propaganda of the GMO industry than the result of an investigation by an Indian intelligence agency.

A later paragraph further reinforces the evidence that the IB was not investigating but transmitting messages from the foreign GMO industry and its lobbyists. In paragraph 35, the report cites Ronald Herring of Cornell University. Herring has systematically attacked Indian farmers, scientists and plant breeders and Cornell University has become a hub of the pro-GMO lobby. Cornell worked with USAID and Monsanto/Mahyco to try and impose Bt brinjal on India, unscientifically, undemocratically, and illegally. That is why the then environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, ordered a moratorium on Bt brinjal after organising seven public hearings across the country.

India is governed by a biosafety law embodied in the “Rules 1989 for the manufacture/use/imp-ort/export and storage of hazardous micro-organisms/genetic engineered organisms and cells”. Biosafety laws are designed to protect the biodiversity, the environment and public health from the negative impacts of GMOs. I was appointed by the UN in an expert group to frame the international law on biosafety. I also worked with our government to strengthen our biosafety framework. The IB is clearly ignorant of the laws of the land, as well as our parliamentary and judicial processes. That’s why, in paragraph 34, it states that five individuals “contributed to the three year moratorium on Bt brinjal and the ban/moratorium regimes recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee (August 9, 2012) and the technical expert committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court”.

The IB, like the foreign interests seemingly influencing its analysis, clearly holds the institutions created by the Constitution of India — the government, Parliament, the courts — in contempt of foreign commercial interests. It presents them as being manipulated by five individuals.

The IB report is not just biased in favour of foreign MNCs, it is also factually inaccurate. It states in paragraph 31 that the “anti-GMF activism was initiated in 2003 by Vandana Shiva”.

Let me inform the IB of the facts. In 1987, when I was attending a conference on biotechnology, organised by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation at the UN in Geneva and Bogeve, the old agrichemical industry stated clearly that they were going to introduce GMOs in order to take patents on seeds, so that they could collect royalties from every farmer, in every season, in every country of the world. That is when I committed myself to defend our country’s seed and food sovereignty.

In 1998, when Monsanto, a US-based MNC, started field trials of its GMO Bt cotton illegally, I sued them in our Supreme Court for violation of our bio-safety laws. That is why they could not commercialise their Bt cotton until 2002.

Upholding our national laws to defend our biosafety and seed and food sovereignty is a democratic imperative and in national interest. Clearly these are not the motivations guiding the IB. The IB report repeats the false claims and myths of the GMO industry about Bt cotton. It hides the fact that in 1996-97, before Bt cotton, we exported 168.2 million bales of cotton, and in 2012-13, after Bt, we are importing 145.9 million bales. It hides the failure of Bt cotton to control pests, and that farmers are having to spend more on Bt pesticides. It hides the reality of the falling yields of Bt cotton. It hides the reality that the high cost of seeds for which Monsanto collects royalties has left our farmers trapped in debt which has pushed more than 284,000 farmers to suicide since 1995. Most of these suicides are concentrated in the Bt cotton regions.

An intelligence agency committed to national interest would have addressed the epidemic of farmers’ suicides. Instead, the IB report talks of a 2-3 per cent drag in the growth of the national economy because of those of us working for the protection of our ecological heritage and people’s rights — the seven agitations pursuing “anti-developmental activities” are the ones against nuclear power plants, coal fired power plants, genetically modified organisms, Posco and Vedanta in Orissa, against extractive industries in the Northeast, and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Each life is precious and priceless. But since the IB has put a loss figure, we decided to assess the cost of farmers’ suicides using the US’ calculation of the value of life (used for insurance and accident claims). For 284,000 farmers’ suicides since 1995, this translates to $1.99 trillion. India’s GDP was $1.82 trillion in 2012. Besides the cost of farmers’ life there is also an economic drain on the national economy. Just the royalties collected for Bt cotton amount to `5,000 crore. Can you imagine the economic drain if all seeds were GMOs bought from global companies?

Henry Kissinger had said, “Food is a weapon.” Today control over seeds through genetic engineering and patents has become the key to using food as a weapon. That is why for 30 years we have been saving seeds and defending seed freedom. We have been promoting organic farming that protects our biodiversity, the livelihood of our farmers and the health of our citizens. This should be the agenda for a free and prosperous India. Not the seed slavery through GMOs being promoted by the Intelligence Bureau.