A Biotechnology Story: Notes from India

Author(s): Shiv Visvanathan and Chandrika Parmar

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 37, No. 27 (Jul. 6-12, 2002), pp. 2714-2724
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 A Biotechnology Story
Notes from India
Biotechnology was created within a politics of anxiety and desire in India. The paper
attempts to understand the social construction of biotechnology. It locates biotechnology within
the wider debates on development and describes an orchestra of positions
each of which captures one part of the debate.

SHIV VISVANATHAN, CHANDRIKA PARMAR

mushrooming of NGOs, had along with suppressed and even journals like Current
the failure of socialism created a period Science lost their openness on this issue.
T ~he history of the debates on science of ambivalence where different sciences If atomic energy smacked of defence,
and technology in independent India carried different kinds of moral valency.security and nation state, information tech-
divide themselves into three phases. This is highlighted best by separate statusnology bubbled like something out of a
The initial movement was a period of lib-of the three paradigmatic sciences - atomic Schumpetarian world.
eration, of inauguration, where India, likeenergy, information technology and There was a sense of civil society in-
its prime minister Nehru, felt it had a trystbiotechnology. volvement, a feeling that there would be
with future and the future we all realised India had broken away from its Hamlet- a cybercafe in every village even if there
"belonged to those who made friends withlike indecisiveness to become an official was no potable water. The miracle of in-
science". Science was seen as a funda- 'atom staat'. It was a decision that the formation technology was that it just grew
mental feature of our Constitution. It was public and the middle class in general- like Topsy. The state was not the key
a happy period that lasted into the 1970s. welcomed. For the first time, we had the
policy-maker and all its official heroes -
Towards the end, the myth was ragged but diaspora playing an active political role
Sam Pitroda, Narayan Murthy, Aziz Premji
the core held. There was a general feeling arguing that atomic energy provided one
- emerged from outside of the scientific
that science was good but where India with masculinity, respect and power establishment.
in In fact venerable names like
failed was in science policy and organi- modern geopolitics. India, they claimed, M G K Menon and Yashpal now appeared
sation. The three great fabrications of Big had arrived as a superpower. like dinosaurs in this fast-changing world.
Science - Space, Atomic Energy and the One has to look at the symbolic politics There was a grass roots like quality about
Green Revolution - stood as beacons of of each of these domains. With the adventit. In fact the spread of NIIT created a
the Indian will to science. of liberalisation, the public sector was in
parallel education, economy, an achieve-
Theemergency brought its own period disrepute
of and seen either as a bureaucratic
ment-oriented answer to the Macaulayite
doubt because it was a dictatorship legiti-behemoth or a money guzzler to be subjectuniversities with their liberal model of
mised symbolically by science. Not only to disinvestment. There was little left of
science and the humanities. It was a middle
was the violence of demolitions and sterili- the pride in import substitution industri-
class dream and a diasporic delight. It was
sation, justified in the name of science, the alisation that saw firms like HMT, BHELthe enactment of a fantasy of disneylands
emergency was seen as a scientific project. and BEL as cutting edges of technology. and silicon valleys in India. It was a
It brought in its aftermath a virtual explo- Earlier the public sector was official, consumer style with none of the official
asceticism or the unofficial waste of the
sion of debates on science and technology. scientific, respectable. Public sector science
The social contract between science, had created the innovative domains of space
public sector organisations. There was little
development and national security wasresearch and atomic energy throughtalk a of poverty in the old radical style. IT
being threatened by grass roots groups and combination of political and economic sanctioned consumption. It was an urban
dissenting academics who reinvented phi-valencies. But today space and atomicimagination and politicians joined the
losophy of science and argued that the research no longer carry the indexical marks bandwagon by insisting that their cities
current scientific project was a threat to of socialism or public sector. They embody would be cybercities, a move which gave
human rights and to the democraticthe diacritical marks of national security. politicians like Chandrababu Naidu tre-
imagination. It was the heyday of humanThere is a shift from economic to political mendous mileage and even global media
rights and ecological groups who sharp-legitimacy. In neither stage was there much coverage. IT like a happy flow moved
ened their epistemological claws on the democratic debate about nuclear energy. across the realms state, civil society and
thing called science. There was a realisation These worlds were not open to public the corporate world. One could be Indian
that dams and forest projects had becomescrutiny. There was little debate within and global in it and the middle class felt
ironic. Dams, once seen as temples ofcivil society and even the nuclear critics that Bill Gates was an honorary Indian. IT
modem India had displaced over 60 mil-were basically imitative with none of the was not only a scientific and technological
lion people. power or resilience of the peace move- success, it captured the social imagination.
The emergence of liberalisation, the ments in Europe. Dissenting scientists, even It created resonance in every domain and
co-option of dissent, the everyday of the stature of A K N Reddy, were crudely one realised that being netizen was being

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 Biotechnology Map ments or of IT. Biotechnology is an imagi-
nation that has not yet been domesticated
by the social discourse. In fact, the debates
Bureaucracy-I The Scientists The states as
The DBT pressure groups as spectacles, as performances might stimu-
(PK Ghosh, etc) Ag universities Laboratories Chandrababu late the democratic imagination in an utterly
(Regulatory PAU IISC Naidu (AP) different way. Many scientists and bureau-
Framework) GAU CCMB Krishna
Coimbatore CSIR/NCL (Karnataka) crats are pushing for the idea that biotech-
Station Gujarat nology is more like IT and in fact are
coating it with the happy varnish of IT.
Bureaucracy-Il
(Research Institute The agricultural scientist Emphasising bio-informatics as one of
(Social Sciences) as hero those hybrid tactics that might bring peace
Technological MS Swaminathan International to this unhappy domain.
Conscience as a (MSSRF) / NGO as We look at science policy but also explore
Forensic Conscience pressure groups
RIS \/ (Green Peace) the folklore, the gossip, the rumour and
ICRIER
even the science policy as constructed in
the media. We begin by locating biotech-
NGO(I) NGO (II) nology within the wider debates on devel-
(Gene Campaign) RFST opment and then describe an orchestra of
Suman Sahai (Vandana Shiva
positions each of which captures one part
Tata Energy Research Navdanya)
Institute (TERI) Map of
of the debate. We wish to emphasise that
Biotechnology biotechnology has become a site for the
Debate (Round I) wider debates of the democratic imagina-
tion in India. It is this pretext for a wider
Overt Spokespersons
International Donors as Stakeholders (Media) text that might ironically be biotech-
DFID Down to Earth nology's great contribution while it at-
OXFAM The Hindu, Frontline
tempts to solve the problems of hunger,
ACTION AID Science Journals
Peasant Juries/ Current Science diversity and transparency and survival.
Lok Sunwai As one maps biotechnology, it appears
to have that element of soap-opera without
the drama of resolution. Because it at-
Movements (For) tracted the attention of grass roots groups
Shetkari Monsanto and politically-oriented intellectuals, it
Sangathan Syngenta got inscribed into the wider debate on
(Sharad Joshi The Diasporic
Gail Omvedt) Celebration development and globalisation. This wider
debate has about it a dramaturgical style
C S Prakash
which is a combination of university debate,
(Ag Bio)
Gurudev Khush street theatre, religious discourse and a
Manjunath policy document. The biotechnology de-
Indian
bates do not have the eloquent clarity of
Movements (Against) Companies the earlier Marxist debates in India where
/ KRRS Biocon.
/ BKU (KM Shaw) a spade was a spade or at best a shovel.
/ (Nanjundaswamy) Reliance The biotech discourse is a patch quilt of
/ BKU MAHYCO neighbourly and competing factions. Here,
the logic of scientific committees, populist
movements, science policy analysts, peas-
different from the
ant citizen
old
struggles,
II Nehruvi
NGOs, the in
media combine
world of CSIR science toand technolo
create a post-modem pot-pourie.
(S and T) with This paper their
on biotechnology attempts to sedate The ideas
biotech debates of
like any trans
morality
of technologyunderstand the socialand
construction of bio- their playlinear
create a fascinatingdiscour
array of arche-
on innovation chains. technology. It tries to explore how biotech- types. Archetypes can be universal and yet
nology was perceived and consumed as a
Atomic energy and IT contrasted as social deeply individualistic combining personal
imaginations. One was stock, security, social imagination. We wish to argue that nuance, sociological roje and stereotype.
nation state, politics, the other was flow,biotechnology was created within a poli- The map sketches the basic positions.
corporate, civil society, open-ended. One tics of anxiety and desire in India. Indian
embodied the spectacle called the national civil society created around a biotechnol- Ill
security state, the other represented the ogy heuristics of fear and hope. turning it
celebration called the market with all its into a great morality play, a socio-drama One of the most fascinating figures in
doubts. Lurking between the two was the of positions, a circus of spectacles, epis- this scientific circus is M S Swaminathan.
unhappy consciousness that Hegel would temologies, debates totally different from Swaminathan is not only an outstanding
have loved - biotechnology. the domestication of the nuclear depart- scientist, he is a sociological phenomenon.

