SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, PUNE MARCH 22, 2015 15ALL THAT
MATTERS
Green activists have long gained fame and fortune by
campaign-ing against geneti-cally modified foods, which they
denounce as monster foods
that can ruin traditional agriculture and decimate the human
race. They claim scientists that splice genes from one organism
into another are commit-ting crimes against nature and creating
Frankenstein monsters.
This is a mix of superstition and pseudo-science parading as
real sci-ence. The campaign against GM crops has succeeded in
scaring many politi-cians and judges into acting against
genetically modified crops. Genetic splicing has produced some of
the most high-yielding crops in the world (in-cluding Bt cotton in
India). Indian farm leaders like Chengal Reddy constantly emphasize
that GM corn, soybean and wheat are grown perfectly safely in
doz-ens of countries, boosting farm income even while raising
consumer supplies.
The US does not curb GM crops, so Americans have eaten a
trillion meals of GM crops without a single demon-strable health
risk. Ironically, Europe-ans who fear GM foods happily visit the US
as tourists and eat GM foods there, with no adverse results. If
even a tril-lion cases cannot convince the activists, nothing will.
Theirs is a triumph of ideological faith over common sense.
Scientists have for many years estab-lished the existence of
gene flow, or horizontal gene transfer, between species. So,
genetic transfers are not a human invention at all nature has been
doing it for millennia. This is one reason that led Mark Lynas,
one-time campaigner against GM crops, to make a U-turn and denounce
the activists instead.
As long as genetic transfer was thought to be a man-made
invention, activists could call it unnatural and dangerous. But if
humans have simply started doing what nature has done for
millennia, how dangerous or unnatural can it be?
Initially, some scientists thought that natural gene transfers
took place mainly in simple organisms like bacte-ria. Only recently
has it become clear that gene transfers are extremely wide-spread
in nature across many species. Even human beings have received gene
transfers over the millennia, and so today carry genes that
originally came from alien sources like fungus, bacte-ria and
algae. Does this genetic intru-
sion mean humans are monster spe-cies? Hardly.
The Economist magazine recently carried an article titled
Genetically modified people, drawing on research by two Cambridge
scientists, Alastair Crisp and Chiara Boschetti, who have so far
identified as many as 145 genes that have crossed over from other
spe-cies to humans. Research on these issues has barely begun, and
could in due course reveal thousands more gene transfers into
humans after all, nature has had lots of time to make such
changes.
The Cambridge scientists found that one gene, which helps hold
cells together, crossed over into humans
from a fungus. Another gene, associ-ated with fat mass, appears
to have originated in marine algae. A third gene that helps define
blood groups appears to have originated in bacteria.
The scientists also looked at gene transfers in nine other
primate species, 12 fruit fly species and four nematode worms.
Fruit flies and worms multiply fast and so have long been used for
bio-logical research by scientists, helping create a vast body of
scientific data.
The Cambridge scientists had to consider the possibility that
what looked like gene transfers between spe-cies might actually be
just genes from a common ancestor of the two species many millions
of years ago. Now, genes from another animal could very pos-sibly
be the result of an ancient inher-itance. But genes in animals that
came from plants or bacteria would almost certainly represent
horizontal gene transfer. The scientists found that, on average,
worms had 173 gene transfers, fruit flies had 40, and primates had
109. Humans, with 145 transfers, turned out to be more genetically
modified than other primates.
The researchers found two imported genes for amino acid
metabolism, 13 for fat metabolism and 15 for modifying large
molecules. They identified five immigrant genes that generated
valu-able anti-oxidants, and seven that aided the immune
system.
This is a story of genetic success, not risk. But if so many
gene transfers into humans or crops were attempted by scientists,
activists would be en-raged. Politicians and judges who ulti-mately
decide on crop rules must be made fully aware of how widespread
gene transfers are in nature, and how not even a trillion GM meals
have dis-closed any dangers.
Activists have responded by saying that natural gene transfers
took place over centuries, giving every species time to adapt.
True, but whenever a natural gene transfer occurred, it was just as
alien as the insertion of a Bt gene into brinjal or cotton.
All crops, including GM crops, are routinely field-tested for
safety before commercial release. But to stop even field trials (as
activists want) is a pseu-do-scientific form of religious
frenzy.
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Im sure you caught the fine speech sent by our Prime Minister at
the unveiling of that Gandhi statue outside Westminster.
