Activists use a story in the villages they visit to explain safe life to the farmers. It goes like this:

A farmer reached God's shop and asks, "What do you sell, Lord?"

God replies, "Whatever your heart desires."

Farmer: "I want success and happiness."

God smiles and says, "I sell only seeds and not fruits."

In life, the transition from seed to fruit remains a responsibility of humans; there is no role of God. Getting a fruit out of seed requires a collective of the right conditions - the right kind of soil, adequate rainfall, proper sunshine, the proper organic nutrient and a team that shall oversee the other conditions. The enjoyment of the fruit takes appropriate fruit (wealth distribution, justified sharing and team coordination during monitoring the transformation of the seed into plant which in turn bears the fruit. The whole cycle is orchestrated in a 'give and take' manner which is controlled by nature. This nature is what most of us call God. The farmers (the collective) monitor the transformation.

But today, while some of the conditions of this process are being met, one crucial step has been circumvented. Almost everybody other than the farmer, benefit from the fruits of his labour.

Let us see what happens when we, given the context of the present, tamper with this cycle of nature. If we bypass nature and plant genetically modified (GM)seeds, we may probably have to recategorise fruits as pharma products. This would mean more jobs in industries and laboratories. But  for the farmer? For 2.5 lakh cotton growers in Maharashtra, the use of Bt Cotton meant mounting debts and eventual suicide. The lies of the American agro company Monsanto about the low costs of GM seeds is exposed by the fact that American farmers have resisted the seed company's profit-steered motive to get them to adopt GM seeds. Sadly, in our case, our nagar sevaks, MLAs and elected representatives have let companies like Monsanto in as these multinational companies nourish feed vested interests. There is no public debate on how Monsanto's GM seeds will end hunger in the country, yet our leaders have somehow been privy to 'scientifc' evidence that these are the panacea. The 'convinced' are now trying to convert us. Only a handful of MPs from the Left and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar seem sincere about walling our farmers against the GM seeds. They are the resistance even as our government readies the red carpet for GM crops. It, in fact, is on the verge of approving the single-stop clearance window  for MNCs seeling GM seeds - through the Biological Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, 2011.

When I talk of corruption being responsible for hunger, I am, of course, not talking of the subsidies for food in parliament canteen being imagined in the light of rotting grains in government warehouse as millions go hungry in this question. We could talk of it but we know that the MPs vote on increasing their own wages; so, 'perks' like subsidised food are a petty concern. Let us, on the other hand talk of political will. How is that national interest constitutes fighting against a ban on a version of the Bhagvad Gita brought out by the western ISKCON while a foreign MNC like Monsanto is allowed to conduct multi-location trials on Karnataka's traditional brinjal variety - Udupi Gulla? Lalu Prasad and Sushma Swaraj vociferously took up the cause of the Hare Krishna brigade promoted by an international body but looked away when Monsanto was tampering with Udupi Gulla which is often offered to Lord Krishna in various pujas because of its unique taste and flavour? We may not want the Gita banned anywhere in the world but do we need American GM seeds in our fields?

In August, few Greenpeace activists were arrested outside Parliament when they tried to display a banner reading: “Do Not Corrupt My Food”. On September 6,a peoples' event initiated by Alliance For Safe Food, Greenpeace and Limca Book of World Records was initiated in Delhi Haat. Millions  of brinjal lovers were collectively invited to record a famous Brinjal Bharta eating event. Brinjal in form of chatpatta Baigan Bharta was cooked. Twenty chefs from Delhi's Le Meriden Hotel worked together to prepare it. A letter to prime minister signed by over one lakh citizens was sent with the request to withdraw this dangerous anti-life BRAI Bill. A portion of this organic bharta was sent to prime minister also. Why? Because soon the parliamentarians under leadership of PM are going to pass a bill that shall promote GM brinjal instead of organic brinjal. Then, there will be no organic bharata available for tasting.

An invitation to alert citizens to rescue truth needs roadshows across villages and cities. A street-play titled 'Do not corrupt my food' has been staged in Uttarakhand and Delhi. BRAI is a bill that has been planted for all the wrong reasons. It safeguards the profits of the top one percent of MNCs while 99 percent of the poor and voiceless go hungry. In the process, this bill would have further turned the Indian agricultural sector into a slave of the American MNCs. The other dangerous bill in the government's arsenal is the 'Food Security Bill'. Without the right provisions, the bill will do nothing to end the situation as it is today, with rats partying at warehouses as grains rot while artificial shortages let black marketers party as well.

Prayers and seeds are similar - both have seemingly nothing. Yet, they also have the potential to create everything from life to prosperity. No seed can survive without oxygen just as prayer will fade without hope. Prayers make a person feel less lonely and more motivated for results. Seeds have the power to dispel barreness and fuel a hope for a rich harvest. Both reap - one desires, the other a crop. Where prayers and seeds differ is while prayers may benefit the one who is submitting, seeds produce flowers and fruits - feeding everything bees, birds to humans.

However, just as prayers are losing their appeal today as the world opts for coercion, so have our traditional seeds been discarded for the new GM seeds which supposedly give the farmer a better and faster yield. The buck must stop with our politicians who need new ways of defining themselves and set themselves on a course correction. When people trust blindly in you, you can never show them that they are blind. So, it needs dedication, awakening and leap of faith for our politicians to wake up to the hazard of GM crops.

The wasting away of safe food needs to be stemmed by correct seed-fruit economics.

Silence and corruption will only feed a gluttonous market that has no eyes and no ears. It will fail to bring any real change for our country.