Economic and Political Weekly July 6, 2002 2715

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His career embodies the-complete gamut but he has played his cards perfectly tainable
on agriculture and rural development.
of independent science from 1947 to 2001. biotech. Here he is statesman, advocate,
The underlying philosophy is that in order
He is seen as father of the green revolution dissenter and referee. One has to under- to be sustainable, development should be
and in terms of policy impact the most stand the nature of his strategy for biotech. environmentally compatible, economically
influential scientist of the era. Even theSwaminathan always assimilates the new efficient and socially equitable." This pro-
Bhabhas and Menons and Sarabhais paleinto old narratives. Thus biotechnology is poor, pro-jobs, pro-nature orientation is
into insignificance next to the sheer du-new but is also a continuation of green conceptualised through:
revolution. Tie green revolution has to be
rability of the figure. Hailed as the green (1) The integration of the best in traditional
part of the evergreen revolution. He takes wisdom and technologies with the best in
revolution hero, Swaminathan was attacked
the diffusionist model of technology and modem biological technologies.
in the 1970s and 1980s for everything from
the suicides at IARI, for plagiarism and fashions a democratic theory out of it. He (2) The pursuit of a holistic system to use
transforms an innovation chain into a site
suspect results, for the ecological destruc- and management of resources.
tion of the green revolution, for being fora democratic theory. Thirdly, he is con- (3) Enabling the resource power to trans-
tool of capitalist agriculture. The tinually inventing new concepts and cre- late their skills into production and income
Swaminathan caravan has eluded all and ating sites for their functioning. And generating activities through access to
extended beyond all. The attacks of New finally he absorbs dissent by digesting It, capital and support services.
Scientist and critics like Vandana Shiva,
co-opting its concepts and domesticating it Note how every major concept of recent
Claude Alvarez sound adolescent tantrums into a project. Swaminathan domesticates times has been absorbed, every dualism
as this Nestor/Bhisma of science proceedsbiotechnology by apparently creating a new bridged. Participation, sustainability,
with an Odyssean energy. In fact, thecivics for it. One can understand it best local knowledge, technological blending,
scientist represents a gigantic intellectualby examining the principles of this civics.every fashionable concept of the develop-
sponge, an ever-absorptive environment MSSRF was created to "foster a new ment-democratic world has been absorbed
that absorbs critique, domesticates dual-symbiotic social contract between science
in this theory of science. Every scientist
isms of lab and land, and the tensions and society".l Every scientific move is happy, all economists are content, and
between innovation and justice. Today he simultaneously articulated an idea of jus-
any activist would be hopeful. It goes
is a scientific statesman who has revived tice. In fact justice and science combine beyond rhetorics to hyphenate institutions.
an ancient Indian role that of middleman in the idea of sustainability. Biotechno- It links private sector to the farmer by
with finesse and skill. In fact Swaminathan logy becomes only one example of this allowing farmers to test, adopt and verify
today is his own NGO, state, civil society, axiomatic concept. Swaminathan invents hybrid rice seeds produced by private sector
village, UN agency, foundation. He rep- a matrix of user-friendly concepts which companies like MAHYCO, Mumbai, Spic-
resents all, he is all of them and yet that even radicals find enticing and the World Pioneer, Chennai. MSSRF plays the clas-
remains in concrete little place called Bank engaging. He creates hyphens that sic role of middleman. The company
M S Swaminathan Research Foundation become highways between difficult dual- supplies seeds free of cost and the farmer
(MSSRF) in Chennai. He is paradigm, isms. In fact, Swaminathan had created is ancompensated for any loss of yield. The
exemplar, dissenter, critic and alternative.amniotic set of concepts, a nursery of ex- biovillage also becomes a conduit for the
He is the father of the green revolution. perimental sites for the introductiongovernment's
of income generating program-
He is the statesman of sustainability. His biotechnology. Particularly illustrative mes of thus benefiting many landless women.
career or to give a more ecolate sensitivity, It links scientists to the poor to provide
all this is his idea of the biovillage, a term
his lifecycle shows that he began as a youngcreated by Swaminathan and in China by solutions within their resource base. The
brahmin scientist at Coimbatore who went L Zhensheng. first three biovillages, Pillayarkuppam,
on to acquire a doctorate at Cambridge and Sustainability for Swaminathan is Kizhur a and Sivaranthakam, were estab-
a post-doctorate at Wisconsin. He joins multi-dimensional
the concept. He transformslished in 1991 in Pondicherry, about 150
Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack km south of Chennai.
Brundtlandian literacy into something more
where he comes under the influerlce of two inclusive of ecology, numeracy and demo- MSSRF not only created a set of nurturant
outstanding and underestimated scientists cracy.2 Without it, a search for justice
sites and concepts for biotechnology. It
- Ramiah and Parthasarathy. He moves to remains rhetorical. For Swaminathan also created a continuity of narratives.
Delhi and the rest is history. Here with sustainability was a mutli-dimensional Swaminathan realised that the gains of the
Sivaraman, the agricultural secretary and concept "with three critically interacting
green revolution had reached a stagnation.
C S Subramanium, he helps create the dimensions: ecology, economics and What is worse the salinity of green revo-
green revolution that made India self- equity". His Sustainable Livelihood lution lands had whittled productivity.
sufficient in food. He moves to become Security Index proposed in 1991 integrated Biotechnology was seen a catalyst for the
director of International Rice Research all three dimensions of it. Encompassed green revolution. The green revolution had
Institute at Philippines and eventually within the idea of sustainability and become social acceptable creating both the
'retires' to Chennai to create the MSSRF ecotechnology was the concept of the myth of the dynamic Punjabi farmers and
where he plays the statesman of biovillage which constitutionally integrates the dedicated scientist. Biotechnology was
sustainability. So intrinsic is the associa-ideas of justice into an innovation chain. woven into the happy narratives of the
tion that people probably think BrundtlandThe constitutional preamble to the green revolution. It was subtly presented
borrowed the idea from him. biovillage concept3 says it all "The as a split-level narrative. The green revo-
Controversy might have dogged biovillage is basically a pro-poor, pro- lution creation myth had a New Testament.
Swaminathan in his green revolution days women and pro-nature approach to sus- and an Old Testament. Norman Borlaug

