Genetically Modified Democracy: Transgenic Crops in Contemporary India By Aniket Aga. Yale University Press. 2021. pp. 328. $65.00 (hb). ISBN: 9780300245905

Aniket Aga probes questions critical to our species: the vetting of authoritative knowledge of risks and benefits embedded in alternative technologies. The focus is state science—the mediating translator of knowledge to policy. He lays out the fundamental tension: “Scientific controversies exert unusual pressures on political institutions. Designed to arbitrate among competing interests, institutions of democracy find themselves in uncharted terrain when confronted with disputes over truth” (p. 237). His focus is India, the implications general and global: One thinks immediately of climate change and pandemics.

The text analyses biotechnology through an examination of official approval or rejection of two agricultural crops developed by biotechnology: cotton and brinjal (baingan, eggplant, aubergine, Solanum melongena) and provision of authoritative knowledge on agricultural chemicals, from which the state has retreated.

State science became globally contentious when the genomics revolution in biology raised the stakes: molecular building blocks of life became increasingly amenable to alteration and rearrangement to modify or create novel organisms (Doudna & Steinberg, 2017). National variations in state science emerged, in production, support, and regulation. Aga does not address what I think is the most consequential variation: divergence of medicine and agriculture. Pharmaceuticals produced using recombinant-DNA (rDNA) technology were slotted into existing routines of vetting, through existing institutions, beginning with human insulin in 1978. Precisely the same technology, when applied to crops, became an object of politically contentious regulation: the GMO. Discourses of risks and benefits of rDNA plants, though not rDNA medicines, were contested globally, supported by rival transnational activist networks, dividing the planet into pro-and anti-GMO formations (Herring, 2008; McHughen, 2000; Paarlberg, 2001; Pinstrup-Andersen & Schioler, 2000; Schurman & Munro, 2013).

India (as well as China) tasked state institutions to promote biotechnology in agriculture in the early 1990s (Cao, 2018; also detailed in Chapter 2 of Aga's book). Both nations began with Bt cotton—modified with one gene to express an insecticidal protein—to protect crops from destructive insects. Their reasons involved similar imperatives: import substitution for domestic industry, export earnings, and reducing environmental hazards from spraying toxins on cotton plants. India's struggling cotton sector was producing among the lowest yields in the world at the time but devoted more acres to cotton than any other country.

In puzzling contrast to China, India's public sector efforts to produce insect-resistant cotton failed. Aga first takes a structural approach to explain this: The specific organization of state science demonstrated divergent mandates, interests, personnel, and powers. Equally important, Indian scientists “were equipped with tissue culture or rDNA techniques but had no background in the upstream work of gene discovery or the downstream work of varietal release. They were trained in transforming plants but they lacked the genes and constructs to do so on the one hand and the breeding skills to develop varieties and hybrids on the other” (p. 84–85). We do not learn why these familiar deficiencies were not remedied.

Having failed in public sector innovation, Delhi granted breeding permission to a new partnership that inauspiciously combined the much-despised multinational Monsanto and the prominent Indian firm Mayhco, that is, Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech Limited (MMBL). The combination had what state science lacked: Mahyco had extensive plant-breeding expertise, and Monsanto had an event of the Cry1Ac gene workable in cotton germplasm.

Three legal hybrid Bt cotton cultivars from MMBL were approved in 2002 and set the path dependency for cotton hybrids in the country (Chapter 6). That outcome, though delayed by the opponents of biotechnology, became inevitable after an illegal alternative in Gujarat (Navbharat 151 and variants) proved so successful that other states faced demands for Bt cotton from farmers—beginning in neighbouring Maharashtra—and the threat of a national protest by farmers if approvals were delayed (Desai, 2021, especially chapter by Sherasiya; Herring, 2021; Joshi 2001; Ramaswami et al., 2012; Scoones, 2006; Shaik, 2001).

Path dependency from this beginning followed transgenic plants in India. Professor Aga explains that India's state had elaborate language and procedures for hazards but that particular framing was inappropriate for germplasm and genes: “the logic of pollution control, hazardous substances, installations, and factory inspection just did not work for biotechnology, where there is often little to see through the naked eye” (p. 112). Predictably, the three legal hybrids released by Mahyco-Monsanto in 2002 proved difficult to regulate, with cottage industry alternatives in circulation and active illegal pocket breeding (Jayaraman, 2001, 2004).