You didnt? Perhaps you missed it because of the World Cup. The
speech was a triumph
(even by the great mans standards) and I was moved by his
eloquence enough to have taken notes. Here it is for you, as best
as I can remember:
Ladies and gentlemen, it is fitting that you should have
honoured this man, whose message is as simple as it is eternal. Now
though he was a Congressman, I have long felt as a proud Hin-du
that Gandhis views on most things align with the Bharatiya Janata
Partys. Indeed, my govern-ment has used Gandhi as our pole star on
many issues. Take our recent ban on the slaughter of bullocks for
instance. Here are Gandhis words
on the subject: Any movement started by Hindus for
protecting
the cow, without whole-hearted Musalman coop-eration, is doomed
to failure. And: The only effec-tive and honourable way is to
befriend the Musal-mans and leave it to their honour to save the
cow. And also: It would redound to the credit of Hindu-ism, if
stopping of cow slaughter was brought about not by force, but as a
deliberate voluntary act of self-denial on the part of Musalmans
and others. I would, therefore, deem it unpatriotic even to nurse a
dream of Hindu Raj.
He also said, and this is crucial: The Hindu dharma will not be
satisfied if some tyrant se-cured by force of arms immunity of the
cow from the slaughter.
I trust that is clear enough for all of us still debat-ing this.
And then Gandhi said some things on the most pressing problem of
our time, and these also are important to recount because many of
us may be unfamiliar with his views, though I have myself long
memorized these words as a mantra.
The lawlessness of communalism is a mon-ster with many faces. It
hurts all in the end, in-cluding those who are primarily
responsible for it. And: If one side ceases to retaliate, the riots
will not go on.
I should tell those gathered that my personal favourite is this
one: To retaliate against the rela-tives of the co-religionists of
the wrongdoer is a cowardly act. These are words to live by, as I
have long reminded my fellow Gujaratis.
Quoting a few other things he said on a related subject would
not be out of place today:
If the Hindu majority treasure their religion and duty, they
will be just at all cost. They will overlook the limitations or
mistakes of the mi-nority who have no one but the majority to look
to for justice.
You should treat the Muslims as equal citizens.No oppression
should be felt by the minorities,
however small they may be. There is need for the gentlest
handling of all such questions.
My one aim with respect to the Hindu-Muslim
question is that the solution will be complete only when the
minority, whether in the Indian Union or Pakistan, feels perfectly
safe, even if they are in the minority of one.
As many of us know, his obsession was the poor and the weak,
with whom his sympathies lay, par-ticularly after he discovered the
works of Ruskin and Tolstoy. This sentiment he shared with the
mis-sionaries who find inspiration in Jesus (as he did). What
better way for us to honour him than to protect the churches and
those missionaries who have worked so hard for centuries to educate
and give succour to the poorest Indians? None.
Lastly, I must touch upon those traits that made Gandhi such an
attractive figure to me per-sonally as a simple Gujarati. I have
found much inspiration and direction from him and his dis-like of
flashy clothing is well known to you. He said that the wearing of
khadi replaces the con-ventional idea of wearing clothes for
ornament by that of wearing them for use. I may add here that I
have always followed this down to the size
of my kurta sleeves.We are all aware of his humorous words
on
this subject. And I would not be abusing your hospitality here,
at Westminster, this bastion of republican values, were I to repeat
his words to the King.
Asked if he was cold at Buckingham Palace, Gandhi laughed and
said: No, His Majesty had enough clothes on for both of us.
Gandhi said many fine things about hypocrisy, which
unfortunately I cannot recount here today for want of time.
On behalf of all Indians, I thank you for recog-nizing and
honouring this great man. And I do hope this statue of Gandhi will
help Englishmen and women learn his message, as we have learned it
in India and especially, as I have said, in the BJP.
Thank you.
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We are often told, maybe quite rightly, that individuals are
sec-ondary to the flow of history. By that logic, the dismemberment
of the British Empire that began with Indias independence in 1947
was perhaps inevitable
after World War I physically decimated the British ruling
classes and World War II left the country near-bankrupt. Stretching
the argument, India should be honouring Germanys last Kaiser, Adolf
Hitler and Hideki Tojo for facilitating our tryst with destiny.