2716 Economic and Political Weekly July 6, 2002

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the patriarch of the green revolution is provement of productivity per units aboutof the potential risks of agricultural
brought in to pour fire and brimstone on land, water and time. In the coming mil-biotechnology. Two Nobel Prize winners,
those with little faith in biotechnology. But James Watson and Norman Borlaug signed
lennium, we will have no option other than
Swaminathan's is a more nuanced narra- producing more food and agricultural the 'declaration of scientists in support of
tive. Statesmen-like, he can criticise thosecommodities from diminishing per capital agricultural biotechnology'. The declara-
who push fears of biotechnology under theland and water resources: Swaminathan tion held that biotechnology was "a power-
ful and safe means for the modification of
carpet. He can talk. of the need to preserveand Borlaug were scheduled to be major
biodiversity. But, of course, he does it not performers in the first Indian Science
organisms and can contribute substantially
only in a civilisational sense but pragmati-Congress of the millennium. Its theme
in enhancing the quality of life by improv-
cally. For him, "biodiversity is the feed- was 'Food, nutrition and environmental
ing agriculture, health care and environ-
stock for biotechnology". ment". Other signatories including Ingo
security'. The message was clear. It was
The idea of biovillage integrates bio-a framework for the public acceptance Potrykus of Swiss Federal Institute of
technology to the world of information. Atof biotechnology. Technology, developer of the new 'Golden
the core of the biovillage is the information Rice' and Gurudev Khush a winner of the
centre. It is set up to tell the people that IV World Food Prize.
a "university degree is not the only entry At Tuskagee, Prakash presented
point to knowledge, skill or wisdom". At Biotechnplogy is a signifier. For the Swaminathan a biography of Carver dur-
the village knowledge centre, farmers cannumerous scientists in the diaspora, the ing their meeting. In various pieces in
access the price and availability of seeds,NRIs as they are called, biotechnology is Frontline, Prakash builds the narrative of
fertiliser or pesticides. The volunteers areway of touching roots, of being Indian, of Indian biotechnology around possibility
generally women who are trained for twogiving back something to India. One sees and lack. "India was once a great scientific
weeks at MSSRF where they learn to use the NRI view of biotech especially in the powerhouse and made enormous scien-
Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Word.writings of C S Prakash and those of tific contributions to the world." He cites
The individual villages are connected toManjunath and Gurudev Khush. the modern number system, astronomy,
the central hub at Villanur where questions Chanapatna Prakash is a professor of ayurvedic medicine and wireless commu-
of villagers are kept in databases. Familiesplant molecular genetics at Tuskagee. For nication among past achievements and
can access information regarding entitle-Prakash, biotechnology is not only the gift moans that India is no longer a storehouse
ments in various government programmes.of the future, it is nostalgia. It forges an of scientific achievements. The only oasis
Another outcome of the preoccupationumbilical connection not only with India is a "small group of Indians overseas who
with information is the food insecuritybut with Swaminathan. One senses have made a formidable mark on global
map of India. Swaminathan is not only an actor but also
science and technology enterprises". For
Swaminathan is a true 'glocal' in the an icon. He is not only a useful scientist, Prakash and PBASIO in general, biotech-
biotechnological world. If the biovillagehe has symbolic value. Prakash reminisces nology is that schumpetarian break that
locates biotechnology concretely as in a long webarticle on his first meeting India desperately needs.
local knowledge and local materials, with Swaminathan. Prakash makes an interesting sociologi-
Swaminathan realises the wider ideolo- cal point. He observed "based on history,
"I had a very fortunate occasion to spend
a few hours with Professor Swaminathan
gical battle that has to be fought. Here again one could have legitimately predicted that
the twinning of the old and new green on August 29, 1997. He was visitingthe United Kingdom would among the
revolution messages is definitely 'hybrid' Washington DC to attend a CGIAR meet-world's leaders in developing biotechno-
in the Borlaug-Swaminathan Tango. ing but was relatively free on that day...This logy today. Instead the UK is known world-
Borlaug definitely sounds an Old Tes- was my first with this great agricultural wide as the nation most responsible for
tament prophet especially in his role scientist
of although I had listened to hisimpeding the introduction of technology".
president, Sasakawa Africa Association. lecture a couple of times.. .His words then For Prakash Britain, the home of scientific
He is the scientific missionary handling made me decide to take up genetics and icons like Jenner, Wilkins, Crick, Fleming
once again the theological challenge plant of breeding as my future subject."has demonised the new technology as
reverend Malthus, of population outstrip- Prakash at Tuskagee becomes one of the'Frankenstein Food'. He asks "who would
ping food supply despite the triplinggreat of advocates of biotechnology through have predicted it? Certainly not Jenner...
world food supply during the last three PBASIO, a lobby of NRI biotechnologists Does anyone believe Darwin would op-
decades. Borlaug sees biotechnology [Madsen as 2001].4 pose research in biotechnology". Prakash
the new window of hope for scientificPresent in almost every NRI mind is the is surprised that the cradle of scientific
research and the poor. For Borlaug, bio- need to make India a superpower. For themdiscovery now "coddles green activist
technology is inevitable, for Swaminathan history becomes a list of lost opportunitiesgroups, who use fears rather than science
it is natural and necessary. For the latter and the future a negation of history. Peevedto extend their anti-capitalist agenda". What
it is the only answer to technical con- at the anti-science and environmentalist is worse complains Prakash is that the
straints of water and land. He states "It is critiques of biotechnology, Prakash helpedepidemic of fear is spreading with devas-
now 29 years since the term 'green revo- draft a declaration about biotechnology.tating consequences for developing coun-
lution' came to use". 'Green' denotes chlo- On February 7, AgBio World, a biotech-tries. The British insistence on biotech-
rophyll, which enables plants to harvest nology information centre issued a decla-free foods gives a negative message with
solar energy. The term 'green revolution' ration signed by over a 3,200 leading sad repercussions around the globe. Thai-
scientists responding to the public concernland, the largest rice exporter, is reducing
denotes agricultural progress through im-

Economic and Political Weekly July 6, 2002 2717

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support for its biotech. Prakash claims that The third central figure in what might Monsanto field stations conducting trial
the vandalism and destruction of biotech becalled the diasporic triptych is Manjunath on BT cotton.