Aga favours cotton varieties over hybrids (p. 189–190), as do some farmers who desire to save seeds from season to season; seeds from hybrids typically do not breed true, leading to the expense of buying new seeds every year, though often with compensating characteristics farmers desire. It is then especially puzzling that the book does not address India's efforts to provide this alternative. Work to produce a variety of Bt cotton—rather than a hybrid—did continue in the public sector. Public expectations for this variety—Bikaneri Nerma—were sky high. It seemed the best of all worlds: The cotton was Bt and therefore expressed an insecticidal protein fatal to bollworms but not controlled by Monsanto. It was a variety, not a hybrid—therefore producing saveable seeds. And it would be public property, not partly owned by a multinational corporation.

Expectations for the public sector Bt variety crashed in disappointing field trials and scrutiny of its germplasm by government scientists. Though disguised, the genetic material was illegally derived from Monsanto. 1 The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) immediately had seed multiplication and commercialization suspended. We do not get an explanation from Aga on why this significant effort of state science to provide an alternative to the corporate hybrids failed so dramatically.

For all the political focus on corporate dominance, Bt cotton in India started before Mahyco-Monsanto got permission from Delhi and indeed became something of a cottage industry beyond state control (Roy et al., 2007; Sherasiya, 2021). It would seem folly to think regulation of germplasm a plausible objective of any state overseeing so diverse a terrain as India—the visibility and “naked eye” dilemma explained by Aga. There are no seed police in the villages; indeed, there was very little understanding of why transgenic seeds—which local farmers sought out—differed in some significant way from other seeds (e.g. Flachs, 2019: Chapter 4 and p. 182). Additionally, enforcement was complicated by farmer resistance (Herring, 2021).

Aga emphasizes the limitations of the gaze of the bureaucratic central state, but farmers have agency as well. Both genuine—but illegal—Bt stealth seeds and counterfeit seeds claiming to be Bt circulated widely under the state's radar in the early years, roughly 2001–2006, as did subsequent illegal advanced cultivars. One of the closest observers of corporate control of seeds in India, Andrew Flachs (2019) noted, after intensive field work in Telangana, stealth adoption of seeds contrary to corporate interests, specifically Mahyco-Monsanto's: “Despite the official ban, seed brokers sell [illegal] Bollgard III and HT seeds, even selling them online!” (p. 182). He reminds us that “… it is important to remember that the first Bt seeds were similarly stolen and disseminated throughout India before their legalization” (Flachs, 2019).

State science failed in both production and regulation of Bt cotton. Because of public sector failure, Bt cotton entered public discourse tainted by global discourses linking biotechnology to global capital (Aga Chapter 6 in the book, passim). Yet, it came to dominate cotton fields. Corporate control as a meme aided political mobilization, but rural agency often trumped capability of either state or firm, for explicable reasons (Filomeno, 2013, 2014).

Cotton is economically important to the nation, and India has become a leading rather than lagging producer in global terms. India's second transgenic crop has no such prominence.

After the almost universal adoption of hundreds of Bt cotton cultivars, expectations for approval of Bt brinjal (eggplant, aubergine) were robust. Approval was expected because of the documented failure and cost of toxic pesticide sprayings on this ubiquitous food crop, harming both cultivators and consumers. An insecticidal protein (Bt) gene developed and bred into brinjal (Event EE1) by Mahyco was widely tested for seven years, in both hybrids and varieties (from which farmers could save and replant seeds if they chose) for different parts of the country. Field studies indicated success of the insecticidal protein on the most destructive pest and improvement of farmer incomes, and, surprisingly, found that existing practices were dangerous to farmers and consumers: Unapproved pesticides were commonly applied, and there was a lack of protective gear. Offering evidence of lower seed costs, significant varietal choice, higher profits for farmers, and ability to save seeds, Bt eggplant seemed the ideal outcome of developmental state science (Herring, 2015; Krishna & Qaim, 2007; Ministry of Environment and Forests, Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, 2009; Rao, 2010). The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee accepted the crop after 9 years of development and testing.