Mercifully, there is a conflict between cold reductionism and
common sense. This could be a reason why, two Saturdays ago, a
beautifully sculpt-ed statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled in
Lon-dons Parliament Square. In that prized location, Gandhi will be
sharing space with Sir Winston Churchill, the leader who saved
Britain from Hitler but who failed to save the empire for
Britain.
The irony of Gandhi and Churchill being cel-ebrated in the same
public space without even a hint of squeamishness has not gone
unnoticed. Nor have Indians failed to note the innate gener-osity
of a society that has chosen to embrace an opponent who, Churchill
hoped, would die of self-inflicted starvation and save war-torn
Britain a lot of bother. If, as many of the present generation of
Britons seem to believe, the empire was built on perfidy, greed,
oppression and the generous spilling of native blood, the Gandhi
statue is akin to what an Israeli notable said about the Holocaust
memorial in Berlin: a memorial to immortalizeshame.
Of course, the comparison of the British Raj with Hitlers gas
chambers is misplaced. Collabo-ration, not annihilation,
constituted a principle of British expansion and, till 1921 at
least, Gandhi was a prime example of this process. Indeed, the
suggestion that satyagraha succeeded principally because the
opponent had internalized a moral structure built around the notion
of fair play is worth considering. The anti-apartheid struggle led
by Nelson Mandela in South Africa began as passive resistance but
progressed into armed struggle precisely because the white regime
refused to yield to sustained moral pressure. The course of Indias
freedom struggle is, therefore, as much a commentary on Oriental
saintliness as it is about imperial flexibility.
Gandhis success lay in forcing the imperial power to make an
honourable exit out of India, minus the bitterness that accompanied
decoloniza-tion in many other parts of the world. He was less
successful in securing an equally smooth internal settlement
involving all Indians. But that failure was not because of Gandhi,
but despite him and
for which he ultimately paid for with his own life.
Consequently, 68 years after India moved out of the orbit of
empire, there is the bizarre situation of Gandhi being honoured in
India and Britain but not throughout the lands that constituted
Brit-ish India. And even within the nation that has conferred on
him the elevated but inappropriate title father of the nation the
assumption being that Indian nationhood doesnt predate him his
legacy is being more critically assessed, and not merely by a loony
fringe.
There is a second paradox that the ceremony in London has driven
home. To an India that revers
his saintliness, the centrality of Gandhi the politi-cian who
brought the masses into politics is juxta-posed with the acute
embarrassment over Gandhi the relentless critic of modernity. For
Gandhi, political swaraj was only a facet of the larger battle for
a moral order that would restore the innocence and purity of the
traditional village and repudiate the distortions of science and
technology. This uto-pian quest didnt have too many takers, either
within India or in the wider world.
The universal Gandhi that is now a feature of Londons landscape
is an exercise in 21st century repackaging. First, it obfuscates
his historical con-text by putting him in close proximity to
Churchill, the man who personified the other side. Secondly, it is
Gandhis association with non-violent conflict resolution that is
posited as the guiding principle of politics in the age of jihadi
extremism.
There is a Gandhi Mark-2 in the making. As his universal appeal
acquires pre-eminence, the legacy of Gandhi the Indian political
agitator will steadily lose focus. This isnt a sinister Western
conspiracy. A remoulded Gandhi is entirely in harmony with Indias
growing belief in its globalized destiny.
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Humans are genetically modified organisms
SWAMINOMICSSWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR
Land agitators forget even a farmers son needs a job
20th century Gandhi gets a 21st century makeover
India elected Narendra Modi to control inflation, restrain
corrup-tion and bring back jobs. Inflation has come under control;
there has been no corruption scandal in the past ten months; but
jobs are no-where in sight. Modi is banking on his ambitious Make
in India pro-
gramme to revive manufacturing and deliver a mil-lion new jobs
that are needed each month. But the problem is that manufacturing
is precisely the sector that has historically let India down. Since
1991, In-dias growth has been driven largely by services. Can Modi
reverse this unhappy trend and usher in a genuine industrial
revolution that has lifted 400 mil-lion people out of poverty in
China?
Pessimists think not. With the coming of robot-ics, 3D printing,
and digitally controlled lasers, manufacturing is so automated now
that it is no longer possible for an unskilled farm labourer to
aspire to a factory job. Moreover, manufacturing jobs, which are
presently leaving China because of rising costs, are likely to go
elsewhere Southeast Asia, Mexico, and even Bangladesh. India
remains unattractive because of its notorious red tape and poor
infrastructure made worse by UPAs tax terrorism and an impossible
land acquisition law that has stopped land transactions. Thus,
India has missed the bus.