research sites is a part of the 'anti-capi- who heads the Monsanto Centre in D R Nagaraj in his 'Anxious Hindu and
talist' agenda. Bangalore. If Prakash is missionary and Farmer' notes that globalisation
the Angry
If Prakash is violently missionary for the Khush just is, Manjunath is also is
a both
low- threatening and puzzling. As a
biotech paradigm, Gurudev Khush winner result, one feels helpless and protest
key, buttoned down scientist without
of 1996 World Food Prize is virtually becomes a more difficult act. One needs
the crass salesmanship of Monsanto.
matter of fact. Khush is the exemplar. a style of protest in a Mcluhanese world
Manjunath's position is more conventional.
Khush's work is legendary. The institute where
He points out all the 75 scientists whothe issue is more than the issue. One
of genetics at Punjab Agricultural Univer- staff the Monsanto laboratory are Indi-
picks an object of protest which has wider
sity, Ludhiana, is named after him. His ans. "No doubt Monsanto is an American resonances and carries out an action which
IR36 was "grown in 11 million hectares company but we are all Indians here".disguises one's ambivalence to it. Nagaraj
becoming the most widely grown variety remarks that like the sorcerer one creates
He sees the Monsanto laboratory as an
of any crop the world has every known". a straw dummy of the enemy and sticks
attempt to reverse the brain drain. "There
For him it is as if rice, science, life are all needles into it. The symbol is hurt; with
used to be a complaint that there has been
gifts which he must keep in perpetual a brain drain in India. We have been able
the hope it will pierce the real as well.
exchange. Khush claims "this is the mis- Nagaraj notes that the KRSS assault on
to attract Indian scientists and they are
sion of my life...To continue to work to- KFC had that quality about it.
working in this country. It is a positive
ward the improvement of rice, and to be aspect and in the long run it is going to January 30, 1996 was the 48 anniversary
able to feed more and more people". A benefit our country". There is a kitsch of Gandhi's martyrdom. On that day the
recent interview almost bold in its simplic- like quality to Manjunath's defence offarmers' movement in Kerala "led a blitz-
ity shows why Khush, IRRI rice breeder biotechnology. Here is how John Biewen krieg on the multinational Kentucky Fried
is such a powerful advertisement for bio- describes his comments. Manjunath Chicken in Bangalore" [Nagaraj 1996:
technology. states "GM seeds will make for more
284]. The protestors ransacked the whole
Planet Rice editor-in-chief Tom reliable and profitable crops, reducing
shop, politely asking the foreigners, mostly
Hargrove who worked closely with whites,
Khushlike that of the cotton farmer
tragedies who to leave the place. The cashier is
at IRRI from 1973 through 1991, inter-
sold told to collect his money and lock the box.
his kidney. Manjunath eyes actually
viewed his old friend, via email. well up at this thought: that high-tech All the while the media, including inter-
seeds
Planet Rice (PR): Where are you from? could help India not to become
national networks are busy at work. It
Where did you study? shows that Nanjundaswamy may not have
dependent on developed countries. Given
Khush: I'm from India. I.studied atitsPunjab
vast agricultural land, India hasmastered
'all biotechnology but he at least
Agricultural University, Ludhiana, theIndia,
potential to become a superpower knowsin the media. Sometime later the police
for my BSc in agriculture; then foragriculture'."
my PhD arrest the protestors and lodge them in the
in genetics at the University of California
Central Jail at Bangalore.
at Davis, United States.
What does rice mean to the world? V The question one must ask is 'why
Rice means life itself to half the world's chicken?' Nagaraj states it is an everyday
population. Forty-nine per cent of the Biotechnology has to be located within object. Globalisation, he argues, is "a
calories consumed by the world popula- the wider drama of globalisation. mystical experience derived from every-
tion come from three cereals: rice, 23 per Nanjundaswamy of the Karnataka Rajya day objects. Junk food, toilet items, clothes,
cent; wheat, 17 per cent); 'and maize, 9 per Ryota Sangha (KRRS) represents the deep music, condoms, credit cards" are all
cent. In some countries such as Bangladesh, fears of a farmers' movement encounter-
familiar vehicles in the rituals of global-
Myanmar, and Vietnam, rice supplies 70
ing biotechnology. isation [Nagaraj 1996:287]. Globalisation
to 75 per cent of the calories.
What does rice mean to you, personally? If Swaminathan represents professionaldestroys the familiarity of everyday ob-
For me, rice is a nature's wonderful gift. competence, rational-legal authority in ajects and worse threatens the traditional
I am grateful I was provided an'opportunity Weberian sense, Nanjundaswamy repre-technological forms that make them. Tra-
work on rice, develop my scientific career, sents the failed charismatic response toditional technology is no longer replicable
raise my family, and establish contacts and biotechnology. Nanjundaswamy as a symp-in a global context. This covers food crops,
friendships with numerous wonderful tom and symbol of biotech anxieties haslocal species of crops or animals. It is as
people in the world.
caught the attention of two fine culturalif the global genie has stolen the local
What are your future directions in rice
research ? critics who eventually see him as a Donmagic from these objects and life forms.
My personal direction of rice research is Quixote playing his own Sancha Panza. Nagaraj explains "the difference these
to develop 'perfect' rice varieties with The section owes much to the work of the movements...are so desperate to protest
sociologist Stig Toft Madsen (2001) and are located in the details of everyday
increased yield potential (20 per cent higher
yield), durable resistance to diseases and also the sketches of D R Nagaraj (1996), life, which are vulnerable to the vio-
insects, [and] superior or palatable grain one of our finest cultural critics. lence of the changing mores of production
quality with dense micronutrients, using
As a narrative, the Nanjundaswamy storyand consumption imposed from above.
conventional and biotechnological ap-
can be presented as three separate events. The chicken that Kentucky Fried Chicken
proaches.
Where do you stand on the use of geneti- There is first the battle of Kentucky Friedseeks to impose is more powerful than all
Chicken. There is then the international the lesser breeds from local villages"
cally modified, or GM crops?
I am in favour of using GM crops. caravan. Act III is the attack on the [Nagaraj 1997:287]. Nanjundaswamy's

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KFC protest ha's an iconic quality today by the WTO. The imposition of seeds, in Reddy' s story doesn't seem to have
Venkat
but he realises he needs to present more. anything to do with genetically modified
particular the Terminator seeds, would
or GM...seeds. He's never used them:
events, spectacles and happenings to meet leave the farmers in utter servility bereft
the changing threats to agriculture. The of the option of saving their own seedssuch crops have not been approved in
India. Reddy just got swindled. But he
KFC ritual by itself is not enough. In fact from season to season" [Madsen 2001:
illustrates just how vulnerable the world's
the Professor could capture it in a per- 3734]. But it is the amplified victimology
poorest farmers can be. And why the debate
petual statue or a puppet show in front of that made KRSS a success. It managed over GM crops is especially wrenching and
the KFC office and search for more potent to twin the epidemic of suicides and organ
important in the developing world. In
ideas of protest. Stig Toft Madsen takes sales by cotton farmers to the biotechnol-
India...seven in ten of the nation's one
over as narrator here. ogy picture. It was powerful soap opera.
billion people live or work on farm... mostly
Madsen accompanied the Inter Conti- Here is an excerpt from John Biewen of farms that generate a marginal living.
tiny
the National Public Radio of December So
nental Caravan "to protest against WTO, for hundreds of millions of Indians...
26,
The World Economic Forum at Davos, desperation is just one failed crop away.
2000. I am quoting John Biewen in detail.5
genetic engineering, etc". The ICC was It's a bright...sticky September day in
Bangalore...the capital of the state of
conceived by Nanjundaswamy among Engineering Crops in a Karnataka. About two thousand farmers
others and the KRSS. Madsen narrative is Needy World rally near the central train station and start
in two parts - one an anthropological a three-mile march through the city streets.
description of ICC as an embodiment of In Europe and the US, the debate over Most of the marchers are men: they wear
the carnivalesque and the factional splitsgenetically modified crops has focusedsandals
on and either trousers or the tradi-
in the aftermath. Madsen captures the tional loincloth...the dhoti.
questions about the environment andfood
safety. But in developing countries...the
protestor as tourist out on a global junket. But at the sight of foreign journalists with
questions are different and the stakes microphones...rally
are organisers lead the
"The farmers were in Europe to protest
higher. For farm families just barely marchers in chants against the World Trade
globalisation - in Geneva they had pro-
surviving...the possibility that GM crops
Organisation and multinational corpora-
tested the WTO, Cargills and the Swiss
could make things better...or worse...is a One in particular.
tions.
banks, and we were on the way to Veveyquestion of life or death. Chanting Guy: "Monsanto!"
to protest Nestle - without a map and withOne fourth of the world's poorest people Crowd response: "Dhikkara!"
only an elementary notion of the geography Monsanto...the American chemical and
live in India. Most poor Indians are farmers.
of Europe" [Madsen 2001:3733]. Madsen biotech giant...developed an insect-resis-
Whether those farmers should start plant-
tant cotton seed - the first GM crop
observes that "The ICC was appropriatelying genetically modified seeds is the subject
termed a caravan, a visible audible show of an impassioned argument among Indian approvedforlarge-scalefield trial in India.
moving from place to place, splittingpoliticians, scientists and activists. But The
the government announced the permitjust
people who will be most affected by weeks
the before this rally.
off, merging and encountering locals as
outcome - farmers themselves - are Chanting Guy: "Monsanto!"
rarely
hosts, as foes, and as spectators." For
heard. Crowd response: "Dhikkara!"
Madsen, the protest was peaceful "as it Leaders of the protest brought Venkat
VenkatReddy saw only two terrible choices:
were, the caravan moved on - and hardly Reddy to town to make a point. He's the
to commit suicide...or sell a piece of his
a dog barked." In fact it was quaint in its
body. cotton farmer who donated his kidney in
combinations of"Sardars making chappatis Reddy's voice, then interpreter: "Hedoesn't desperation. Protesters say if India em-
on open fires, Swiss musicians playing
have any land. He doesn't have any braces the new corporate...high-tech
carnival music, and Mahendra Singh
property." seeds...that will cause more kidney sales
'Tikait', the farmer's leader from Uttar Reddy is 38 - a small man and very thin. and suicides by locking more farmers into
Pradesh (UP) smoking his 'hookah' with Through an interpreter...he explains he dependency and debt. They say traditional
used to grow cotton and chillies on four seed varieties that can be traded or planted
his friends as if they were in Sisauli and
acres of rented land in the south Indian forfree every year might become hard to
not in Geneva" [Madsen 2001:2734].
state of Andhra Pradesh. But a year ago find...or could get contaminated by
While outwardly the caravan and other
he bought worthless seeds from a dishon- engineered crops in neighbouring fields.
protests had elements of the carnivalesque, Then the big multinationals would control
est salesman. His crop failed.
the public depositions had a manichean [His voice], interpreter: "Because of the the market for seeds - the most basic
quality of a battle between oppressed and crops he lost a lot of money, due to which source of afarmer's livelihood and his life.
oppressors, "a battle in which countless he had to borrow from the moneylenders Farmer: "Their purpose only to cheat us,
people...were uprooted from their lands which he could not repay. To clear the loot us. This is a new colonial phenomena
of all these multinationals."
and villages, deprived of their hard earned loans, he said it's better to actually donate
livelihoods, spatially marginalised...and something rather than, you know, kill Crowd response: "Monsanto!" "Dhikkara!"
singlled out for punishment by the forces himself and leave his family. So the bro- A technological misconception how-
of globalisation". It was a combination of kers came and he agreed to actually sell
ever created a political thread linking
demonology and victimology that was his kidney rather than, you know, killing
himself with insecticide." suicides, kidney sales and Monsanto. This
potent. The demon was WTO along with becomes clearest as KRRS leads a spate
Hundreds of destitute Indianfarmers have
MNC with states as pliant NGOs. "Were
committed suicide in recent years. Reddy of protests against transgenic cotton.
they to succeed the poor farmers would be
was paid a thousand dollarsfor his kidney. Monsanto's Bolgard cotton, which pro-
That erased his debts... but the surgery left vides resistance to the American Boll-
left with nothing but the poisoned earth
in which to sow - under duress - the
him too weak to work. Now his wife sup- worm, was being tested out in Karnataka
genetically engineered seeds as demanded
ports him and their three children. and Andhra Pradesh. Trial plants were

