There is reason for cheer in the acceptance by the US Patents Office of India's challenge to the granting of a haldi (turmeric) patent to the University of Mississippi Medical Centre in 1995. The success is proof that Third World countries' loss of rights over traditional knowledge is not a foregone conclusion as feared in the wake of the Uruguay Round agreement. It is proof that countries which do their homework and argue their case well have relatively little to fear even if they do not belong to the big economic powers' club, and even though the implementation of the agreement is by no means fully fair and transparent. Above all, such ``victories'' are sorely needed to silence the scaremongers who have had a field day creating and feeding on absurd fears in the absence of concrete evidence to the contrary. At least it makes it easier for those who do the work to ignore them and get on with their job: to dig as hard and deep on the full range of contentious trade issues as the CSIR did on the haldi patent.

There is no room for triumphalism here. If anything, this is a cautionary tale, not an incentive to complacency. To begin with, the haldi case is itself still open to appeal. The CSIR will have to keep up the good work to make sure its triumph does not yield to failure. If it did, the euphoria already apparent in media reports could turn to despair and anger, and would reinforce the considerable lung-power of the shrill activist lobby. The patent case is a reminder that the game is about information and knowledge warfare. If India is in a seriously challenged position, it is because it has not even begun to reflect about how to channel all information and resources in a single-minded way. It has not even committed manpower for the long term to trade issues which, the whole world recognised long ago, have become the most important of international economic dealings. The knowledge and expertise of all the people who participated on India's behalf in the Uruguay Round talks should be there for the government to draw upon. Freshness is not an asset here. Different bodies and ministries do their own work without reference to others. The industry, commerce and textiles ministries are prominently involved, as are the CSIR and the Patents Office. But where is the coordination? Addressing this involves not money so much as vision and a determination to come out on top.

It must strike those who follow India's trade actions that there is a pronounced element of schizophrenia in its responses. Elation follows decisions that favour India, such as the World Trade Organisation ruling on an Indo-American dispute on ladies' garments, or the US Patents Office's action now. Yet the first suggestion of adverse action and the chattering classes burst into indignant invective. These are the ways of a bully who will play by the rules when he wins the toss but, if not, will browbeat the little boys. Unfortunately for it, India is not a big boy in this league. It must learn to play by the rules and recognise that there will be ``victories'' and ``defeats,'' and not just because the world cheats -- though it does, sometimes -- but because that is how it is.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.