There is an interesting battle gradually emerging between the futurists represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and conservatives like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates. Modi speaking at an Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) on Tuesday said that ways have to be found to increase productivity because the land available for farming cannot be increased infinitely. He asked the farm scientists to find ways to increase productivity and summed up his demand in ‘per drop, more crop’. This would entail the introduction of high-yielding varieties (HYV) as they are in the old-fashioned days. The new term is genetically modified (GM) crops. The methods involved in both are similar. The HYVs also faced the danger of being vulnerable and required increased use of pesticides.

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The opposition to the GM crops is rooted in both logic and sentiment. The logical objection is that monoclonal cultures — a GM crop is a concentrated single strain — are most vulnerable to pests, and chances of a general crop failure are strong. There is another part to the logical objection. That is, there is only Monsanto, the US seeds company, which specialises in GM seeds, and, once adopted, the entire agricultural economy will be hostage to a single corporation.  This is indeed the argument put forward by the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), affiliates, in their meeting with the Union minister of state for environment (independent charge) Prakash Javadekar. The minister took the safe and technically right position that the government has not taken any decision about the approval given by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of his ministry. He tut-tutted that all stakeholders will be consulted before taking a decision.

The delectable internal dilemma — many wrongly believe — is that ideological camps are monolithic and there are no internal rifts. That’s, however, precisely the dilemma the BJP and its ideological parivar or family — the RSS and its affiliates — face with regard to agricultural production. If the Prime Minister is keen on increasing agricultural output through technological assistance, which might include GM crops, and economic and cultural conservatives are opposed to this, then the two sides may have to sit down and sort it out. It is quite likely that Modi will be able to persuade the family in the name of national interest.

This does not, however, exhaust the questions with regard to GM crops. The monopoly of Monsanto is a fact, but it is not something that cannot be overcome. A complaint of scientists in the ICAR is that they have their own bunch of GM crops to offer but vested interests are keen to overlook home-grown research and want to promote commercial participants like Monsanto. The objection to GM crops cannot be based solely on the opposition to the unfair monopolistic advantage that Monsanto would enjoy. If the objection is to GM crops per se, and there is much validity in that, then there is need for a more informed debate which is absent at the moment.

The technological revolutions in agriculture, whether in the form of modes of irrigation or the range of better crop varieties, have brought with them advantages as well as serious problems. The putative Green Revolution has not been the blessing that it once seemed to be. Punjab, the cradle of Green Revolution, is now cursed with its fallout. What is needed is a sober assessment of GM crops, and there is a need to know the different views. Those who advocate and oppose GM crops have to be less dogmatic than they are now.