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burnt by demonstrators and AP govern- However, it is not as if the KRRS style Indian Institute of Science (IISc) domes-
ment stopped trials on farmers' fields. It is not suspect. It has been accused of being ticate biotech by showing its an old
directed Monsanto and (MAHYCO) its autocratic. Many farmers felt the professor tradition or seeing as part of an old battle
partner to restrict research trials to stations was getting political mileage out of these between nature and culture. Padmanabhan
of the N G Ranga Agricultural University events. Down to Earth quotes a farmer located it in an evolutionary frame. "The
under the direct supervision of govern- from Bellary as saying. "Nanjundaswamy battle between micro-organisms and
ment scientists. has no right to set the mob on us. We have human beings is millenium old and the
The rhetorical narratives of Monsanto been dealing with various seed and former are much smarter than all the
and KRRS become superb foils to each chemical companies. We know MAHYCO scientists put together. Sooner or later re-
other. Cotton, bollworm, suicides and will and have no reason to believe it is sistance will emerge but our work is to find
organ transplants are fused in the public
involved in anything sinister". new ways of handling them". The IIS
imagination. It is a protest that has Gandhian The battle between Nanjundaswamy and
scientist explained the traditional way of
and socialist overtones. At one level it is Monsanto has all the elements of a making hybrid seeds is also genetically
easy to understand Monsanto's conster- Manichean play. 'Operate, Cremate engineered. "The molecular method
nation. P K Ghosh, the adviser to the Monsanto' is Nanjundaswamy's new now, which involves addition of
adopted
union government's department of bio- media play while Monsanto dismissesone,himtwo or more genes is a drop in the
technology who was responsible for as an 'opportunist', 'rabble rouser' andcompared
ocean a to the enormous genetic
granting permission for the cotton trials "man with no political support who flux
wantsgoing on in nature." Padmanabhan
stated "there was no reason to deny per- only fame and money but is worried added that
by there has to be a difference in
mission". Smarting from the media on- his promises to extend the campaignbiotechnology
across controversies in Europe and
India". Nanjundaswamy in tur accuses
slaught, he said "Activists should at least India. Europe's opposition to the technol-
get their facts before going to town. Monsanto,
If KFC, Pepsico and Miss ogy was not scientific but economic,
we are accused of working in secrecy, World beauty contest of 'pervertingPadmanabhan clarified that a well-fed
Indian culture'.
what are they doing. Creating panic with- Europe did not approve of US multi-
out a case?" Stig Toft Madsen in his study of KRRS
nationals dumping transgenie products
The public contrast should not be one into its market.
corrects a possible misunderstanding that
the protests, rallies and suicide might
of raucous protest and scientific misunder- The scientific strategy is a threefold
standing on one side and corporate pro- suggest. He remarks that the farmers one.
ral- There is the question of nature, that
fessionalism on the other. Monsanto is a lying to Tikait, and Nanjundaswamy touch are of history and the problem of eco-
political weave of aggressive salesman- not marginals but direct creations of nomics.
the D M Balasubramanium does a
ship, technological success and secrecy. Bronowskian approach to biotechnology.
green revolution. With a tremendous irony
One has to understand all three threads of Madsen notes: "The Caravanists (and In fact he begins by citing Bronowski story
the weave. Monsanto has shades of Big KRRS) represented the middling and big-of wheat as a collaboration between man
Brother as corporate salesman. gish farmers" and some of those familiesand nature.
As John Vidal reports in The Guardian represent the prosperity of the green revo-
The crossing of wild wheat with a goat
(The Guardian, June 19,1999), "Monsanto lution" [Madsen 2001:3740]. Madsen adds
grass around 8000 BC produced a fertile
wanted to introduce Bollgard to India the fact, that green revolution has pro- hybrid called emmer. Emmer spread natu-
this year in a blaze of publicity, jingles, duced a class of well-off farmers is a factrally by being broadcast in the wind and
posters, ads and leaflets in many languages. that neither KRRS, or Vandana Shiva would further cross between emmer and another
It was pretty confident of success. It uses like to admit preferring as they do to portray natural goat grass created the bread wheat
an international PR company and hasthe green revolution as a curse on the with its plump of 42 chromosomes.
heavily lobbied the policy-makers. It also peasantry. This wheat had its grain ear tightly covered
sponsors sports, competitions and links its with husk. It could not crack open by
VI itself...This bread wheat needed an agent
name to religious celebrations such as
to open its ear so that it can be sown and
diwali and 300th Anniversary of the Sikhs."
spread. Bronowski adds "Man has a wheat
Monsanto's plans were grandiose. "We The question one asks while these pro- he lives by, but the wheat also thinks that
are aiming to consolidate the whole foodtests are raging is what do leading Indian man has been made for wheat because only
chain", a Monsanto director told the pressscientists think of the politics of anxiety so can it be propagated...The life of each
last year. around biotechnology. Are the fears man and plant, depended on the other. It
Along with aggressive salesmanship, justified, real, imitative, different? How is a true fairly tale of genetics, as if the
there is the promise of scientific cornuco- do scientists construct the narratives of coming of civilisation has been blessed in
pia, a solution to the food crises. One sees biotechnology in India? How is it different advance by the spirit of Mendel.
it particularly in the Golden rice touted as from biotechnology as cornucopia of Balasubramanium also emphasises that
a solution to water scarcity and low nu- PBASIO? What do they emphasise - biotechnology should not be seen as one
trient value. Yet along with the scientific prudence, progress or a mixture of these? variant but a cluster of styles. The question
elegance is a touch of secrecy. V R Gadwal What kind of metaphors or tactics do they
is not so much the issue of biotechnology
of MAHYCO resonates this when he states employ? per se but a choice of styles, techniques,
to Down to Earth "Let the trials speak for D M Balasubramanium of Centre for approaches and the possible synergy be-
themselves. Why should we inform the Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) tween them. Secondly, he says one must
public?" [Khurana and Raghavan 1999]. Hyderabad and G Padmanabhan of the differentiate between gene technology,

