Traditional Knowledge in Modern India: Preservation, Promotion, Ethical Access and Benefit Sharing Mechanisms

186 Pages·2019·2.129 MB·English

by  Nirmal Sengupta

Nirmal Sengupta
Traditional
Knowledge in
Modern India
Preservation, Promotion, Ethical Access
and Benefit Sharing Mechanisms
Traditional Knowledge in Modern India
Nirmal Sengupta
Traditional Knowledge in
Modern India
Preservation, Promotion, Ethical Access
fi
and Bene t Sharing Mechanisms
123
Nirmal Sengupta
Indian Institute of AdvancedStudy(IIAS)
Shimla,India
ISBN978-81-322-3921-5 ISBN978-81-322-3922-2 (eBook)
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Preface
As an energetic professional planner in the newly formed State Planning Board, I
wastravelingthroughtheStateofBihartofindmattersthatneededattentioninthe
ensuingFive-YearEconomicPlan.Ononeofthesetripsbyjeep,someonetoldme,
‘That’s an ahar’. Just an earthen embankment on ground, it was nothing impres-
sive. Ahars and pynes were used for irrigation, I learnt. However, after being
trained to notice them, I slowly realized that there were hundreds of ahars in and
around Gaya District. They must be irrigating a lot, I thought. But there was no
mentionofitintheStateirrigationstatistics.Thereshouldbesomedatasomewhere
—Iwentthroughallpossibledatasources.Ultimately,Ifoundsomeinformationin
Hunter’sStatisticalAccountofBengal,writteninthe1870s.Huntermentionedahar
and made some funny connection with famines. Intrigued, I went through the
Famine Commission’s and many related reports. I could not believe what I found.
By all accounts, Gaya District, the seat of ahar–pyne irrigation, was ‘immune to
famine’whentherestofIndiawasbeingravagedbyrepeatedfamines.Howoldare
these?Ireadacoupleofhistorybooks,asnovels,tosatisfymycuriosity.Aharand
relatedtermswerementionedinArthashastraandJatakastories.Iwrotealetterto
a top historian hoping that he would find it exciting. There was no reply. Nor was
there any from my younger historian friends, who would rather laugh at all these.
But I felt it was too important a matter to be forgotten. I, a statistician, became a
reluctant historian. With a bit of archival work, I published an article in a reputed
journal(Sengupta 1980). It created a sensation. In1985, I published acompilation
ofneglectedtraditional/indigenousirrigationsystemsfromalloverIndia.Andthen,
I washed my hands off of history and went back to planning. Ahars are worth
supporting,Ifeltasadevelopmentplanner.Ifweunderstandhowtheysurvivedand
functioned so well in the absence of any support from the authority, they may be
revitalized.Withalittledigression,Imayinformthatatthattimesimilarquestions
bothered several others all over the world after finding that there were many
interesting old techniques that are surviving without any support from the gov-
ernment. Over time, these inquiries developed into theories of common property
and self-organization. In 2009, Elinor Ostrom was given the Nobel Prize for her
works in this field.
v
vi Preface
Going back to the 1980s, soon I learnt that I was not the only one to notice
continuing importance of traditional knowledge. There were many others. Ashok
Jhunjhunwala, Professor of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of
Technology Madras, was curious how local carpenters calculated their material
requirements for a job faster than any qualified engineer. His inquiries led him to
learn about the traditional Indian mathematical techniques that work faster for
numericalcalculation.Ashokrealizedthatitwillhaveagoodusefor economizing
time in machine computation. K. V. Chandramouli, a chemist, traveled all over
Indiatolearnaboutthewidevarietyofnaturaldyesinuse.Heconductedthousands
of experiments at his laboratory in Bangalore to standardize the application of
natural dyes. Natural dyes are now widely used in textiles, leather goods, and
children’s toys. There were many others with similar interests, in India, in other
developing countries, even in the West. Once I was taken on a hike into Dutch
countryside by my friend Linden Vincent, a reputed engineer. Her purpose was to
introduce me to the tastes of the Netherlands through wild berries before they
vanish in a few more years. In a few years, local berries began to reappear as
varieties of jams in Walmarts of USA, but not in Europe.
