Some decades ago a term ‘democide’ was coined. In Latin, ‘cide’ means killing. The ‘cide’ suffix was added to the prefix ‘demo’ as in democracy. Thus democide came to mean death by the people’s elected government. Then some people came up with Kilo, Mega and Giga democide. A kilo-democidist was one that killed more than 1000; mega-democidist was a government that killed 1000 kilo and so on. Assuming 250,000 farmers have committed suicide in India during UPA-I and UPA-II, both democratically elected governments headed by Mohan Singh in free and fair elections, can be called 250 kilo democidist. It may even reach the Olympian status of Mega or even the Herculean Giga.

As far as farmers are concerned, the lethal chemical is pesticide. Over 400 different types of toxins are approved or not approved but used by farmers to ward off pests today. It makes one wonder how could Indian farmers feed 150-200 million people year after year for over 1000 years until suddenly strange chemicals began to appear in India’s farmland.

Use of pesticides in India began in 1948 when DDT was imported for malaria control and BHC for locust control. Kerala was the first state to report pesticide poisoning in 1958, where over 100 people died after consuming wheat flour contaminated with parathion. Thousands more died from eating pesticide treated seeds later when the Green Revolution started.

This is something the western world must know. The Green Revolution package, designed by none other than one of the world’s three top ‘scientists’ of the 20^th century, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, contained a box of chemically treated seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. These were “pushed” by the officers of the government’s agriculture extension services. Many farming households took the seeds as perfectly edible and mixed these with the food grains meant for consumption. No one knows how many farming households were eliminated by ingesting poison-laced seeds as foods. That was during the 1960s.

Subsequently thousands of cases of pesticide-poisoning have been reported.

India began manufacturing pesticide in 1952 with a small plant of about 5000MT capacity of DDT. The white hot heat of chemical-based farming, engineered by proponents of the Green Revolution, has increased that to 85,000 MT per annum today.

One consequence was the largest industrial disaster in the world, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, in which methyl isocyanate [MIC] leaked, killing 20,000 instantly and destroying the life of another 200,000. That was a 220 kilo democide. The second consequence was from careless use of pesticides by farmers, and no one knows how many have lost their health from pesticide. The third, well documented use was consumption of pesticide when cash was not available.

Despite the fact that against an average use of 45 kg in the US, 12 kg in Japan and 6.6 kg in Korea, India uses about 0.56 kg per hectare and the biggest users are the cotton farmers, there are regular reports of the widespread contamination of food commodities with pesticide residues. 51% of food commodities are contaminated with pesticide residues, of which about 20% have pesticides residues above the maximum permissible residual values on a worldwide basis.

It has been observed that their long-term, low-dose exposure are increasingly linked to human health effects such as immune-suppression, hormone disruption, diminished intelligence, reproductive abnormalities, and cancer. All pesticides are cytotoxin, meaning that they kill cells; many are neurotoxin, damaging the way the human brain functions.  

Scientists still don’t know if pesticides, weaponized vaccines, radiation contamination, genetically engineered foods and nutrition-deficient foods act additively or synergistically.

They suspect that because of the complex action of these insults on each cell, there is a high probability that they act synergistically. That is extremely worrying. If that is true, as it seems, few will complete their natural God-given natural life.

William Engdahl, author of the masterpiece “Seeds of Destruction” says in a recent article that “some five to six years back, reports began to circulate from around the world, especially out of the United States, and then increasingly from around the EU, especially in the UK, that entire bee colonies were disappearing. Since 2004 over a million beehives have died across the United States and beekeepers in 25 states report what is called Colony Collapse Disorder. In winter of 2009 an estimated one fifth of bee hives in the UK were lost, double the natural rate.” Government authorities, as always, are in denial claiming that it is a mystery! Independently funded scientists confirm that depopulation of pollinating agents like birds, insects and bees are directly related to a new class of pesticides introduced since 2004.

Some of these are known as neonicotinoids that are systemic chemicals, getting into the cell of plants and through ingestion into beneficial insects and birds. Another study concludes that these pesticides are lethal neurotoxins. These scientific studies have not resulted in any significant government action; as one wit says, “they are peacefully sleeping.”

Professor Henk Tennekes of the USDA has concluded that the extensive use of extremely lethal pesticides is causing major illnesses among children in the United States, including abnormal psychosocial and behavioral conditions. Occurrence of neuro-developmental disorders, including learning disabilities, dyslexia, mental retardation, attention deficit disorder, and autism is affecting  200 to 400 thousand of the 4 million children born in the United States annually. Who knows?

The final game is panning out from the gene revolutionaries. Their seeds are sold packaged with even more lethal herbicides that prevent critical mineral uptake in plants and contaminate the natural environment, including vital pollinating agents.

It is known that honey bees pollinate over 70% of crops accounting for 90% of our foods. Have the Government agencies regulated the use of these lethal chemicals? Do they even know that unless they strictly apply the regulatory norms, their own future generations would appear in historical statistics as victims of democide for which they may be posthumously held responsible?

As one wit said ‘parents of this generation will be burying their children.’ How long our elected representatives and feudal bureaucrats will survive on stolen organic foods remains a moot question?  The clock always turns full circle.

Dr Arun Shrivastava is an accredited management consultant and highly experienced researcher and writer. He taught Strategic Management and Long Range Planning at the International Management Institute, Delhi. Since 9/11, he has devoted much time to researching New World Order issues. He is South Asia correspondent of Salem-News of Oregon, USA and a regular contributor to Global Research. His email is: arun1951@gmail.com