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'non-gene technology' or whole system classify, predict and handle a threat calleddeaths when these can be prevented?" She
biotechnology. He emphasises that the Monsanto. then asks, "If there is an outcry in the west
whole enterprise of the green revolution, against recombinant bovine growth hor-
the white revolution, sericulture, floricul- VII mone rBST, which increases milk produc-
ture and veterinary science have come tion in cows, it is understandable for a
through non-gene technology. In doing so The discussion on 'the seeds of wrath' society that is afloat in an ocean of milk.
Balasubramanium performs a brilliant as John Vidal of The Guardian dubs it has However is it logical in India, a country
narrative tactic. He shows agriculture is focused more on political protest and with severe milk shortage and many chil-
wider than biotechnology and yet scientific stances. One now almost inevi- dren who do not get minimal nutrition?
emphasises the crucial role of the latter. tably moves to the question of ethics and Should India with its acute fodder short-
He discusses the achievements of Indian biotechnology. Suman Sahai of The Gene age and an average milk production of
biotechnology and creates a geneology for Campaign gives a strange and at first sight
2 litres per cow per day spurn on ethical
Indian scientists. What Balasubramanian unnuanced twist to it. grounds a technology that has the poten-
does is that he creates not another 'disci- Suman Sahai (1999) in 'The Bogus tial to improve this production level using
plinary' narrative a la Foucault but aDebate on Bioethics' argues that "ethicalthe same amount of fodder?"
domesticating one. He places biotech- concerns are a luxury of developed coun- She offers a second example around the
nology in terms of the familiar and let ustries. Developing countries should notjustgenetically engineered tomato. FlavrSavr,
insert ourselves in it. As a packaged historyfollow the moral dilemmas of the north is a genetically engineered tomato with a
of domesticating biotechnology, his essaybut balance the ethics of biotechnology delayed post-harvest softening process. The
is superb. against the ethics of poverty". Sahai'sframes for considering the use of such a
Pushpa Bhargav who established CCMB position initially appears a bit like the tomato are culturally and economically
gives a different twist to the debate. For debates on human rights where authori- specific. Flavr Savr in Netherlands might
him the fear is not at the level of science tarian figures like Lee Kwan Yen or some appear more unappetising in a culture of
where India often misses out golden op-Islamic fundamentalists have argued that tasteless tomatoes produced in an inten-
portunities but in the framework of neo-the notion of Human Rights is an ethno- sive cultivation system. In India, however,
colonialism. Neo-colonialism to Bhargav centric western idea which Asian coun- post-harvest losses can be considerable
incarnates in two forms - direct and tries can do without. Sahai's first narrative and traumatic. Sahai then asks almost
indirect. Bhargav emphasises thatstrategy
not is somewhat similar. For Sahai rhetorically "Should 60 per cent of fruit
developing biotechnology is itself a "The
formconcern with bioethics is essentially
growth in India's economically-weak hill
of dependency. "The best reason for phenomenon. The objections to
a western regions be allowed to rot before reaching
India developing biotech, he says, is biotechnology
that in western societies might
the market, or should we try to introduce
be logical for their context and economic
if it doesn't, 'the country will be exploited fruit varieties in which the rotting process
situation. These countries have a standard
by others in a way history has not known can be delayed? Should important ethical
before'. It will be a dependency ofof food availability and choice that cannotarguments stop us from conducting bio-
ideas
where India will be dependent on beother
improved". They are in fact confrontedtechnology research on this characteristic
countries for ideas, know-how and not with the ethics of scarcity but with thein apple varieties?"
products." ethics of surplus. Europe had to spend a Sahai for all herethical division of labour
Bhargav structures the anxiety elo- large sum of money about 2 billion USis asking for a more sophisticated approach
quently. He asks, "How do you dominate dollars in 1993 to destroy surplus fruit andto ethics and a more sophisticated ap-
a country where 700 million people are vegetables in an environmentally friendlyproach to science. What she fights in
directly dependent on farming? You infil- way. Sahai argues that to transfer thesepragmatic terms is not the moral question
trate its agriculture. Who controls a debates is not only an act of plagiarism butbut the moral hyperbole which constrains
country's food security controls that coun- of irrelevance, uncreative in its use of the way we ask questions.
try. Monsanto is doing this. It only wants rhetorics and metaphors that are not Indian Sahai's, whom C S Prakash calls a 'rare
to make money. To do this it wants to in context or substance. For her, bioethics find',6 is a hopeful but tough-minded view
control the seed business. The days of itself is a western phenomenon, which of biotechnology. In fact she quells fears
direct colonisation are over; the days ofmight be appropriate and appropriately of biotechnology by claiming it is a part
indirect colonisation are not". He adds practised in Europe. She argues for the of the Asian repertoire of techniques like
"Biotechnology in the lab or for medicalneed of a discussion of the ethical aspects fermentation technology. The great Asian
research is one thing. There it can of bebiotechnology "rooted in our philoso- skill, from in-laws to outlaws has centred
contained. When it is an open environ- phy and religion, reflecting our social and around fermentation. However while
ment, it is very different". human needs, and resolving our dilem- recognising the Asian skill in food and
mas" in terms of our codes of appropri- beverages, Sahai does not build on it. One
For Bhargav and other scientists like him
ateness. Sahai notes that, "There is little almost expects she would link cultural
there must be an open awareness of biotech
reason for people in food surplus countries styles of ethics to cultural repertoires in
as possibility and as constraint. There must
be a clarity of scientific choice basedtoon become excited about the biotechnology science. But she moves from society and
research which is open and locally gen- route to increase the yield of wheat or culture to state, claiming what one needs
erated. Only a tradition of biotechnologypotato". But can we in India have the same is a national policy. The PTI report on
in India can lead to informed choice. perception? "Is it more unethical to inter- Sahai's view of biotechnology is reveal-
Pursuing biotech help us understand, fere in god's work than to allow hunger ing. It moves from the politics of anxiety,

