RESIDUE OF A REVOLUTION

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Bhola Singh is dead...

Bhola Singh was a farmer from village Balloh, district Bhatinda, Punjab. He is part of a story with a beginning and an end. But it has no middle. Thus what follows is a fragment. But it is not fiction.

Punjab practices intensive agriculture that needs pesticides. Industry says that, compared to the developed world, we use little pesticide in India. That is true, perhaps even in Punjab. But what industry does not tell you is that we find much more pesticide, compared to the developed world, in our food, our water, our soils. And now, our blood. As you will find, in this story that has no middle.

We know pesticide use in Punjab is one of the highest in the country. We also know there are residues in the food it produces. But what else? Do we know what pesticides are doing to people there? Whether cancer rates there are higher, or of a correlation between growing disease burden and the use of toxins? No. We don't. Why? Because there is no definite evidence. So, industry says, don't ask hypothetical questions. So, this story has no middle.

But our colleagues have tried to understand the science and politics of pesticide regulation: a piece of the missing middle. Another piece: they travelled to two districts