This will provide some food for thought. And, not genetically modified at that! As the hullabaloo over Bt brinjal continues, Greenpeace-India on Thursday launched a unique campaign to garner support for its opposition to the commercial planting of the genetically engineered vegetables in India. The NGO plans to prepare the “world’s biggest baingan bharta” in Delhi “sometime later this month”. This, it said, will be an exciting way to persuade Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to protect Indian brinjal.
The baingan bharta — which the NGO claims will be the ‘biggest’ ever made and a ‘world record’ at that — will have one brinjal for every person who signs the petition that says: “India should not allow our brinjals to be contaminated by corporations with American interests.” The target: 10,000 brinjals for the grand bharta plan!
“The campaign launched this evening has already seen 4,500 signatures so far. We expect the numbers to cross well past the 10,000-mark. Though the nitty-gritty is being finalised, the grand exercise is likely to be held sometime around February 20 (when Ramesh is expected to decide his stance on the contentious issue),” Jaikrishna, a spokesperson of Greenpeace-India, told The Pioneer from Bangalore over phone. The memorandum with 10,000 signatures will be handed over to Ramesh.
This effort is both to mobilise support against Bt brinjal as also to enter into the record books, he said and added the NGO would contribute the brinjals on behalf of those signing up their petition. “It could be a mix of organic brinjals and ordinary ones procured from markets. It will be cooked at one place. But the cost involved hasn’t been worked out as yet. We know it will involve major logistics in terms of chefs, cooking utensils and manpower among others,” Jaikrishna maintained.
Greenpeace, which will hold a ‘brinjal festival’ and a rally in support of their cause before embarking on its record-making bid, has chosen Delhi as the venue since “despite being the Capital, no public consultation on the Bt brinjal issue has been scheduled here”. The festival and rally will have participation of civil society organisations, farmers and common citizens. The participants as well as common public will have the bharta, Jaikrishna said.
The US-backed companies say Bt brinjal will be free from pests, but Indian farmers have successfully grown brinjal for thousands of years without this toxic gene, the NGO said, adding if Bt brinjal is grown in India, it could contaminate traditional brinjal farms as well, thus tainting India’s food supply forever.
As things stand, Ramesh is holding his public consultation process and has so far covered Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Nagpur and Ahmedabad. He will hold consultations in Bangalore, Chandigarh and Hyderabad too.
However, even as Ramesh is on the job, two of his ministerial colleagues Sharad Pawar and Prithviraj Chavan have already supported Bt brinjal. Pawar has washed the Centre’s hands off the issue maintaining it has no say on the issue since the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee has given its go-ahead to its commercial production. And Chavan has termed it as safe. The GEAC had given its go-ahead to the GM vegetable in October last year leading to vehement protests from across the country.
Source: Pioneer
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