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K. P. Prabhakaran Nair

INDIA'S march to commercially capitalise on its huge bio-wealth has received a jolt from three quarters. First, it was the British Government which categorised Indian ayurveda as "herbal remedy". Second is the persistent effort to nudge the country to agree to the provisions of the International Union for Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). The last, but, most important, is the most frustrating move by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) — a UN-FAO combine, which is meant to safeguard the interests of the disadvantaged developing world, but, going by past experience, ends up doing just the opposite, because there are hidden forces which dictate specific agendas — to `streamline' intellectual property related to genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

The just-concluded WIPO Asia-Pacific seminar on intellectual property and genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore at Kochi, points to an unsettling scenario.

And the most disturbing is the attempt to digitalise traditional knowledge, which makes it all the more easier for pirating. Even without it, the country has experienced genetic erosion of the worst form. It was in the early 1960s, when the so-called `Green Revolution' was unfolding, when scores of American plant-breeders, under the auspices of both the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, traversed the length and breadth of the country scouting for rare germplasms of rice and wheat with the high and mighty of the agricultural fraternity of the country, lending a helping hand.

The move by the British Government will deprive India of a huge — more than Rs 3,000 crore — overseas market. The pressure to join the UPOV will snatch away the fundamental right of the farmer in rearing and using seeds of his own. When the curtain fell on the WTO Ministerial at Doha and the Indian delegation came back with euphoria, based on the "constructively ambiguous'' nature of the deliberations, as described by the Commerce Minister, Mr Murasoli Maran, the developing world, including India, thought at long last, the developed world (read the US and Europe) would, indeed, abide by compassionate impulses towards the developing world. That was not to be as proven by recent events.

The US Farm Bill, the unjustified raising of entry wall on our marine products, and the textile conundrum add up to one thing — that there is no "level-playing'' at all, while rhetoric continues to circulate all around. The recently-announced British Government's decision to categorise Ayurveda as "herbal remedy'' is fraught with danger to India's economy.

If the British move on Ayurveda becomes official, more than 95 per cent of the medicines used in it will not be allowed entry into Europe and it would only be a matter of time before the US would also follow suit. What the Centre needs to know, and convince the British Government is — even if in retrospective fashion — that Ayurveda is a unique health-care system and not just herbal remedy as Britain is trying to make out.

Taking an analogy: If India were to argue that homoeopathy be re-classified as `ethnic', as the Bristish intend to do with Ayurveda, practically all the homoeopathic medicines coming from Germany — since the system originated there — could be shut out. That such a move will throw thousands of homoeopathic doctors out of work will be a disaster to the country's economy.

In effect, the long-term fallout, if the British move becomes official, is that it will not only affect the Ayurveda sector but also have its fallout on the tourism sector, because a number of people from Europe or the US come to India for Ayurvedic treatment too. Kerala is the best example for such a package. What the British move to classify Ayurveda as "ethnic medicine'' implies is the following, in terms of economic ramifications. Every herbal formulation that is used in ayurveda will need to pass through a special and rigorous "inspection regime'' before it can be imported into the UK. Given the almost impervious nature of the inspection regime, it is a safe bet that close to 95 per cent of the formulations would be shut out of entry at the port, air or sea, as they would not be certified as "import-worthy''. This would, in effect, crumble the Ayurvedic sector, which is setting its hopes high, especially in view of the new-found interest abroad in this system of medicine.

What New Delhi needs to understand and act upon with speed is to stall this move, else, any prospective visitor to this country can be persuaded not to undertake a journey to India for a herbal remedy. Given the level of ignorance prevailing among many millions abroad on what ayurveda in reality means, this move could have very disastrous consequences on the Indian economy. The ripple effect would, indeed, be damaging.

Contrast the above situation with what the Chinese have done successfully. That India has been foot-dragging on this vital issue is brought out by the fact that nearly a year after the British compiled the list of medicines for categorisation and indicated that any submissions had to be made by the end of July this year, New Delhi was blissfully somnolent, while the Chinese did their homework with speed and got things done.

