PM Narendra Modi’s push for GM crops faces tough opposition from Swadeshi Jagaran Manch

Bhagwati Prakash Sharma, national co-convenor of Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), is a busy man these days. On August 19, he will lead a meeting of national leaders of 35 mass organizations in Delhi, including farmers, traders and even the BJP’s student wing. It’s just the beginning. In October, between Dussehra and Diwali, a massive jamboree of over 100 groups will meet in an event styled Swadeshi Sangam. The agenda is wide — from genetically modified (GM) crops to foreign direct investment (FDI) to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Swadeshi Warriors

In each of these, the SJM has scored wins since the Narendra Modi government assumed power on May 26. It seems Sharma and the SJM are now moving in quickly to occupy vacant space — vacated by the now defunct National Advisory Council (NAC), which was almost a personal prelature of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In the past two months, only the SJM has managed to challenge the almost unquestioned authority of Narendra Modi.

Consider the SJM’s recent successes: it has been opposing the Doha round of negotiations at the WTO for sometime now, and it took a BJP-led government to block it, precisely on the points SJM has been advocating. FDI in retail has been another pet peeve and minister of state for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman has ruled out FDI in multi-brand retail. But the real deal was GM crops, something the prime minister appears keen to push. SJM has been opposing GM crops and their field trials too. “If you want to do trials, they must be inside greenhouses,” Sharma says.

The Narendra Modi-led government took two steps forward on GM crops in the two months it has been in office. It was forced to take one back after the SJM as well as former BJP ideologue and environmental activist KN Govindacharya raised their hands in protest.

The GM crops issue will test the SJM’s will as well as the resolve of this government.

The IB Report

Activist organizations like Greenpeace, andana Shiva’s Navdanya and Suman Sahai’s Gene Campaign were named in a report by the Intelligence Bureau. The report’s subject line is ‘Concerted efforts by select foreign-funded NGOs to take down Indian development projects’. The report was leaked soon after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came into office. It picked on anti-GM crop agitations along with other issues like anti-coal and anti-nuclear movements, and sought to paint these protests as activities controlled by foreign masters that are aiming at slowing down India’s growth. The widely circulated report (ET Magazine also downloaded a copy) instilled some fear, damaged some credibility, but mostly made the Modi government’s intentions clear. It wanted to clear impediments coming in the way of its growth agenda.

That was till it faced stiff opposition on GM crops from one of its own. It is not that the SJM has now changed its colours; it has always opposed GM crops. But its pedigree, closeness to the RSS and its mooring in swadeshi philosophy make it a large obstacle on the course adopted by this government on GM crops.

The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) that had not met for almost two years met on July 18 (53 days after the Modi government took over) and cleared three applications for import of GM soyabean oil. It also accepted 13 requests for confined field trials of different GM crops. In the earlier government, Sharad Pawar as agriculture minister was a strong votary of GM seeds in India and had often spoken in favour of Bt cotton. On the other hand, Jairam Ramesh as environment minister had announced a moratorium on the field trials of Bt brinjal in 2010 and his successor Jayanthi Natarajan had refused to sign off requests for field trials that were already approved by the GEAC. The committee thereafter had stopped meeting. Ramesh had queered the pitch further by mandating that each trial must also get a no-objection from respective state governments.

When Veerappa Moily took over as the minister, he started clearing the decks for restarting field trials. In February-March 2014 the GEAC revalidated some of its own clearances issued earlier and Moily okayed them. The issue is also before the Supreme Court (SC) and there was reason to hurry. Gene Campaign, an organization started by geneticist Suman Sahai, had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in 2004 on this subject.

SC Steps in

Another PIL had been filed later by Aruna Rodrigues and the Supreme Court was hearing the two petitions together — which prayed that the country did not have the wherewithal to deal with the science behind GM crops and field trials should not happen till a proper regulatory mechanism was in place.

The SC had appointed a committee of six experts. Five of them filed a report recommending a 10-year moratorium on field trials in September 2012 while the sixth member, RS Paroda (a former director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and a bureaucrat with a long history in government), filed a dissenting report later. The apex court sought the government’s response in April 2014.

Sahai told ET Magazine: “We have now moved an application with the Supreme Court asking it to accept the report of the five members of the expert committee that proposed a 10-year moratorium.”

Sahai says the BJP election manifesto itself was very cautious. It said: “GM foods will not be allowed without full scientific evaluation on the long-term effects on soil production and biological impact on consumers.” The new agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh had said after taking over that GM crops will be allowed “only if essential”.

Genetically Modi-fied?

“You have to ask, who is pushing it,” says Sahai, clearly hinting that it is the prime minister who is firmly in the GM court.

One does not need to look far for confirmations. The agricultural group of the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE AG) comprises companies that want to produce and market GM seeds in India. Its chairman Ram Kaundinya was in Ahmedabad last week to speak to the students of the IIM there on biotechnology and GM crops. Kaundinya says: “Gujarat was one of the states that approved most field trials of GM crops and backed Bt cotton very strongly and we had strong hopes after this government took over.”

ABLE was started by Biocon cofounder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw for biotech companies and when the agricultural products companies joined up they created the AG within it. ABLE AG has among its members MNCs like Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, Dow, Advanta and DuPont as well as Indian companies like Mahyco, Rasi Seeds and Shriram Bioseeds.

In the wake of the GEAC’s approval for field trials of 15 GM crops, Govindacharya tweeted that it was “an anti-national decision”. And when environment minister Prakash Javdekar promptly countered that the GEAC approval did not mean a government approval and then later told the SJM members that the approvals have been put on hold, the seed makers were disappointed.

The debate on GM crops can go on. Both sides claim science is on their side.

Kaundinya says: “Gujarat has seen an almost 10-fold increase in production of cotton after it adopted Bt cotton. The results are there for all to see. If you stop trials now you will stop research.” Apart from cotton and brinjal, the industry is also working on maize, canola, rice, wheat, potatoes, cauliflowers and some other vegetables.

Sides Face-off SJM has major issues on the need for farmers to buy seeds every year. Kaundinya tried to allay fears over seeds. Hybrid seeds have to be bought every year and GM hybrid seeds are no different. On the other hand normal seeds known as ‘varieties’ do not need to be procured every year, and GM varieties too are one-time purchases for farmers who can then procure their own seeds from their harvest

Gene Campaign’s Sahai says the GM industry floats two balloons, the science balloon and the hunger balloon. She wishes to puncture both. “What we want is the data,” she says. “It is simple. We do not trust the companies so we ask them to show us the data.” She laments that even GEAC meeting minutes are now not being made public. Sahai points out that the Gene Campaign PIL was filed in 2004 only after her RTI application seeking data bore no result.

Sharma of SJM draws attention to a recall in 2000, when over 300 food products were found to contain StarLink corn that had not been approved for human consumption, triggering the first ever recall of GM food. It was approved for animal feed only by the US FDA in 1998, but the corn found its way into products for human consumptions including taco shells of Taco Bell. Traces of StarLink — created by a company called Plant Genetic Systems, which had become Aventis CropScience when the incident took place — were detected as late as August 2013 in Saudi Arabia. Sharma agonizes that soon imported GM soyabean oil will be sold in India and in five years GM rice, wheat and vegetables too will reach the market.

He is ready to throw down the gauntlet on this one. The seedmakers wish Modi will pick it up. For the industry worldwide the biggest markets for GM crops are small farmers. That makes India crucial. If they can win here, much more of the developing world will follow.