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fear, and domestication to a tough minded seed as a means of production. Where
vulnerable groups and which sees biotech-
celebration of its possibilities. A PTI re- technology fails, legal regulation in the
nology as a form of piracy and a process
port states that according to Sahai biotech- of deskilling. In many ways, Shiva is notof intellectual property rights enters
form
nology can do for India what oil got for only an outstanding ecologist; she is
andour
completes the control. The biotech-
the Arabs. Sahai notes: most prominent moral philosopher. nologist is not just a cosmic outlaw but
Biological resources are economically as plain one. Biotechnology is a form of
Central to it all is the metaphor of the seed.
important today as oil and India has the One must confess while reading Shiva,
institutionalised piracy embodied in the
idea of patenting. A patent does not
one often finds her data has a powerful
potential to dominate world economy in the
next few decades, Dr Sahai told PTI here. recognise the prior custody over farmer
impact independent of her interpretation.
Describing biotechnology as the most Shiva argues that fundamentalover to their seeds. There is no recognition
dominant technology of present times, shemodem biotechnology is a cosmological of prior art. Culturally it defines agricul-
said biotechnology which till recently was
split which is gendered and constructed
ture as an activity performed in a labora-
confined to the laboratory had entered the
into a political economy. For Shiva, regen-
tory rather than a farm. Shiva argues that
market.
eration was central to sustainable societ- "placing the contribution of corporate
Its handlers are not the universities and
ies. The continuity between regeneration scientists over and above the intellectual
scientific institutions anymore but increas-
in human and non-human nature was the contribution made by third world farmers
ingly the corporate sector", said Sahai,
basis of all ancient world views and was
convener of the gene campaign fighting for over ten thousand years in the areas of
broken by patriarchy. Man was separatedconservation, breeding, domestication and
intellectual property rights (IPR) on bio-
logical materials. from the process of nature. "Creativitydevelopment of plant and genetic resources
In today's market language, biotechnologybecame the monopoly of men who wereis based on rank social discrimination"
spells mega-bucks and according to pro- engaged in production, while women were [Shiva 1999:132-33]. It is a derecognition
jections of several reputed institutions,
engaged in mere reproduction which ratherof an entire intellectual commons. The
biotechnology was slated to account for
than being treated as renewable produc- juridical framework of GATT and TRIPS
almost 60 to 70 per cent of the global
is a new enclosure movement which terms
tion is treated as non-production" [Shiva
economy for at least the next two to three
decades, she said ... 1999:128]. A cosmic split creates a "a farmer who saves and replants the seed
We have the potential to become world gendered split and an invidious politicalof patented or protected plant into a
economy. Men are associated with creativ-violator of the law". Shiva's work is not
leaders. Its because all the biodiversity of
the world is located in the tropical coun-
ity and production, women with passivity only the correct the false histories present
tries which happen to be developing na- and reproduction. Men are associated within cosmology and law but an attempt to
tions.
culture, women with nature. These dichoto-create the possibilities of local groups
Countries in the west have the technology
mies are endemic to capitalist patriarchydefying the biotechnological dispensation.
but no diversity, but in India we have both
and are reproduced in the grammar of Shiva the critic of biotechnology is
the technology and the resources, she said.
biotechnology.
Biotechnology would play a role in mining, devastatingly eloquent. Shiva the political
feedstock chemicals, energy, pharma-Biotechnology, according to Shiva, activist and debater is an equally formi-
ceuticals, enzyme mediated processes moves beyond ancient patriarchy. While dable presence. One can see this parti-
the former used the symbol of the active
besides agriculture, she said. Agriculture, cularly in her debates with Sahai, Gail
however, was the best developed branch seed and the passive earth, "The new Omvedt and Nanjundaswamy.
of biotechnology and its most lucrative biotechnology reconstitutes the seed as It is the work of Madsen which once
prize, she said. passive and locates activity and creativity again creates a scenario of ambivalence
Sahai, who was professor of genetics in
in the engineering mind". and the carnivalesque around the biotech
a German university till recently, said the
Shiva argues biotechnology moves be- protest. Madsen chronicles the splits the
country must formulate proactive laws and
yond the violence of the green revolution. idea of the caravan creates.
establish ownership over its biological
resources and put up deterrents against The green revolution was based on the Nanjundaswamy and Vandana were
bio-smuggling. reductionist idea of an inert earth which according to Madsen a circuit of reciproci-
needed packages of artificial fertiliser. It ties. She was a global intellectual without
VIII emphasises a monocultural view of pro- a mass base. Nanjundaswamy as leader of
duction which ignored the diversity of uses KRSS was a political leader with a follow-
The seduction, the attraction of biotech- of a crop and the variety of uses of biomass. ing needing European connection. Madsen
nology so clearly apparent in Sahai's press If the green revolution was based on the notes "Vandana and Nanjundaswamy were
comments leaves Vandana Shiva of the inertness of the earth, biotechnology goes ideological clones of each other and no one
Research Foundation for Science and a step further [Shiva 1999:132]. It con- ascribed their fallout to the disagreement
Technology cold. Though cold is not structs
a its discourse around the seed which over the cause they were fighting". It was
it destroys in two ways. It robs the seed more "a classic clash between a people's
word one would use for the most passion-
ate systematic critic of biotechnology.ofShiva
its regenerative capacity through tech- organisation and an NGO". The problem
nology and law. Hybridisation disenables began around the social composition of
has produced a virtual explosion of books
on biotechnology and biodiversity; thethe
seed from reproducing itself and forces the caravan which was mainly middle
the farmer to return to the breeder for
energy is awesome and even the repetitive- farmers loyal to BKU and KRSS. A
ness strikes home. But present infurther
her stock. delegation of farmers warned Vandana
writings is a feminist-traditionalist per-
It decemanticises the seed by breaking about this "They wanted me to know that
spective which is sensitive to the fate
the of
link between seed as foodgrain and since most Indian farmers are buried in

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debt and thousands have committed the possibilities before the farmer. up everything and go back to natural
She
farming...They want to be part of the
notes that while Nanjundaswamy and Joshi
suicide over the past years due to indebted-
ness, no farmer can afford to Rs differed
35,000 on the caravan, the both performed modem world as much as everyone else".
for travel to Europe". Vandana Shiva 'kar
sentseva' (constructive work) in the pro-Oiwedt notes that Monsanto may or may
tests campaigning to rise the heightnot
message to her European friends describ- oftackle pests or provide more produc-
com- The usual argument that damstive
ing the KRRS caravan as basically dams. areseeds. But she insists it is that "the
posed of "bank officials, pesticide and
destructive farmers are intelligent enough to assess
and local rainwater harvesting
seed agents and commission agents". is a sufficient alternative does not appealthis and decide whether or not they should
to them. Farmers, say Omvedt, wants water
Madsen remarks "Shiva portrays herself use the seeds." For Omvedt this is the
for
as an important gatekeeper of access for their fields. What Omvedt is concerned
farmer's right and they do not require an
the KRSS to the European scene" with
andis social frameworks which offer elite to guard them against the imagined
also adds that her argument "that theand opportunity. She seems to imply
choice dangers of technology. What they need is
that movements like NBA may actually
participants could not be farmers because information and what they insist upon is
most Indian farmers are buried under whittle down the realm of choice in the their right to choose.
debt" [Madsen 2001:3739] 'holds little name of ecology and human rights. She Vandana Shiva in 'Terminating Free-
water' and 'is misplaced' and 'wrong' dom' responds to Omvedt challenges
extends this argument to the debate on
what neither KRRS or Shiva wished to biotechnology with Vandana Shiva. Omvedt' s information about Monsanto and
face was their base of protest stemmedIn 'Terminating Choice' Omvedt (1998) her idea of choice eventually ending with
from farmers who had benefited from the read the KRRS protest against Monsanto
a biographical note about differences. For
green revolution. sociologically. Omvedt unlike Shiva is not
Shiva, Omvedt's arguments stems from an
There was another issue according to concerned about how peasants look. "The
ignorance of terminator technology which
Madsen that might have furthered the rift. farmers movement whether it is the Raitha decreases choice. "Producers lose their
"When KRRS activists 'cremated Sangha or Shetkari Sangathana in freedom to save seed and consumers lose
Monsanto' by burning the Bt cotton Maharashtra
field does indeed have some small their freedom to choose food." She sees
of a farmer whose fields were apparently educated activists and
town and more Monsanto's growing control of seed com-
used for a field test by Monsanto farmers inthese days - especially the youth
panies as a first step in food totalitaria-
Maladagudda village in Karnataka - try toon nism. She notes that Monsanto's tests were
dress as sophisticated as anyone
November 28, 1998, they met with else. So there is no objection to the Raitha
oppo- illegal and bypassed biosafety regulations.
sition, from the local representative of
Sangha having some non-poor peasantsShe
in also adds that food labelling which has
BJP." Shiva seems to have leaned on the its ranks." always been treated as a citizen's right is
side of the BJP further exacerbating theWhat Omvedt objects to is the hypocrisy now read by Monsanto as an interference
electoral future of the KRSS. and the lack of democracy. Omvedt de- with free trade.
One must also mention that there were scribes Nanjundaswamy's movement as a There is a poignancy to the last part of
peasant movements and activists who few hundred people and some thousands Shiva' s article. She notes "there was a time
opposed the caravan. Sharad Joshi, the. of urban and international supporters and when Gail was a part of such movements.
peasant leader, who was once a UN officialasks whether they are going to deprive Once she had organised a tour through
in fact led a counter caravan which visited thousands of Indian farmers access to the Maharashtra for women's groups to visit
Bern and Paris. It did not get the medianew technology. Omvedt adds that experiments in Sita-Kheti - a vision of
attention that ICC did. ICC in fact allegedMonsanto's collaborator MAHYCO is women-centred, nature-centred agricul-
that Joshi's caravan was supported by no tenderfoot but a company which has
ture". "Something changed along the way
Novartis, a major Swiss-based company been supplying quality seeds for and the proponent of Sita-Kheti is now
a long
involved in biotechnology. But the real while. "Its founder recently won an FAO
supporting Monsanto kheti - a masculinist,
issue is not the purist battle of financeaward and there is no reason to believe monopolist, anti-women, anti-farmer, anti-
or social composition. Intellectuals likethat the company is simply a puppet nature in system of agriculture. The Gail I
Gail Omvedt, the American born socio- the hands of Monsanto." Omvedt ob- knew would not have written 'Terminat-
logist working in Maharashtra remarksjects to the description of the protesting as
Choice'.
that the danger of such protest such asa campaign against a vicious MNC.While To Shiva is gentle or at least nostalgic
KRSS is that many Indian farmers mayconstruct this destroys or diminishes about
the Omvedt, she lambasts Suman Sahai.
Challenging Sahai's notion of ethics as a
lose the opportunities biotechnology pro-'swadeshi' imagination and the possibili-
vides and then be hurt economically.ties before it. luxury for the third world. She argues that
Present in Omvedt's writing, says Madsen, The biotechnology protest is captive to Sahai rather than being original, mimics
is a fear that KRRS may be as off the marka false image of the farmer as a romantic,the positions of the biotechnology industry
as the Marxists movements of the earlier backward looking character who is help-which sees ethics as irrelevant for the third
decade. less and needs to be protected from world because for the hungry, ethics and
Omvedt's position as a sensitive revi- multinationals and market forces. Omvedt safety are irrelevant. She compares this to
argues that farmers "are familiar with hybrid Larry Summer's recommendation that
sion of earlier hard-line critiques of devel-
seeds. They buy them, try them, refuse to polluting industries should be shifted to
opment deserves a hearing. It is articulated
both in terms of the debate on big dams use them if they do not perform. They look the third world. More epistemically Shiva
and about Monsanto. Omvedt does not for alternatives to fertilisers and pesticides argues that the split between ethics and
dabble in women's rights but emphasises but are not in a position to simply throw technology is a western dualism that we

