#Ajayan | Year 2009; the then Minister for Forests and Environment Jairam Ramesh was in Kochi on the eve of a momentous declaration. Asked about the  Genetic Engineering Approval Committee’s nod for Bt brinjal Ramesh offered a measured response: "Wait for two days." But the next day, February 9, he announced an indefinite moratorium on commercial production of Bt brinjal in India.

The grapevine buzzed with whispers that he could scarcely afford to wait. Pressure was mounting rapidly; not least from the United States, eager to see the approval fast-tracked under the watch of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a leader often regarded as an economist favoured by the West. Sensing the urgency and the behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to push the sanction through even through courts, Jairam rose to the moment. In a move both bold and historic, he imposed a moratorium on Bt brinjal — one that would remain until independent scientific studies could unequivocally establish its safety and long-term impact on human health and the environment. And this, he insisted, must be to the full satisfaction of both the public and the scientific community.

Juxtapose this with the scene 15 years later: in early this May, the Central Government unveiled two genome-edited rice varieties - not born of traditional breeding, but crafted through the precise, potent hands of gene-editing technology. Unlike the cautious pause of 2009, this move follows a technique that alters the very DNA of living organisms within the controlled confines of a laboratory. The contrast is striking; where once there was restraint and public consultation, now there is a quiet acceleration.

Did anyone hear so much as a whisper before Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan dropped the announcement like a well-guarded State secret? The scientific community, caught off guard, now murmurs that there was hardly a whiff of safety testing, no real public discourse, and a conspicuous lack of transparency. The new rice varieties, it seems, tiptoed past concerns of health, environmental impact and farmers’ rights — as if such trifles are mere footnotes in the grand march of scientific "progress".

Environmentalist and social justice advocate Sridhar Radhakrishnan, a member of the Steering Committee of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA–Kisan Swaraj), has sounded the alarm on the silent risks gene editing carries. This high-tech laboratory wizardry allows scientists to make what are soothingly termed ‘minor’ tweaks to the DNA of plants or animals. Armed with ‘genetic scissors’, they snip and splice at will; cutting DNA at precise points to erase or rewrite nature’s code in pursuit of desirable traits. In this case, the magic words are the popular climate resilience, water conservation and higher yields.

The gloom is that tampering with nature’s script might come with a few uninvited plot twists; like the birth of strange, novel proteins that could be as toxic or even trigger allergies. Worse, these botanical Frankensteins might start behaving oddly in nature, affecting the delicate ecosystem.

To check this, only detailed biosafety testing can show if something did go wrong. The law of the land under the Environment Protection Act, 1989, pronounces that any change to an organism’s DNA using laboratory techniques, including deleting or modifying or tinkering with  genes, is dabbling in genetic engineering and must be regulated. Only rigorous biosafety can help to get to the bottom of this genetic gamble.

In 2022, the government casually waved off biosafety checks for two types of gene editing. Fast forward to 2024, and the Supreme Court slammed regulators for their failure to safeguard the biosafety of the people, the environment and the farms. Justice BV Nagarathna laid it out plainly: if an activity carries the potential for serious harm, and there is no solid scientific proof it is safe, the only responsible course of action is to slam the brakes till scientific proof of no harm is secured.

Sridhar points to a telling episode of Venugopal Badaravada, a farmer leader and member of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research board. The crime Venugopal committed was daring to ask inconvenient questions about the new gene-edited varieties, questioning the glaring gaps in biosafety assessment, and wondering whether farmers would still retain their age-old rights to save and share seeds. Instead of answers, he was simply shown the door.

With developed nations tightening the screws on labelling and regulation of GM and gene-edited foods, the chances of our exports getting rejected are only sky-high. This can leave not just economic bruises, but a potential black mark on the credibility of Indian agriculture.

The Coalition for a GM-Free India wants the Government to withdraw the gene-edited rice varieties. “We demand that the Government of India should immediately share details of the safety testing done on these varieties of gene-edited crops, and show/prove that public interest and native germplasm did not get irresponsibly, irretrievably compromised,” it said in a statement.

India has a treasure trove of traditional rice varieties preserved over countless generations; each grain a story of resilience, culture and biodiversity. Releasing untested gene-edited rice into open fields is not just reckless but flirting with genetic roulette. This can cause irreversible contamination of the rich legacy, similar to spilling ink on an ancient manuscript. This is especially poetic in a nation that now loves to thump its chest about age-old traditions and legacy, all while, on the sides, quietly rewriting them in a biotech lab.