Author: Swaminathan S. Anklesaria
Aiyar
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 7, 2001
Prof. Deepak Lal's inaugural Julian
Simon Lecture at liberty institute in Delhi last month was scintillating
attack on the new cultural imperialism of international Greens and their
local compradors. He says the Green movement is a secular religion filling
the void created in the West by the retreat of faith in God. Its aim is
to assume a new 'white man's burden' and impose its values on the world.
The old Christian crusade for supposedly
saving souls has given way to the new Green crusade for supposedly saving
the earth. This new imperialism needs to be resisted as sternly as the
old Christian-colonial one. Its professed aim is to save the environment,
but its practical effect in many instances may be ruinous for poor countries.
Deepak Lal enjoins us, first Of
all, to stand up to local converts, the modem descendants of what the Chinese
called 'rice Christians' and 'secondary barbarians', such as Vandana Shiva,
Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy. He says the claim that green goals are
in keeping with Hindu cosmology is reminiscent of the attempt of Christian
missionaries in the 19th centuries to smuggle the caste system into Christianity
to encourage more conversions. This produced a unique bunch of caste-ridden
Christians that would have horrified both Jesus and Manu.
Second, Lal argues cogently that
India must refuse to sign a series of proposed treaties and conventions
promoted by Greens, especially those aimed against the use of DDT, genetically
modified foods. and trade in supposedly hazardous substances. Further,
India must resist the inclusion of Green standards in WTO which will open
up Third World countries to trade sanctions.
Lal says, pithily, that on finding
themselves unable to get elected in democratic countries, Greens now use
agitations to pressure international development agencies like the WTO
and World Bank to carry out their agendas. What cannot be achieved through
democratic means can be achieved by street power. Certainly NGO demonstrations
at the Seattle meeting of the WTO changed the whole direction of the trade
debate.
The Green position on genetically
modified food is especially outrageous and unscientific. Nothing is commoner
in nature than crosses across genomes. and doing it in the laboratory simply
mimics nature. Genetically modified 'golden rice' is rich with beta-carotene.
and can greatly help millions suffering from Vitamin A deficiency, yet
Greens oppose this as a Frankenstein food. The Greens are the monsters
in this case. They coolly ignore the elementary scientific truth that all
the cereals we eat represent trans-genomic combinations over thousands
of years, and that man has modified cereals beyond all recognition.
There is no such thing as natural
farming: agriculture is a manmade activity not found in nature. The future
of agricultural productivity, and hence of poverty alleviation, lies in
genetic modification, and we must not allow Green imperialism to come in
the way.
I agree entirely with Lal that we
are witnessing a new 'white man's burden'. Perhaps we should call it the
'white NGO's burden'. But while we need to be on our guard, I think we
must recognise that the new white man's burden, like the old one, carries
with it much that is desirable. The British Raj brought in, along with
colonial exploitation, modern notions of democracy, republican values,
civil rights, gender rights and other enlightenment values. We got rid
of the white man, Yet kept much of the White Man's Burden. We refused to
have it imposed on us, and refused to accept it wholesale. But we recognised
that many parts of it did indeed have value, and incorporated it within
our own ethos.
We need to do the same with the
white NGO's burden. Like its predecessor, it has much that is breathtakingly
arrogant, ignorant and racist. Even so, there is much to be learned from
the rest of the world in regard to ecology, and the imperialist tone of
the white NGO's burden must not produce a knee-jerk rejection from us.
Like. all crusaders, white NG0s exaggerate and invent, and present only
those facts convenient to their crusade. But so too do our own politicians,
academics and journalists.
Instead of rejecting wholesale what
green imperialists say, we need to extract what is of value and reject
the dross. Nor should we underestimate possible gains from international
conventions.
For instance, the evidence on global
warming is far from conclusive. The world experienced global cooling from
the 1940s to the 1970s, leading to predictions of a new ice Age.
Subsequently, temperatures rose.
Any credible theory of climate change must explain the period of cooling
as well as warming. I have vet to hear any theory of greenhouse gases that
does so, and so I remain a sceptic.
Yet I think Lal overdoes his attack
on the precautionary principle proposed by Greens. This principles urges
precautions that may ultimately prove unnecessary just in case the outcome
is really bad.
In other words, let us incur some
costs today to avoid a small possibility of catastrophe later. In many
cases I would agree with Lal that it is riot worth paying the upfront costs.
but global warming is an exception. The greatest security threat India
faces is not from China or Pakistan. It is from the possibility that global
warming will raise the sea-level by two metres, inundating one-third of
Bangladesh.
That will send up to 100 million
Bangladeshis across the Indian border in search of land and jobs, changing
the demography of the eastern region and causing ethnic and economic conflict.
It will raise the Assam problem
all over again on a horribly magnified scale. So it is in our national
interest to encourage international treaties to stem global warming, even
if it means agreeing in to some carefully limited curbs on our own emissions.
Maybe this will turn out to be unnecessary. But the potential cost-benefit
ratio is such that, in this case, we should take up the white NGO's burden.