Since then, interest is growing in India and abroad. Because of the vast range
of the subjects it touched, almost anywhere I worked, I found some use of tradi-
tional knowledge-related issues. I was happy to prepare a compilation of valuable
traditional knowledge (Sengupta 2007) when the Indian Economic Association
askedmetodoso.Butatnostagewastraditionalknowledgemymajorwork.After
retirement, when the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, offered me this
opportunity to write a book on a topic of my choice, I felt this would be worth
writingabout.Today,traditionalknowledgeisbeingdiscussedinWHO,WTO,and
UNESCO. In 2015, at the age of eighty-four, a little-known pharmacologist
YouyouTureceivedtheNobelPrizeforherpathbreakingdiscoveryofmalariadrug
basedontheChinesetraditionalknowledge.InIndiatoo,interesthasbeensteadily
increasing, and along with that, many questions. In this book, I introduce to the
readersthetopic,itsimportance,recentdevelopmentsinIndiaandabroad,andwhat
arebeingdonenowforIndiantraditionalknowledge.Itisatravelogueinthefourth
dimension. I narrate what I have seen changing in the last fifty years. Like a good
travel writer, I have tried to go beyond the surface.
Different people comprehend traditional knowledge differently. Some of them
think it is the knowledge of good old days that are now forgotten. A Nobel Prize
was awarded to a discovery based on such a piece of ancient Chinese knowledge.
At the same time, countries are discussing traditional knowledge in WTO because
ofitsimportanceincurrentinternational trade.Globalagenciesoftenclubtogether
traditional knowledge and indigenous knowledge. Anthropologists know that
knowledge of tribes evolve, and in their own ways, are just as modern as the rest.
To many Indians, all those and only those written in Sanskrit are traditional
knowledge. Are not the texts written in ancient Peruvian or Persian too traditional
knowledge?Ihaveusedageneralizednotionoftraditionalknowledgethatincludes
these partial ones and some more. Also, throughout the text, the origins of several
differentperceptionsof‘traditionalknowledge’havebeendiscussed.Acompelling
Preface vii
stancethathasemergedlatelyseestraditionalknowledgenotonlyasworthlessand
against progress but also as valuable and worth developing at times. This is the
aspectthatimpressedusandalsobroughtintheglobalandnationalagencies.Inthis
book, I have discussed only this positive dimension of traditional knowledge.
Not all aspects of tradition are worth preserving and promoting. There exist
severalobnoxious practices in Indian tradition that make many of us ashamed, not
proud.Butthosealonearenotourtradition.Rejectingthepositiveandseeingonly
thedirtisalsoablunder.Knowledgeandrespectarecloselyrelated.Slightingone’s
knowledge is the prerequisite for demeaning one. Fortunately, in the last 50 years,
boththeLeftandtheRight,atleastsomesectionsofthem,havecometorealizethe
needtopreserveandpromote thepositiveaspects,andonly thepositive aspectsof
Indian tradition. While working in different fields with admirable zeal, they are
facingavarietyofproblems.Thisbookisanaccountofthesecutting-edgeissuesas
well as the different ways people are trying to cope with these issues. It may even
helpthemintheireffortsbyassistingthemtolearnfromeachotherandhelpingone
another.
During all these years, I received not just information but also guidance,
assistance, criticism, appreciation, encouragement, and support from many people.
Icannotmentionindividuallyallthenumerouspersonsandorganizationstowhom
Ioweadebtofgratitudeforthematerialofthisbook.Itwouldhavebeendifficultto
write such a book without the intense multi-disciplinary interactions, characteristic
of Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. I am thankful to the management
andthedirectoratthattime,ChetanSingh,forinvitingmetoworkhere,andtothe
staff at the Institutefor making it possible with theirservices. For specific sections
of this manuscript, I consulted several subject experts in and out of this Institute.