China is home to a vast reservoir of its own traditional medicines — it has the largest export market in the world, starting from the pain-relieving "Tiger Balm'' to aphrodisiacs that can elbow-out the modern viagra pill — and the powerful Chinese traditional medicine lobby, with able support from Beijing, has successfully persuaded the British authorities to include many of their native medicines in the UK-approved list. India's presence in the list is conspicuously absent. One is reminded of the recent Bt cotton imbroglio.

While so much heat and dust was kicked up, none, not even the monolith ICAR, had thought up — in retrospect — of bringing out a Bt cotton of its own. And, Monsanto, with its subsidiary Mahyco, is walking away with crores of rupees, while we will debate how best to field-test a genetically modified crop. Why do we always fall behind while others march ahead of us, quite often, even trampling us in the process?

In traditional Chinese medicine, there is acupuncture, herbal cure, Chinese massage, and so on. A patent is valid for 20 years and the Chinese have, so far, 20,000 traditional Chinese medicine patent applications there were as many as 3,500 applications last year alone. By contrast, India is on the outer periphery of applications.

Almost a similar is the scenario with biodiversity. India is home to a very rich biodiversity and nearly 45,000 plant species have been identified and botanically classified by Indian scientists. This forms a tremendous reservoir of genetic knowledge nurtured over hundreds of years in various parts of the country, even in the remotest corner. Many Indians, some of whom are totally illiterate in the modern sense of the world, have been the guardians of this vast pool of knowledge and resources. It is after taking into consideration the interests of all the stakeholders — trained plant breeders, industry, farmers, NGOs — that New Delhi formulated the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act, 2001 (PPVFR). In fact, the Bill went beyond merely meeting the demands of the Article 27.3(b) under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), to provide commercial protection to plant varieties either by patents or an effective sui generis system or even by incorporating the provisions of both.

The legislation met with the demands of all stakeholders, and many, including farmers and several NGOs, felt that it was the end of a protracted and tortuous discussion and the dawn of a system that rightfully recognised farmers' contributions, and, hopefully, leading to equitable benefit-sharing.

But this was not to be. Out of the blue, the Cabinet approved, without discussion in Parliament, a Government decision on May 31 seeking accession to the provisions of the International Union for Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), as per the terms of the UPOV Convention of 1978. This led to doubts that there certainly must have been severe behind-the-scenes pressures. The move raises two valid questions. First, how under international law can India join the 1978 UPOV Convention and, second, why is India now clamouring to join UPOV having just introduced the PPVFR.

It is important to note that apart from Japan, China and the Republic of Korea, no other country on the Asian sub-continent has joined UPOV. The most notable thrust of the UPOV provisions is in trimming the farmers' rights, while legitimising the pecuniary interests of the breeders (read MNCs in the seed industry).

This is the longer target, and for the present, those who call the shots in the multi-billion dollar seed business world-wide do not want India to develop as an exclusive centre of power in nurturing, breeding, preserving and also, commercialising seed business in Asia, where the real action lies.

Ridiculing the hasty and ill-advised decision of New Delhi to join UPOV on the argument that "joining UPOV was necessary to acquire skills and material resources for plant breeding", Dr Suman Sahai, campaigning for farmers' rights, said: "If the intention is to give unlimited rights to biotechnology, MNCs, at the cost of livelihoods of Indian farmers, then let the government make a statement in Parliament to that effect. And, if the scientists of ICAR are so inefficient that we need outside skills, then, let us first close the ICAR."

With colossal investments by the government in agriculture over the past decades, it seems we are unwittingly laying the red carpet for poachers and predators, who had a field-day more than three decades ago, ushering in the so-called Green Revolution, based on the `miracle' seed that left our soils degraded, our aquifers dried and our biodiversity damaged. If then, the above is an unfolding scenario for "an ever-Green revolution'' it is time the country sat up and did some real soul-searching and home-work to match.

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

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