LAHORE: The Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) taking strong notice of Indian application to European Union (EU) for registering Basmati as Indian products under GI laws, has vowed to defend Pakistan’s rights under the WTO.
“The Indians are making efforts to muddy the truth and steal our heritage. We know how to respond and they will know it soon,” warned REAP here on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Punjab Agriculture Minister Hussain Jehanian Gardezi while chairing a collective meeting of the provincial agriculture department’s officers, Rice Research Institute, Kala Shah Kaku, and REAP representatives, announced to defend Pakistan’s right on Basmati at every forum.
A REAP representative said that in 2004 the Association with the support of government had made efforts during negotiations with the EU at Geneva through exchange of letters between EU-Pakistan at WTO Geneva as well as EU-India simultaneously which led to some agreements establishing that Super Basmati and many other Basmati rice varieties were being grown in Pakistan and recognized world over as original Basmati rice rejecting exclusive claim by India.
India could grow very little Basmati in 2004 that too with great difficulty only in areas directly adjacent to Pakistan’s borders known as Majha, comprising Amritsar, Gurdaspur and R S Pura etc. To increase its volume of so-called Basmati, India had pushed hard in 2004 negotiations at Geneva to get included Pusa variety, then known in all Basmati rice trade circles as ‘duplicate Basmati’ or a non-Basmati that unscrupulous Indian rice exporters used to mix in the little Basmati they were growing. The EU-India agreement in 2004 included a long list of so called traditional Basmati varieties that were in physical short supply but also included Pusa (duplicate Basmati) as Indian Basmati rice in order to hoodwink the world.
The current misleading application moved by India is based on fudged reality. They have tried to usurp all true original Basmati growing areas ignoring reality that all Basmati growing areas of British India are situated in Pakistan. They accept in the application that the first ever mention of the word “Basmati” appeared in the epic poem “Heer Ranjha” by the great Punjabi poet Syed Waris Shah in 1766. Carrying their fraudulent line forward, they also conveniently and deliberately omitted to state that Syed Waris Shah lived and wrote this poem at Jandiala Sher Khan, District Sheikhupura, which was then in British India but now in Pakistan at a huge distance from the Indian border with Pakistan.
Research was done from 1926 through 1933 under British India in Punjab, which then covered what is today, entire Pakistan Punjab, Indian Punjab, Haryana, parts of Himachal Pradesh and even some bordering areas of Uttar Pradesh. This research found that there were no commercial Basmati rice paddy arrivals in the areas which today are in India. Dehradun did not grow enough rice to meet its tiny local population’s needs. Almost the entire Basmati rice paddy arrivals were then from areas that are today in Pakistan. India is trying to falsely claim that all British India areas are today India. This is a patent lie. The world will reject such lies when we tell the truth with evidence, REAP hoped.
The EU-Pakistan agreement through exchange of letters in 2004 is very much reality even today and confirms without any doubt that Pakistan is the home of Basmati rice. Then how can India claim exclusive ownership of the Basmati rice?
All original Basmati growing areas that were in British India till 1947 are today in Pakistan. Basmati 370, the mother and father of all Basmati rice in the world, was discovered as a original historical and natural landrace from Kaulo Tarer, District Hafizabad, now in Punjab, Pakistan, by Rice Research Station, Kala Shah Kaku, Punjab, British India, during research from 1926 to 1933. This historic institution has since become Rice Research Institute, Kala Shah Kaku, Punjab, Pakistan.
The federal and provincial governments, growers, traders, dealers, millers, and exporters of original Basmati rice from Pakistan are all together and will oppose this shady application and it will be rejected soon, the REAP announced.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020