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K. P. Prabhakaran Nair

WHILE the World Summit on Sustainable Development was under-way in one part of Johannesburg, or Joburg, not far away from the convention centre the city's black majority eked out their daily lives, in abject poverty amidst plenty. The benefits of any development, it seemed, were limitlessly enjoyed by the minority white community, not to mention the sizeable immigrant Indian segment and a sprinkling of the "coloureds".

Nearly two weeks of meetings at the Summit produced little of substance — mostly wasted effort and directionless dialogue. By comparison, in Rio, ten years ago, there were more fruitful discussions on the problems that beset the planet. Joburg was expected to take off from Rio but, in the end, it seems that little has been achieved. Like the earlier Food Summit in Rome, it turned out to be a colossally costly UN-inspired farce.

The Summit did well to focus on addressing the widening gulf between the `haves' and the `have-nots', so that whatever resources left on this tiny planet are sensibly, if not equitably, distributed between the two. But the notion of "common but differentiated responsibility" among developed and developing countries, which has been the primary global target to deal with the environment, is now practically in a shambles.

But before passing strictures on the impulses of the developed nations to deny a better life to the people of the developing world, and place all the blame at the doorstep of the developed world for "unsustainable consumption", it is time people in the developing world did some serious introspection on its own consumption pattern.

It was thus strange that the External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, who led the Indian delegation, went on record en route home after the Summit to say: "Most importantly, from my point of view, the state of the world today is mainly due to the unbridled exploitation of resources and continued consumption by developed countries. These nations have to put curbs on their consumption so that consumption and production become sustainable for developing countries."

A look at our own consumption pattern should make the statement fall on its face. A bottle of `Kinley' — the packaged water from Pepsi — costs Rs 14 in Palakkad, once the `rice-bowl' of Kerala, where rice farmers are suffering with inadequate water to irrigate their fields.

The multinational is — of course, through State connivance — happily boring into the ground to tap water for its packaged water plant, depleting water resources and lowering the ground water table precariously. It takes a thousand litres of water to produce a kilogram of rice, but that is only Rs 13 in the open market, while it will translate to Rs 14,000 from packaged water for the multinational!

The late Dhirubhai Ambani is supposed to have famously said that he would not bat an eyelid when he paid Rs 35 in Bombay Taj for a cup of tea for a `business meet', whereas the beggar on the street can do with slum water to wash off the dirt on his body, once a month, if at all, when he gets to do that. If the average American drives around in two automobiles, polluting the air around, our own deshbhaktas roam the streets of New Delhi in gas-guzzling and carbon monoxide-spewing `Ambassadors', fouling up the air people breathe.

We cry ourselves hoarse about the eco-labelling wall that the US and the European nations have raised to stall our agricultural imports into their countries, while the local producer can sell fruits and vegetables loaded with insecticides and pesticides which our pregnant women, nursing mothers and unsuspecting children eat.

Our `own' agricultural messiahs talk of an `evergreen revolution', on the one hand, while providing tacit support to multinationals in the genetically modified (GM) seed business. All the above are contradictions on such a mammoth scale that they only lead to one inevitable conclusion. Pontification is always for the galleries while private profit, at public expense, is the hidden agenda.

Why are we exporting food when our granaries are overflowing but people in several regions are dying of starvation, violating the basic provision of the 1948 UN charter `The Universal Declaration of Human Rights' where right to food is clearly enshrined? Why are we not extending the tax net to include the super-rich farmers of Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradeh, by declaring that agricultural income is, without doubt, taxable? It is the meagre, hand-to-mouth income of the poor and marginal farmer that should be out of the tax net and not that of the farmers who drive around in imported Mercedes cars.

India is promoting a culture where the small minority, rich with cash and clout, can get away with anything, flouting the very foundations of our constitution.

Normal Borlaug, the inspiration behind the so-called Green Revolution and a `hero' to a select coterie of the agricultural fraternity in India, once said: "The rich nations are poor indicators of what has to be done in developing countries. So do not follow their tactics".

Ironically, it is this same western technology and the accompanying tactics — the unbridled use of a `high-input technology', the hallmark of the Green Revolution — that Borlaug and company pushed in India. This is, once again, sought to be resurrected in the form of the genetically modified (GM) crops, the most recent being GM cotton, approved by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, which is now turning out to be the Indian nightmare, if very recent field reports originating in Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh are to be believed.

Throwing to the winds the ancient wisdom of our farmers, India fell over itself to unquestioningly embrace the western technology-inspired Green Revolution that resulted in degraded soils, drying aquifers, vanishing biodiversity and, most importantly, eroding the very faith of the farmers.

So, what do we have on balance in Joburg? A talking shop for the `earth saviours', in the salubrious climate of South Africa, for ten long days, funded by the cash-rich UN. On the sidelines, some smart ones may have struck private deals to fleece the public for personal gain. Joburg was, sadly, a joke.

(The author is a senior fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.)

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