Kalabaaz• IT vs Roti

IT vs Roti

The chameleonic changes happening in India are capable of reviving surrealist non-sequiturs. How can Information Technology (IT) be pitted against bread (Roti)? Such improbable opponents can only emerge from either the laboratories of Victor Frankenstein or economic scientists at the World Trade Organization.

Incessant repetitions have convinced the world, including the dying polar bears and penguins at the poles, that there is an IT revolution going on in India. Believe me, walking the streets of India outside of Bangalore or Gurgaon, it feels like a facetious rumor.

There are a lot of back-office, low-end jobs percolating down to India essentially because of the low wages our accent-trained English speaking young are willing to accept. The real human beings behind the pseudonyms of Mary Janes and Joe Smiths are not unaware of their exploitation. Living in a shortsighted culture that promotes the present, in the moment, instant gratification as the highest value, it is their only option for individual independence. In the pursuit of their individualism they are unwilling to question the greed of their employers. When their Government prostrates to the power of Corporations and legal due process is a farce (remember Bhopal) they are smart enough to shut up and show up for work at the stroke of the midnight hour.

They are wise to neglect their employer's stealth even when they know that the employer is here because it slyly sneaked away from the Fair Labor Standards Act. One day, they dream, they will be able to get something similar. It becomes the Indian Dream of a new India. In a system that pits labor against labor, they are hesitant to acknowledge that the modern world divides people more by class than by nationality or religion. In a world where Money is supreme, class emerges as the only real division. There is no India, there is no US, there is only Money. When US labor wins the fight for minimum wage it is time for corporations to look at off-shoring. Free-market economists point to it coldly as an inevitable natural phenomenon, unavoidable due to human nature (read corporate nature) and justifiable in the name of progress, not to be regulated. This is how 40-60% cost savings accrue to the corporation and the wheels of India's IT sector start rolling.

Working at less than half of what their American counterparts would demand, this fledgling new group of programmers, developers and business processors contribute about 5% to India's GDP. Despite the diminished remuneration they are willing to accept, they are relatively far well off when compared to their rural countrymen and women engaged in agriculture which contributes about 17% to the GDP. You will soon see why this curious comparison enters our turbulent story as labor is pitted against labor.

It is worth understanding a bit about Intellectual Property before we proceed. I'll try to make it fun and easy. IP rights basically let its holder own abstract properties, creations of the mind...ideas. These ideas can be in the form of software, music, trademarks, patents or processes and the IP owner can charge you for using them. There's a three point logic to this: [The IP Debate]

Progress depends upon inventions.
Inventions will be under-provided without sufficient incentives.
Intellectual rights offer the best mechanism for creating these incentives.

Now that IP rights have been introduced, let us return to our tempestuous tale.

Within this decade, various BPO and IT companies such as Infosys in India have perfected certain processes and the ideas behind them. Since they perfected this high-tech knowledge, and would like to ensure future revenues, they would like the legal protection of IP laws. IP laws wouldn't mean much if they were simply national, they have to be global and are regulated by a world body such as the World Trade Organization.

Being the fair, neutral body that the WTO is, it has a precondition. The same rules that protect software knowledge should also apply to farming knowledge. If India wants IP protection for its software, it has to allow "open" access to its bio-diversity. The IT sector is undoubtedly the Government of India's favorite child. In its fawning love for its youngest baby, it throws away the farming knowledge of centuries available for patenting (without consulting any farmers). The IT sector happily plays along and not a squeak is heard in mainstream media. This is how IT, the domain of India's richest is pitted against agriculture, the occupation of India's poorest.

Lost in the cacophony of the Nuclear Deal, the Indo-US Initiative on Agriculture was born. Most of the details of this initiative remain unavailable, hidden away in secret under so called National Interest.

Let me explain some of the things which come under farming knowledge:

The twig of a Neem tree can be used to clean your teeth. The bitter juices work as a natural disinfectant.
Neem can be an effective pesticide. [W.R Grace/USDA]
Fresh mint leaves work as a natural repellant for house flies.
If you have a stomach ache, salt and carom seeds (ajwain) can most probably fix you.

All these and thousands and thousands of other common knowledge processes, remedies, solutions, perfected by our great grandfathers and great grandmothers, shared by everybody across agrarian societies are available now for patents in the name of bio-technology. There were no incentives for the farmers except sharing for collective good behind these "inventions". Raj Patel puts it aptly: These farmers, men and women, were natural scientists who perfected ways to save and exchange seeds, cross bred new varieties, figured out ingenious ways to make it naturally pest-resistant, increased their yield organically. They were and remain the real custodians of India's bio-diversity.

The idea of patenting knowledge is alien to this interconnected social system. The closest parallel in the software market is the Open Source Movement. If open source can become a successful model of business in the IT sphere there is no reason to decimate a much more richer and successful Open Source Movement that has been alive and thriving in rural societies and sustaining ecosystems for centuries.

It is an extremely narrow-minded view of development when IP patents under the regime of the WTO are allowed to run amok and indulge in biopiracy. So the next time you hear a "development" speech from the proponents of Neo-Liberal economics and accusations hurled at "ignorant", "anti-development" farmers, rethink your position on what you believe to be "Progress".

And yes, if you are in the IT industry, use Open Source and share it. Its good karma and truly progressive.

tags:activism culture democracy economics india politics technology

Posted on 03 Oct, 08 byNavneet