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Commentary/Dilip D'Souza

The Time Has Come, The Walrus Said, To Talk Of Turmeric And Queens

What, you never wondered, is common to haldi and Queen Elizabeth? Very little, you think, getting ready to laugh at me. As well you should, for look at that: I've had the temerity to mention haldi in the same sentence as the Queen! And that's an offence for which, I understand, "Off with his head!" used to be considered the rigor, or do I mean de rigueur.

Times have changed since. In 1997, all they have in common is that both have done time at the centre of raging new touchstones of Indian honour. First, we are sure we won a stirring victory over evil Americans intent on patenting turmeric. Now we want to make the Queen grovel when she visits us, force her to apologise for the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre.

Say I'm a nut if you like. But where the honour is in either of these things, I'm hard pressed to divine.

Take the haldi first. Ah yes, those pasty-faced Americans, up to their scummy tricks again! How dare they try to steal our foremothers's knowledge, try to make us pay for our own wisdom? But we showed them, didn't we? We fought off those greedy punks, defeated that patent application, won a huge victory for India. Drum roll, please.

Except that the facts -- those miserably inconvenient things -- tell a somewhat different story.

First, the patent application in question was not for the haldi spice, or the plant. To start with, you simply cannot patent an ordinary plant in the USA. Yes, you can patent a strain of a plant that you have researched and produced. You can also patent some new use you have discovered for a plant, providing, of course, it has not already been discovered by someone else. But US and international laws do not allow patents on plants that grow naturally. That's that.

This patent application was made by the University of Mississippi's Medical Centre. They believed they had discovered a way to heal wounds using haldi powder. Far from applying for a patent on the plant itself, UMMC applied for a patent on this medicinal use. Now in India, we have been using haldi powder to treat wounds for generations. This is what a team of scientists from the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research proved to the US Patents & Trademarks Office. Which Office then dismissed -- after a year-long legal battle, yes -- UMMC's patent application. End of story.

Second, there's no conceivable way -- unless you are incurably afflicted with jingoism -- that this can be seen as a victory for India over those pimply Yanks. Yes, Indian scientists provided the grounds for the dismissal of the patent application and they deserve congratulations for doing so. But as Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar explained in a recent column, all that happened was that an American authority prevented an American organisation from charging American consumers for the use of haldi in this particular way. In fact, the decision affirms that American patent laws do not allow our traditional knowledge to be stolen from us. Nor did the decision act to protect that knowledge. It remains as it always was, as it should be: free and available for use by anyone in the world.

Third, even if that patent had been granted, it's still a lie to say that Indians would have had to pay for our traditional use of haldi. Companies wanting to sell the wound-healing medicine would need to pay UMMC, who patented the medicine, for that privilege. That's all. There's no conceivable way the patent could have stopped you and me from continuing to use haldi as we always have. So we can't claim a victory there either. Of course, once we showed we have known of haldi's powers for generations, there's no way that patent could have been approved anyway. Which, of course, is what happened.

But instead of seeing this, as Aiyar does, as a victory for common sense, we think India has won a huge war. We've gone into chest-puffing overdrive. Take that, Uncle Sam!

Which makes Queen Elizabeth's impending visit to India quite perfectly timed. In this mood of pumped-up machismo, what could be better than forcing the Queen to apologise for Jallianwalla Bagh? We made the Yanks kneel, now let's do the same to the Poms!

But what's this? Our prime minister has actually been telling the Queen there's no need to apologise? What weak-kneed effrontery! It moved one indignant columnist to splutter on this corner of the Web some days ago: "I used to think it was part of the job description of a prime minister to pursue his country's interests!" So why is that snivelling wimp Gujral undermining our interests, snuffing out this demand for an apology?

Now I have no idea what motivated Gujral, nor do I particularly care. But allow me to offer you some implications of demanding a royal apology for Jallianwalla Bagh. All off the top of my head.

After watching the Queen apologise in Amritsar for Jallianwalla Bagh, might Sikhs be moved to demand an apology from the Indian State? That, for the attack on their holiest shrine, only minutes from Jallianwalla Bagh, followed by the horrific massacre of over 3,000 Sikhs, all in 1984. Might Muslims demand an apology? That one, for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent riots in which the majority killed were Muslim. Might lower castes demand an apology, for centuries of the vilest kind of oppression? Might tribals demand an apology, for endless policies and attitudes that have left them increasingly destitute? For the deliberate neglect of their health care that allows ordinary measles and diarrhoea to kill their children by the thousand every year?

You know I could continue this list indefinitely. You may not agree with some of these reasons for apologies, but in every case there are people who believe grievous wrong has been committed. Just as you and I believe there was grievous wrong committed at Jallianwalla Bagh in 1919. The point is, there are innumerable reasons for apologies. The point also is, very few of us in this world are on moral ground unassailably high enough to demand apologies, without triggering off other demands for apologies.

It's just possible Gujral had some of all this in mind. Wary of the swampy minefield he would be stepping into, perhaps he decided to discourage the queen from apologising at all. I don't know.

Frankly, I don't much care if the lady apologises or not: if she chooses to, that's perfectly all right by me. It would be a gracious gesture. And I fully agree that prime ministers must pursue the national interest and must be ridiculed when they do not.

So those who want the queen to say sorry are welcome to shout about it. But when they say it is in the country's interest to shout about it, they just sidetrack the real, the only national interest: the welfare of our people, period. I cannot see how demanding that apology from the queen is equated to that welfare, to the national interest. Nor can I see how her apology will, in any sense, be a triumph for India. Why it has become a measure of Indian prestige.

As an Indian, you will stand not an inch taller if you have Queen Liz grovelling at your feet.

Except, again, if you're incurably afflicted with that dread disease: jingoism. You will still not stand taller, but you might think you do. I'm here to tell you there's a cure for this disease. It uses haldi powder. Check with the queen of England, she's applying for a patent on it.

EARLIER FEATURES ON THE TURMERIC TRIUMPH: Pepsi and turmeric symbolise a self-inflicted Indian dilemma
The battle of haldiis over; the war lies ahead
How the legal war was won
Major victory for India as US refuses to patent turmeric

EXTERNAL LINK:
Indian Spices

EARLIER FEATURES ON THE JALLIANWALLA BAGH CONTROVERSY:
Will Queen Elizabeth say sorry for Jallianwala Bagh?
'Let Jallianwala Bagh be a symbol'
Remorseful British accounts in the Jallianwala Bagh visitors book
'The queen's visit eventually is just an empty gesture'
'Why just Jallianwala, if the queen apologises it should be for all crimes perpetrated under the Union Jack'

EXTERNAL LINK:
The Making of the Hybrid Raj, 1700-1857


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