Economic and Political Weekly July 6, 2002 2723

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do not need to import. It replicates the concrete set of institutions around the Reference
Cartesian divide but is hostile to Indian practice of biotechnology and locate it
civilisation where ethics is a distinctive within the wider debates on innovation, Beck, Ulrich (1995): Ecological Politics in the
Age of Risk Polity Press, Cambridge.
part of technology. Shiva concludes that
property and the commons. Unfortunately Cvetkovich, George and Ragnar E Lofstedt (eds)
ethics is required precisely because it
bio- is here that one sees an institutional (1999): Social Trust and the Management of
Risk, Earthscan, London.
technology is seen as neutral which it is
silence at the everyday level. The informal
not. The Sahai-Shiva contrast is lethal. Khurana, Indira and N Raghavan (1999): 'Sound
politics and economics of biotechnology and Fury', Down to Earth, Vol 7, No 17,
One forecasts biotechnology as the 'Indian
especially in the Bt cotton case have January 31.
Oil', the other sees it as the first stepoverwhelmed
in formal institutional struc- Leiss, William (2001): In the Chamber of Risks:
food totalitarianism. Understanding Risk Controversies, McGill -
tures. Indian democracy to be sustain- Queens University Press, London.
able still needs to understand risk [Beck
Madsen, Stigtof (2001): 'The View from
IX 1995; Leiss 2001; Cvetkovich and Lofstedt Vevey', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol
XXXVI, No 39, September 29-October 5,
1999]. QQQ pp 3733-42.
The biotechnology controversy has all Nagaraj, D R (1996): 'Anxious Hindu and Angry
the makings of a great moral debate given Notes Farmer: Notes on the Culture and Politics of
Two Responses to Globalisation in India' in
especially the contributions of Shiva,
1 See, Frontline, June 4, 1993. Also, Frontline, Luiz E Soares (ed), Cultural Pluralism, Identity
Prakash, Omvedt and Bhargav. Articulated Vol 17, Issue 17, August 14-September 10, and Globalisation, UNESCO, Rio de Janeiro,
in a more general level, it acquires a definite 2000. pp 271-93.
flavour in the debates around Bt cotton. Omvedt, Gail (1998): 'Terminating Choice', The
2 We have borrowed this argument from Garrett
Hindu, December 14,
But interviews reveal the most of the Hardin's Filters Against Folly, Penguin Books,
Sahai, Suman (1999): 'The Bogus Debate on
farmers have not understood the nature ofNew York, 1985, see particularly pp 53-69. Bioethics', Biotechnology and Development
3 See, http://www.undp.org
Monitor, No 30, March.
'risk'. When asked, even ministers claimed,
4 See, http://www.agbioworld.org/declaration/
Shiva, Vandana (1999): 'The Seed and the
petition
that risk like security is a central problem. Earth: Biotechnology and the Colonisation of
5 http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-infor/
Like security, they see risk as crisis driven Regeneration' in Shiva (ed), Minding Our
articles/interviews/npr-engcrops.html Lives: Women frpm the South and the North
not an everyday issue of politics 6and
See, http://www.americanradioworks.org/ Reconnect Ecology and Health, Kali for
'management'. In fact given that the de-
features/gross-india/slideshow.html Women, Delhi.
cision on Bt cotton was made de facto
before the government decision made it de
jure, we have to face the fact that both in
SAMEEKSHA TRUST BOOKS
Punjab and Gujarat farmers have voted
with their feet for Bt cotton. The informal
Selections of articles from Economic and Political Weekly
economy of Bt cotton is a vibrant one and
the centre did not dare burn down 10,000
acres of Bt cotton crop grown in Gujarat. Ideals, Images and Real Lives
In fact, Nana Chudasama who heads the
Narmada Development Board claimed Women in Literature and History
Bt + Narmada would make Gujarat the Edited by Alice Thorner and Maithreyi Krishnaraj
premier state in India. Farmers in Punjab
also see it as a panacea, a magic that will 'Birds in a Cage': Changes in Bengali Social Life as Recorded in Autobiographies
help sustain green revolution consump- by Women Sarabashi Ghosh *: In Search of the 'Pure Heathen': Missionary Women
tion, when green revolution production is in Nineteenth Century India Geraldine H Forbes :. Sarojini Naidu: Romanticism
in trouble. Punjab's obsession for pesti- and Resistance Meena Alexander :. Women, Emancipation and Equality: Pandita
cides needs to be confronted. In a slow way Ramabai's Contribution to Women's Cause Meera Kosambi .* Outside the Norms:
biotechnology is representing not only the Women Ascetics in Hindu Society Catherine Clementin-Ojha .* Nationalist Iconography:
domestication of anxiety and a semiotics Image of Women in 19th Century Bengali Literature Tanika Sarkar *: Positivism
and Nationalism: Womanhood and Crisis in Nationalist Fiction - Bankimchandra's
of desire. Many scientists and farmers see
Anandmath Jasodhara Bagchi *: Govardhanram's Women Sonal Shukla -. How Equal?
in it the equivalent of technological foun-
Women in Premchand's Writings GeetanjaliPandey 4* Representing Devadasis: 'Dasigal
tain of youth. Mere regulation will not help
Mosavalai' as a Radical Text S Anandhi *: The Virangana in North Indian History:
because biotechnology is coming to rep- Myth and Popular Culture Kathryn Hansen *: Construction and Reconstruction of
resent 'consumption' 'desire', 'the city', Woman in Gandhi Sujata Patel :* Feminine Identity and National Ethos in Indian
and technological fixes. Calendar Art Patricia Uberoi.
It is this level that worries a cultural
critic of the democratic imagination. pp viii + 354 Rs 350
Biotechnology as a scientific venture in
the populist and technocratic imagination Available from
is alive and well but biotechnology as a ORIENT LONGMAN LIMITED
part of the new democratic imagination
Calcutta Chennai Mumbai New Delhi Bangalore Bhubaneshwar
committed to the rule of law and regula-
Ernakulam Guwahati Hyderabad Jaipur Lucknow Patna
tion, and governance sensitive to the ideas
of risk is fragile. One needs to build a

2724 Economic and Political Weekly July 6, 2002

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