Optimists, on the other hand, believe that even though industry
is no longer the royal road to high income, India can benefit
hugely from a resurgence in manufacturing. Our manufacturing share
in GDP (16%) is so low roughly half of other emerging economies
that India still has great potential to shift sizeable labour from
farms to small, low-tech factories. Recent experience proves this.
During the
boom decade of 2002 to 2012, an impressive 5.1% workers per year
moved to organized-sector jobs and delivered five times higher
productivity. This revolution was reflected in all-round rise in
labour wages, including rural wages. Because of rigid la-bour laws,
growth in informal jobs in the organ-ized sector was greater, but
at least informal jobs are better than no jobs.
I am with the optimists. Railways and defence sectors have
suddenly emerged as new engines of industrialization in India,
thanks to two highly ca-pable men in Modis Cabinet. The first
evidence came in Suresh Prabhus visionary railway budget, which was
the best in memory. Manohar Parrikars vision of transforming India
from the worlds larg-est arms importer to a more self-reliant
military power has already begun to bring Indian companies and
foreign technology providers to make defence equipment in India. A
third engine is the revolution in e-commerce which holds the
potential to create ten million jobs in the next three years, and
might result in India skipping the supermarket stage, jumping from
the kirana store to online retailing, much in the way many Indians
skipped landlines and moved to cellphones.
The most important reason to believe that Modi will succeed is
progress in the ease of doing busi-ness campaign. The Centre and
states are working closely to cut red tape to achieve the vision of
one paper, one payment, one point of contact for the in-vestor all
online. For imports and exports, the number of forms has been cut
from nine to three. Maharashtra has decided to abolish half the
approv-als for starting a business. Punjab has taken power away
from its departments and physically housed all approvals in a
single office. But the best in class are Andhra and Telangana. An
impressive e-biz por-tal is already up, tracking 14 different
services/ap-provals. Rivalry between states will culminate this
summer when the Prime Minister will announce statewise rankings in
the ease of doing business based on an extensive survey.
Never before in Indias history has there been so much urgency
and determination to create jobs. The Budget has done its bit to
kickstart investment in infrastructure. But vested interests are
fighting back. So is the Opposition, which has taken to the streets
against the land ordinance, pitting farmers versus industry, and
forgetting two things: 1) Even the farmers son needs a job; 2) The
ordinance is mainly trying to undo the red tape in the 2013 law the
hundred-odd signatures and 50 months re-quired to buy an acre of
land. If Modi eventually succeeds, two prizes are waiting at the
end: India may finally experience an industrial revolution plus a
demographic dividend.
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Thus spake Bapu on cow slaughter, communalism... &
hypocrisy
Email the editor at [email protected] with Sunday
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name and city
REVERTS
SINCE IM GODGIFTED, I FIT WELL INEVERYTHING. I HAVENO
FASHIONDESIGNER BUT IM HAPPY TOHEAR THAT I DRESS WELL
NARENDRA MODI, IN A NEW BIOGRAPHY BYLANCE PRICE
REPLAY
Not just Indias daughtersShobhaa Des article on Indias Daughter
is a case of over-reaction (ATM, March 15). More than the mileage
the filmmaker may have drawn from it, what should be of concern are
the painful truths that Leslee Udwins documentary depicts. Indias
image should not be the only worry; crimes against women are a
universal issue that need to be tackled on a war-footing.
Hira Kumar Singh, Bhagalpur
Essence of HinduismSri Sri Ravi Shankars observations (ATM,
March 15) help us understand the difference between the form and
substance of Hinduism in its proper perspective. Those who claim to
represent Hindu culture harp on rituals and outward symbols, but
ignore its essence plurality, assimilation and tolerance. Claiming
superiority over others religious practices is anathema to
Hinduism.
Y G Chouksey, Pune
Smart villagesApropos Ravi Venkatesans article (ATM, March 15),
the Modi governments focus on creating smart cities seems like a
misguided idea. Smart cities would only attract unskilled, rural
labour, creating more ghettos. It will leave rural India even
poorer, devoid of livelihood opportunities. Creating thousands of
smart villages at a much lower cost is a better idea it will
improve the quality of life in rural India and also stop the exodus
towards the cities.