This outcome seemed to be the successful developmental state in action. But Aniket Aga's insightful focus on the fragility of state science provides the explanation for failure: The fate of any biotech crop depends on the specific dossier presented for authorization. He emphasizes that scientific truth does not require “certitude”; it is “enough to puncture holes in humdrum regulatory dossiers by asking such questions as whether there were statistically enough rats in the toxicity studies …” (p. 172). Such holes in dossiers—whether inevitable or motivated—may obviate years of field testing.

This “lack of certitude” opened a political opportunity: Uncertainty was constructed as risk, brilliantly activated by the I Am No Lab Rat movement emerging from Hamara Beej Abhiyan (Our Seeds Campaign). The resulting street theatre gained worldwide notice, signified by T-shirts and signage in English, transmitting real energy and viral appeal (p. 245–50, passim). Mobilization questioned a cultivar that state-sanctioned field trials had demonstrated to be both pro-farmer and safer than existing practices for both farmer and consumer—but obviously with no certitude regarding unexpected outcomes. Mass publics may be convinced that any uncertainty constitutes unacceptable risk. It mattered that eggplant was a food—not fibre—and that documented risks from existing production conditions were unknown to the public.

Politics around brinjal operated in vernacular idiom rather than alien scientific discourses. Mobilizations on the streets worked, in Aga's account, to “provide the campaign its salty vernacular idioms and allow it to plumb the emotive depths of populism” (p. 167). He explains how social network activity and electronic activism were tuned to and “accompanied by strong regional and national alliances and traction before the courts” (p. 165–66). All three pillars of opposition proved important: street politics, broader alliances, and activism in the courts.

Oppositional forces thus utilized the multiple arenas afforded by India's political structure: “democratic politics invents and multiplies chokepoints by capitalizing on the tensions and contradictions of a federal structure” (p, 174). Multiple facets of opposition—environmental precautions, religious objections, fears of foreign dominance, and uncertainty about the unknown—all were deployed in different venues at separate times to oppose a crop approved by state science. The counter arguments from proponents of transgenic eggplant were esoteric, pedestrian in comparison, and hypothetical: A reduction in pesticide, spraying increased crop choice and financial returns for farmers, less toxic residue in a ubiquitous food crop (Rao, 2010).

Prohibiting cultivation of Bt brinjal illustrated the global divide between agricultural and environmental interests, between production and precaution (Herring & Paarlberg, 2015). Consistent with global patterns, domestic and international environmentalists mobilized against the cultivar. 2 The state organ regulating biotechnology—the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee—concluded after 9 years of development and testing that Bt brinjal met standards of statutory state science on grounds of food and environmental safety. That decision was overruled by the Minister of Environment Jairam Ramesh who felt that the dossier did not eliminate all uncertainty—coded by the Minister as risk (Aga, 155–178). Bt eggplant went into suspended animation in India but travelled to field trials in Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Scientific uncertainty is inevitable; the very operation of state science depends on designated organs to determine when there are “enough rats”. It was precisely those “humdrum regulatory dossiers” lacking “certitude” that enabled rejection of normal science on India's second transgenic crop. Much of the cabinet, including the prime minister and agriculture minister, disapproved of this prohibition, in effect leaving demotion of state science in place. This outcome—a junior minister defying the cabinet and institutions of state science—originated in precisely those structural peculiarities of India's state science that Aga explores in Chapter 2.

State science of transgenic technology in India, as elsewhere, proved vulnerable to populist mobilization as explicated by Aga. Dissemination of public science knowledge—ensuring that mass publics have the knowledge necessary for sound decisions—is less demanding than invention or regulation. Chapter 7 entitled Merchants of Knowledge documents vividly how small farmers are incapacitated by the confusion, false claims, and self-interested hype surrounding agricultural pests and chemicals. Merchants routinely exploit this knowledge dependency. State failure in dissemination of authoritative information opens a niche for exploitation of farmers by merchants providing self-interested disinformation and using transactions to extract surplus from farmers, as documented from Aga's field work and other studies. 3

There are two great lessons from Aga's account. First, Bt cotton demonstrated the futility of a centralized Panopticon: the inevitability of illegal seeds circulating “beyond the gaze of the committees in New Delhi” (p. 110). Policing genes will not work. Second, Bt brinjal demonstrated the pivotal distinction between uncertainty and risk—and associated politics. State science often loses out to skilled populist mobilization constructing uncertainty as unacceptable risk. There are never enough rats.