TheyareA.V.Balasubramanian,RadhikaBorde,KeshabDas,JagdishLalDawar,
Prachi Dublay, Meghali Goswami, Aarti Kawlra, Amba Kulkarni, Ajay Kumar,
P. Madhavan, Arpita Mitra, Anindita Mukhopadhyay, P. Pushpangadan,
B. Ravichandran, Aromar Revi, Mira Sadgopal, Makarand Sathe, R. Seenivasan,
Darshan Shankar, Navjyoti Singh, Jyoti Sinha, Swapna Sundar, K. L. Tuteja, and
VijayaShankarVarma.Ithankallofthemforthediversekindsofhelpandabsolve
themfromthemistakesthatarestillthereinthebook.IalsothankAnushree,Mike,
and Buddhadeb for their subject comments and editing assistance.
Kolkata, India Nirmal Sengupta
References
Sengupta, Nirmal.1980.IndigenousIrrigationOrganisationofSouthBihar.IndianEconomicand
SocialHistoryReview17(2):157–189.
Sengupta, Nirmal (ed.). 2007.Economic Studies of Indigenous & Traditional Knowledge. New
Delhi: Academic Foundation and the Indian Economic Association Trust for Research and
Development.
Contents
1 The Manufacture of the ‘Traditional’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Two Worlds of Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Phase of Explorers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Sir Arthur Cotton and Irrigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.3 Smallpox Vaccination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.4 Late Nineteenth Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.5 Voelcker, Howard and Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.6 Havell and Indian Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Indians at the Encounter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.1 Gaekwad of Baroda and Technical Education . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.2 Science Education and Modern Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.2.3 Hakim Ajmal Khan and Ayurveda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2.4 R. N. Chopra and Indigenous Drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.2.5 Gauhar Jaan and Indian Classical Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3 Linking Science and the Rural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3.1 Tagore’s Sriniketan Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.3.2 Marthandam, the YMCA Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3.3 Gandhi’s Thoughts on Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.3.4 Nehru’s View of Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.4 Post-Independence Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.4.1 Modernization and Traditional Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.4.2 Social Roots of Traditional Knowledge Activism. . . . . . . . 26
1.4.3 Global Recognition for Traditional Knowledge . . . . . . . . . 27
1.4.4 Plan of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2 Global Mechanisms of Protection and Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1 For Recognition and Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.1.1 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
ix
x Contents
2.1.2 World Health Organization (WHO). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.1.3 International Labour Organization (ILO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.1.4 UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations. . . . . . . . . 36
2.1.5 Evolution of Other Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2 Norms of Sharing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.2.1 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) . . . . . . . 38
2.2.2 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) . . . . . . . 40
2.2.3 World Trade Organization (WTO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3 IPR and Traditional Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.1 Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.2 Positive Protections of TK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.3.3 Defensive Strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.3.4 IPR Facilitation for TK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3 Traditional Knowledge for Basic Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.1 Indian Midwifery Tradition—The Dai System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.2 Surface Flow Irrigation Tanks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.3 Housing—A Human Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.4 Changing Priorities—Niyamgiri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4 Biodiversity and Genetic Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.1 Jeevani—The Wonder Herb of Kanis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.2 A Holistic Approach—FRLHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.3 Basmati—In the New Millennium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.4 AYUSH-Based Cosmetics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5 Traditional Knowledge in Manufacturing and Industry . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.1 Drug Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.2 A Sweetener of Bengal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.3 The Sacred Ring of Payyanur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.4 Channapatna Toys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6 Traditional Cultural Expressions, Expressions of Folklore . . . . . . . . 127
6.1 Banarasi Saree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.2 Music (Folklore). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.3 Built and Tangible Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
6.4 Modern Yoga. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Contents xi
7 Miscellaneous Other Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.1 Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.2 Climate Change and Traditional Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Author Index.. .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 169
Subject Index.. .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 173