Genetic Modification-A Set of Haikus

© 2013 Ramaswami Ashok Kumar

Bt Brinjal No!
Criminal Hurry
Unconstitutional Step
Bt Brinjal No!

Bears Bacterial gene
Bacillus thuringiensis
Makes own pesticide!

Learn from history!
Bt cotton crop residues
Poisoned, killed cattle.

Thousands of farmers
Cultivating Bt crop
Khudkushi did they!

Now Bt Brinjal?
Labratting humans-Indians?
Leaders gone stark mad?

Trash Bt Brinjal
Let healthy varieties thrive
Which are in plenty

Leader’s track record
Ugly, wicked, unfriendly
Inefficient

Thinking unwisely:
Nature’s parts unconnected:
Imperfect Knowledge

See alterNative:
Organic mixed planting
Has no pest problem

Successful wisdom
Born out of experience:
Traditional farms.

Various strategies
Non-pesticidal, check, thwart
Pest damage for long.

Thus don’t risk Bt
Or synthetic pesticides:
Utility nil.

Hark! MOEF
Promote classically sound
Agronomic ways.

Proactively plan
People’s awareness programme
Its safe sane simple.

Awake and arise
There is nothing more tragic
Than ignorant acts.

Irreversible!
Bt pervades the whole plant
Including brinjal!

Auto- pesticide
Also pervades every cell!
Uncontrollable!

Monoculture farms:
Moderate pesticide use
Control based on need.

But Bt’s toxins
Cannot be moderated
Cannot be washed off!

Label GM foods?
Can it be strictly enforced?
If not trash GM.

Don’t violate rights
Its against constitution
Contaminate not.

Permit GM food?
People will avoid them all.
They will starve to death.

Follow people’s views.
In democratic India
Preserve nation’s health.

Brinjal people’s food.
Available all over
UnBtd, fresh, cheap.

Whom does Bt serve?
Better tackle pollution,
Don’t add to the mess.

Most affordable
After potato, brinjal
Why beat this, Bt?

Bt- whats your niche?
Just stay put there for all time
Thats best policy.

There is true knowledge:
See one changeless life in all;
Inseparable!

Don’t destroy balance
With Bt’s unknowables
The synergisms!

Origin brinjal’s
And diversity brinjal’s
Both India centric!

Stop Bt Brinjal.
Brinjal’s origin India
Cartagena says

Its diversity
Is India centric: UN
Stop Bt Brinjal

Be infallible
In forbidding poison flow
Into our Brinjals.

Protect human rights
Cartagena Protocol
Don’t contaminate.

For four thousand years
Brinjal has been growing here
Baengan Bharatas!

Varieties Brinjal’s
Two thousand five hundred plus
Counted in India.

Come contaminate
Hundreds local brinjal types
Bad Bt Brinjal!

Approving release
Of Bt Brinjal reckless
Inexcusable

Bt Brinjal leads
To a loss to the whole earth
From Two Thousand Ten

Ironically
Biodiversity Year
International!

Western Ghats, North-East
At high risk from GM crops
Trash GM crops now.

Catch 22 fate
Field trials are too risky
Contamination!

GM foods unsafe
Or safe- thirty long term tests
Can possibly show

Whether tests were done?
No way to confirm the fact!
Irresponsible.

In India such tests
Cannot be validated
No facility!

Traditional plants
Cannot remain pure at all
With GM crops and plants.

Keep GM crop at
Three hundred meters distance?
How did one fix this?

Three thousand meters
Bees pollinate brinjal at
This isolation!

Are we being taken
For a Bt Brinjal ride?
Who benefits please?

Crop isolation
Seems unnatural indeed
In Indian Regions

If one has to save
Rich wholesome traditionals
For use for all time.

Look no farther than
West Bengal’s hundred species
Grown on the margins

Ground realities
Make GM crops not needed
No utility

Origin centric
Bt Brinjal prohibit
Ignorant action

.
Unacceptable
In diversity centric
India, one with Mother Earth.

Critical warning
Solanaceae family
May become poisoned

Threatening safety
Of life as we know it here-
With Bt Brinjal

Most nations preempt
Growing GM crops and save
Traditional crops.

Follow wise counsel
Ban Bt Brinjal Bharat
Save ecology.

Human Feed Study:
Intestinal bacteria
Has GM food’s gene

The inserted gene!
Continues to function there
Making pesticides.

Our intestines
Live pesticide factories
For the rest of life

These GM proteins
Potentially risk health
Need long term studies

US health review:
Grave doubts about GM foods
Moratorium!

Small scale farms and
Agro-ecologicals
Not GM, the way

Thus beat poverty
And hunger with full stomachs
Ban Bt Brinjal.

Planning Commission:
Review GM policies
Acts, laws and Rules

Its Task Force Recoms:
No commercial release
Till rules are in place.

But government has allowed
Open field trials of rice
Inexcusable.

Also of mustard
Pigeon pea to be followed
By wheat, pulses, fruits!

GEAC failed!
Research papers shun GM:
Its too dangerous:

There’s ignorance on
Fate of soil microbials,
Of soil nutrients.

There’s ignorance on
Cattle microflora’s fate
Precaution is wise.

It is possible
GM corn and soy have caused
US health problems.

Bt Brinjal shunned
By Monsanto-Mahyco’s
Biosafety facts!

So analysts found:
From facts released publicly
By Supreme Court PIL.

Recommendation:
Ban Bt Brinjal: Health risk:
For living beings great.

Only ninety days:
Longest toxicity tests
Effects ten years down?

Can cancers be caused?
Would gen-next suffer ill health
Fed on GM foods?

Tests have not answered
Such grave critical questions
Ban Bt Brinjal

To get at the truth:
You renounce all attachment
Do double blind tests!

Engineered GMs’
Base is imperfect knowledge:
Separateness is the truth

Truth: One changeless life
In all; interconnected
Are the separate.

Traditional crops
Harmonise with nature
Assuring good health.

Tradition’s success
Lies in designing around
Micro-ignorance.

Tradition’s practice:
Produce, consume and return
Self -Sufficient!

GM’s changes
Infinite from nature’s forms
Invasive learning

Mistakes may be large:
Nature’s intrinsic control’s
Reactions unknown

Thus GM’s safety
Cannot be truly tested
Except by long use!

Defeat the modern
Prevent the inferior
From disturbing peace!

Protect tradition
Let the eighty percent still
Have those priceless seeds.

Ban Bt Brinjal
Protect right to eat brinjal
Of consumers’ choice

Scientifically
GM is unsafe for foods
Protect consumers.

Vegetable marts
Labeling impossible?
If so ban GM

GM promoters!
Principle of precaution!
Uphold People’s right.

KIA’s terror
Deepens biotech market
Yes, by true witchcraft

KIA Nuke Deal
Monstrous errors: Terrors they!
Irreversible!

Ban Bt Brinjal
In the public interest
Of Jagat Mata.

References:
1. Bharat Mansata.2010.Open Letter to Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Environment and Forests.
GOI.Personal Communication.
2. SG Vombatkere. 2010. Personal Communication on People’s Rights regarding GM Food Health and
Safety.
3. Ashok Kumar, R.1986.Modern and Normal Civilisations.Link:
http://modernandnormal.blogspot.com/