Jairam Ramesh bows to green terror

The merchants of mendacity have scored a big victory by forcing Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to place an indefinite “moratorium” on the introduction of a genetically-modified brinjal. His colleague in the Council of Ministers, Kapil Sibal, was candid enough to say that Ramesh “bowed to populism.”
This was yet another case of green terrorists abusing science to promote their Luddite and socialist agendas. Years after Centre for Science and Environment chief Sunita Narain carried out her deceitful tirade against cola companies, and weeks after IPCC boss R.K. Pachauri was exposed for running his shop by peddling voodoo science, we have a situation in which India science has faced a setback. The country’s top apex technical committee, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has been ignored because a bunch of econuts clamored against an innovation in the farm sector.
To be fair to Ramesh, he did not have much of a choice. Protest against Bt brinjal was quite widespread. The RSS—never comfortable with science and modernity and too willing to accept Left shibboleths—spoke against Bt brinjal. The ban on the innovation in the BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh was a logical culmination. At the same time, green loonies who run myriad non-governmental organizations (NGOs) already were screaming.
Ramesh claimed that “sentiment was negative” at the public hearings in seven cities. Sentiment? Is science run by sentiments? And, by the way, whose sentiments?
Dr. M Mahadevappa, a two-time former vice-chancellor of the University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad, who attended the public hearing in Bangalore, was quoted in The Indian Express, “I was out-shouted by the NGO lobbies the moment I began speaking. I could not express my views. Public hearings of the sort that were arranged are not the right place where scientific issues can be discussed in an objective manner.”
The UAS, Dharwad, and the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore, actively collaborated in developing Bt Brinjal.
“I have been working with several Krishi Vigyan Kendras in Karnataka for several years and I have found no opposition from farmers against Bt brinjal. Even at the Bangalore meeting, I was opposed by the NGOs and not by the farmers,” Dr. Mahadevappa said.
Dr. B.C. Viraktamath, project director at the Directorate of Rice Research in Hyderabad, was not even allowed to enter the building where the hearing was going on. “The way the consultations were held, it was very clear that the entire exercise was random with a disproportionate representation of protestors,” he said.
Another scientist, Dr. M. Sujatha, of the Directorate of Oilseeds Research at Hyderabad, said, “This is not the right kind of approach to solicit views on such a complex issue. The minister could have held separate meetings with scientists, farmers and NGOs to get a more balanced and clear picture.”
Chengal Reddy, a farmers’ leader, questioned the representativeness of protestors. “Who is this ‘general public’? The general public had even opposed computers when they were first launched.”
Actually, it is the mafia of NGOs, sundry pink punks, and green terrorists who make so much noise that they are often assumed to be the representatives of people. The truth, however, is that these busybodies are just promoting their vile, retrograde agenda in the name of championing the cause of public.