My story today your story Tomorrow - Anil Agarwal (November 30, 1996)

Growing horde
The Indian pesticide industry today has an installed capacity of 1,16,000 tonnes (t) per annum, of which about 70,000 t is in the organised sector, whereas the rest is in some 500-odd units belonging to the smallscale sector. It is doubtful that the smallscale sector has any appreciable control over contamination by pesticides. In 1994-95, India produced almost all the pesticides it consumed — some 83,000 t in the agricultural sector alone. Imports are currently about 2,000 t only. With liberalisation, controls on creating additional capacity for pesticide formulations has been lifted and there is no restrictions excepting six pesticides (aluminium phosphide, dimethoate, quinalphos, carbaryl, phorate and fenitrothion) for which licensing is compulsory. A Planning Commission study has projected pesticide consumption by 2000 ad at 1,18,000 t — 97,000 t for agriculture and 21,000 t for public health. It is interesting to note that most of the growth in the world pesticide industry is in developing nations. In value terms, growth in the pesticide industry between 1987 and 1993 in Latin America and Asia (outside Japan) was more than twice the global average.

They throw, we use
Pesticides are good for you as long as you are an Indian
mystory22.jpg (5512 bytes)The Indian government persists in allowing the production of a variety of deadly pesticides, even after many of them have been banned or severely
restricted abroad. In 1983, the UN had produced a Consolidated List of Products Whose Consumption and/or Sale Have Been Banned, Withdrawn, Severely Restricted or Not Approved by Governments. When Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment compared the pesticides listed in this report with those approved and used in India, she found that in terms of tonnage, an amazing 70 per cent of all pesticides used on Indian farms were banned or severely restricted in Western countries and identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as hazardous. The proportion of such pesticides used in public health programmes was even higher.
In 1996, even after a decade of environmental regulatory institutions, I found that the figure in agriculture was 54.25 per cent: 46,826 tonnes (t) of pesticides out of a total of 86,311 t used in 1994-95 had been restricted or banned in the West. In public health, the figure was 94.5 per cent. Since I am still looking at the 1983 UN list, the figure is lower as many restricted pesticides have not been included. If an updated list becomes available, India’s extraordinary record in taking care of its people would plunge further.
These pesticides include, besides DDT, carbofuran, dimethoate, endosulphan, lindane, methyl parathion, monocrotophos, mancozeb and paraquat. A number of other pesticides which are currently under special regulatory review on health grounds in the US — for instance, carbamates like aldicarb and carbaryl — are widely used in Indian agriculture. A number of pesticides implicated in the causation of NHL are also in use, including 2-4,D (1,200 t in 1993-94, about 15 per cent of total herbicides consumption in India).
The truth, maybe, is that the Government of India is the most persistent pest in India for which we need a truly deadly pesticide.

Pesticides banned/restricted in the West, but used in India (1994-95) (tonnes)
Pesticide Use in agriculture Use in public health
BHC 24,000 6305.00
Carbofuran 280  
DDT   8181.25
2,4-D (Dichlorophenoxyacetic
acid)		   1,200
Dichlorvos (DDVP) 1,500  
Dimethoate 1,900  
Endosulphan 4,600  
Lindane 50  
Methyl parathion 2,600  
Monocrotophos 6,296  
Mancozeb 4,000  
Paraquat 400  
  46,826 14,486.25
Total use of pesticides 86,311 15,327.25
Percentage of use consisting
of banned or severely restricted pesticides		 54.25 94.5

Like the pesticides industry, the Indian paints industry has also been growing rapidly. Between 1950 and 1982, production increased from 40,000 t to 190,000 t (107,000 t in the organised sector and 83,000 t in the smallscale sector) — the smallscale sector increased production eight-fold compared to the organised sector’s slightly over three-fold increase. The smallscale sector is 
particularly notorious for its poor or non-existent waste-water treatment facilities. Following liberalisation, a lot of hazardous paint and dyestuff industry has moved to India because of growing environmental controls in the West and inadequate controls in India. K R V Subramaniam, managing director of Colour Chem, a large paints company, said in an interview to the Economic Times in 1993, “Large Indian companies by and large meet pollution standards. But many others, who contribute 40-50 per cent of our exports, do not.”

The MEF has no team working on the dangers posed by toxins like pesticides

More questions
There are countless questions that keep crossing my mind. Why did I get afflicted with this disease? How cancer-prone are we becoming as a nation? Who is responsible? What should we do about it? It is clear from the sum total of the evidence available that environmental contamination could have been a key cause of my cancer. As I am not an agricultural labourer or a farmer spraying pesticides, the maximum likelihood in my case is of exposure through food and water.

My principal interest in writing this article is to inform the Indian people that they must not remain ignorant and nonchalant about the acute threats they face to their own health and to the health of their children. I find no concern in India about clean air, water or food, all of which are not just bacteriologically but also chemically contaminated today. At a seminar organised by a leading Delhi-based ngo on Delhi’s drinking water supply system in 1995, I had to point out that while there was so much talk about the inadequacy of water supply, there was almost none about its quality. What good is lots of water if it is so contaminated?

Bacteriological contamination shows up in acute epidemics and hence, often leads to a hue and cry amongst the public and in the media. But chemical contamination takes years to show up in the form of cancers or hormonal and reproductive disorders, and hence unless there are good epidemiological studies carried out on a regular basis and a constant effort made by the medical profession and a vigilant media to inform the public about the health threats it faces, there will be no pressure whatsoever on the regulatory authorities to do anything to protect the environment.

Ignorance is bliss for the the politician and the bureaucrat. Apart from the influence of industrial lobbies which may operate underhand, India’s overt governance systems themselves are incompetent. An excellent illustration of this is the fact that the ministry of environment and forests has no team working on the dangers posed by toxins like pesticides that permeate the environment and food systems.

Summing up, I can only say that had not fate, friends and well-wishers and committed scientists from various parts of the world not intervened to help in my case, it would have been a Silent Spring for me in the prime of life. I can only hope and wish that that no fellow citizen has to suffer the same fate. And that Indian civil society can, one day, force our misguided
government to come to its senses.

(The author is grateful for inputs provided by Ambika Puri, Madhumita Dutta, Ambika Sharma, Max Martin and Sunita Raina, and the time provided by Sheila Hoar Zahm)

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