Aga argues that where biotechnology went wrong in India's developmental state was in neglecting alternative foci, energies, and investments. “The issues of poverty, hunger, and unemployment—the tenacious difficulties experienced by the vast majority of Indian farmers—disappeared from the horizon of agricultural research.” In consequence, “the separation of rural development bureaucracy effectively deflected concerns of equity and redistribution from programs of agricultural development” (p. 97). Fragmentation of state science, tilted toward genetic engineering, limited the potential of alternative approaches to pro-poor research and development.

That would be an easier case to make had national policy in rural areas been distinctly pro-poor prior to biotechnology. It is hard to pin the blame for rural destitution and inequality on seed science; economic liberalization, and local power relations loom large. Moreover, field trials of Bt eggplant showed success of both hybrids and varieties—meaning farmers could save seeds if they so wanted. Brinjal is exactly the kind of crop Aga would seem to favour as it can be grown for family subsistence as well as the market, and regional variations were made available for both hybrids and varieties. Field trials also suggested less dependence on agricultural chemicals charged with exploitation of farmers in Chapter 7: Insect protection was generated by a gene in the plant, not in a distant factory mediated through extortionate vendors.

In a more radical conclusion, Aga adds: “the fascination with GM crops among policymakers seems to be disproportionate to the actual capacity of the rDNA technology to help matters” (p. 252). That is a curious conclusion, given the success of transgenic therapeutics—including human insulin long utilized in India—and the astonishingly rapid and effective rDNA responses to a pandemic virus. It seems impossible to dismiss genetic engineering on such a slim evidentiary base: two crops with only one type of gene for one trait—insect resistance—in cases hampered by administrative snarls and active opposition well-documented in the book.

There is a great lesson here: cotton, brinjal, and other plants confronting global climate change will require a new array of complex genetic capabilities. The very notion that Bt cotton succeeded or failed—by which many pages have been devoured—disregards the biological fact that no one gene determines the fate of any crop. Many thousands of plant genes interactively determine adaptability to environmental stress: resistance to pests, moisture, micro-organisms, temperature, nutrient needs, and uptake—a myriad of factors that make a plant healthy or less healthy, adaptable or less adaptable to changing conditions.

The planet is changing rapidly, in ways that overwhelm traditional knowledge, skills, and cultivars. The scale and speed of crises facing agriculture will require plants with new traits quickly: flooding, salinity, drought, heat, and novel pathogens. Bt eggplant took 9 years to insert and test one new single-purpose gene. Legal Bt cotton for all its notoriety contained only one—later two—gene out of many thousands. This is hardly a test sufficient to reject a technology. Moreover, Bt brinjal did not fail agronomically; it only failed political hurdles and a ministerial veto. Eggplant indeed showed that Indian research and development of appropriate biotechnology could succeed. The genetic event EE1 developed by Mahyco was shared with neighbouring Bangladesh, where it has done well, as predicted in field trials in India (Ahmed et al., 2019; Shelton et al., 2020). So well, in fact, that the Bt brinjal has returned to India as a stealth seed, an illegal alien, presumably happy to be growing at last in its native land.

But the GMO in its clumsy and politically vulnerable form is dying out from factors well-analysed by Professor Aga: corporate demands for exclusive intellectual property, technology fees, administrative and legal blockages, and populist opposition. Future plant improvements will take place by gene-editing technology that is faster, less expensive, more distributed, and democratic (Doudna & Steinberg, 2017; Hefferon & Herring, 2017). The Department of Biotechnology of the Ministry of Environment in India published in May of 2022 an Office Memorandum (Goverment of India, 2022) on regulations for use of gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) for rapid and far-reaching transformations. These regulations exempted two forms of genome editing (SDN-1 and SDN-2)—as in the EU—from regulation that applies to “GMOs”, coming a long way toward by-passing political framing that long strangled state science in agricultural plants, perhaps just in time.