Widespread democratic consultative processes demanded as per SC order on GM crops

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Mumbai: The coalition for Genetically Modified (GM) Free India has in a memorandum submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MEoFCC) to evolve a national policy on GM crops through consultative processes with all stakeholders in regards to the Supreme Court recent directive to the government.

In a statement issued here recently Sridhar Radhakrishnan for GM Free India has argued that citizens of India as well as representatives of farmers’ organisations, environmental groups, consumer organisations, industry and exporters’ associations, scientific experts in different domains of S&T, are writing this letter to the government to ensure that the order of the SC be implemented in letter and spirit by widespread and meaningful consultations with all citizens who want to give their inputs into the policy formulation process.

He drew the attention to the public consultations organised by former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, in the then UPA government in the case of Bt brinjal environmental release for commercial cultivation in India. That deliberative democratic process that was run in the country at that time was historical and unprecedented.

Between October 15, 2009 and December 31, 2009, written inputs were obtained, followed by seven in-person consultations during the month of January 2010, culminating in a decision on February 9, 2010. About 6000 citizens registered and participated in the 7 consultations covering different regions of India, and more than 9000 written submissions were presented to the government.

The former minister had personally sat through and chaired over 25 hours of consultations to understand all concerns, evidence, insights and analyses. Along with him were officials and regulators, as well as various state government representatives in these consultations. The participation was from agriculture and health/medical/nutrition experts, scientists from the fields of biotechnology and molecular biology, farmers, farmer leaders, consumer rights activists, environmentalists and ecologists, social activists, industry representatives, exporters, practitioners of Indian Systems of Medicine, people representing other Agri-allied livelihoods etc.

Jairam Ramesh later described what he did as being “responsible to science and responsive to society”, and that is what policy-making in this domain ought to be. Many signatories to this letter participated in those public consultations of 2010.
Against this background, we write to you with the full confidence that you will not fail the citizens of India in their expectations with regard to the implementation of the Supreme Court’s Order.

The GM Free India coalition has listed the following things specifically with regard to the consultative processes to be adopted, so as to enable all of us to participate meaningfully.

1. That public consultations should be well publicised in local languages in all prominent local newspapers, visual media and websites and done so well in advance giving at least three weeks’ notice to the public. Giving adequate publicity was ordered by the Hon’ble Court. “Wide and meaningful consultations”, were the terms used elsewhere in the judgement.

2. Such consultations should be held in all states of the country, to allow the in-person participation of all stakeholders including the state government representatives. Some large states like UP might require more regional consultations too within the state. Let the locations represent various kinds of political parties in power in the state government so that no allegation of partisanship emerges later on.

3. Consultations should be open for all citizens to provide their inputs as was the case during the public consultations on Bt brinjal in 2009-2010, and should not be restricted to a select few who are invited.

4. Consultations should ensure that all stakeholders are involved proactively and systematically, including farmers’ organisations, consumer organisations, environmentalists, ecologists, beekeepers, agricultural worker unions, practitioners and experts of Indian Systems of Medicine, organic/natural farming associations and practitioners, organic farming enterprises, exporters and traders etc.

5. Consultations should include local language inputs for the policy formulation.

6. Consultations should be video-recorded and archived in the public domain.

7. Meaningful public consultation processes should also include a mechanism for receiving feedback, detailed or otherwise, in writing (email, or on a portal) from the public. All written feedback should be scanned and uploaded on the web sites.

8. To actively reach out to multiple stakeholders and facilitate their participation, the Government of India might consider engaging an organisation like Centre for Environment Education (CEE) as was done during the Bt brinjal consultations. At that time, CEE also compiled all the feedback received into a report that was put out into the public domain by MoEFCC.

The GM Free India coalition has requested the government to be truly participatory and consultative in the policy formulation process, other than drawing from the other detailed processes run by other high-level committees in the past.