Shashank Bendre
TO BT OR NOT TO BT? How can genetic transfers be unnatural when
nature has been doing this for millennia?
REMOULDED: The universal Gandhi thats now part of Londons
landscape is an exercise in repackaging
RIGHT TRACK: Railways, defence and e-commerce could create
millions of jobs in coming years
BY INVITATIONAAKAR PATEL
Many people believe that much of modern science already exists
in ancient texts or teachings of their respective religions. In
In-dia, for example, the Hindu rightwing claims that many
scientific and technological achievements of modern times like the
air-craft, nuclear bombs, plastic surgery, etc were discovered
3,000 to 10,000 years ago. Is that possible?It is nonsense to
suppose that modern sci-entific and technological knowledge was
already in the hands of people thousands of years ago. Though much
has been lost, we have enough ancient texts from Greece, Babylon,
India, etc to show not only that early philosophers did not know
these things, but that they had no opportunity to learn them.What
is the difference in the science of ancient times and modern
times?We have learned to keep questioning past ideas, formulate
general principles on the
basis of observation and experiment, and then to test these
principles by further ob-servation and experiment. In this way,
modern physical science (and to an increasing extent, biological
science as well) has been able to find mathematical laws of great
generality and predictive power. Our predecessors in the ancient
and medieval world often believed that scien-tific knowledge could
be obtained by pure reason, and where they understood the
importance of observation, it was passive, not the active
manipulation of nature that is characteristic of modern experiment.
Further, their theories of the physical world were often muddled
with human values or religious belief, which have been expunged
from modern physical science.Why did modern science arise in the
17th century? Why not earlier or later?It is impossible to say why
the scientific revolution occurred precisely when and where it did.
Still, we can point to several developments in former centuries
that pre-pared the ground for the scientific revolu-tion. One was
the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, which led to an
in-creased concern with the real world and a turning away from
scholastic theology. An-other was the invention of printing with
moveable type, which made it possible for the books of scientists
such as Copernicus and Galileo to circu-l a t e r a p i d l y
throughout Eu-rope. Looking further back, we can point to the
growth of universi-ties from the 13th century onward. Al-t h o u g
h
these grew out of schools associated with Christian cathedrals,
they became havens for secular scientific research, for Buridan and
Oresme at Paris, for Galileo at Padua and Pisa, and for Newton at
Cambridge.Despite stupendous advances in science, its acceptance
still seems to be limited in soci-ety. In fact, you have publicly
taken on anti-science lobbyists like climate change deniers or
anti-evolutionistsThere are few people today who will deny the
value of science, but there are many who are terribly confused
about the con-tent of scientific knowledge. They doubt the
conclusions of geophysicists regard-ing global warming, and they
think that it is still an open question whether evolu-tion through
natural selection is respon-sible for the origin of species. It is
good to keep an open mind, even about the conclu-sions of experts,
but there comes a point at which issues become settled. It is silly
to keep an open mind about whether the Earth is flat.Does a person
have to abandon religion in order to become a scientist?Certainly
not. There are fine scientists (though not many) who are quite
religious. But there is a tension between science and religious
belief. It is not just that scien-tific discoveries contradict some
religious beliefs. More importantly, when one expe-riences the care
and open-mindedness with which scientists seek truth, one may lose
some respect for the pretensions of religion to certain
knowledge.You have earlier written about the beauty of science.
What does that mean?By seeking scientific knowledge over many
centuries, we have developed a sense of the sort of scientific
principle that is likely to describe nature, and we have come to
think of such principles as beautiful, in the same way that a
design-er of sailboats develops a sense of the sort of design that
will sail well, and comes to
think of such sailboats as beautiful. There is no simple
prescription for
the beauty of a scientific theory, but it surely includes
rigidity, the property that the details of the theory cannot easily
be altered without destroying the consist-ency of the theory.
Nonsense to say modern science existed in ancient Greece or
India
Nobel-winning physicist Steven Weinberg is often called one of
the most influential living scientists in the world. Besides his
seminal work on particle physics and several other books on
science, the 82-year-old American has just come out with an account
of the birth of modern science titled To Explain the World. He
talks to Subodh Varmaabout the tension that exists between
religious belief and science
FOR THE RECORD
RIGHT & WRONGSWAPAN DASGUPTAMEN & MORALS
GURCHARAN DAS
The Times of India, Pune, March 22, 2015, Pp.15
