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India has in recent years emerged as the second largest globally in agricultural production and the sixth largest in agricultural exports. “Along with this success comes covert and insidious campaigns to tarnish India’s image especially in the foreign media and internet. Unfortunately, such campaigns originate from unscrupulous and overzealous elements in India’s public funded educational institutes,” says Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) elaborating on an ongoing episode at the Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), currently in a row over for antinational slogans being made on its campus.
In 2014, a few researchers at the JNU collected an undisclosed number of vegetable samples from around Delhi, analysed them at the government funded laboratory in the JNU using undisclosed testing methods. Without establishing vital specifics such as limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantitation (LOQ), linear calibration, confirmatory tests and without even keeping basic records such as log books, chromatograms etc managed to fabricate a study and made public their study at a conference held in San Francisco, USA (in August 2014) and subsequently in a journal published from Europe (in November 2014).
The title of study published in the US was ‘Health risk assessment of organochlorine pesticide exposure through dietary intake of vegetables grown in the periurban sites of Delhi, India’, while the study published in Europe was titled ‘Assessment of the concentration, distribution, and health risk of organochlorine pesticides in Momordica charantia grown in Periurban region of Delhi, India’.
These reports alleged 100 percent contamination of Indian vegetables with 20 different pesticides banned for use in India 20-30 years ago. “The unmistakable message they sent out to the global community in the seminars and journals outside India was that Indian farmers are using banned pesticides on vegetables and importing and consuming them could involve health dangers. This should be viewed seriously in context of the fact that India is the second largest producer of vegetables in the world and one of the largest exporters of fresh vegetables,” said CCFI.
A plain reading of the JNU studies show that they are founded on fabricated and falsified data. The CCFI, through its members, filed a series of applications under Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to have the laboratory generated raw data behind the studies published abroad. The JNU authorities have repeatedly refused to provide the laboratory data despite precedent decisions from the Central Information Commission (CIC) that the data generated during the course of published work including that of PhD should be disclosed to the public who seek to assess the scientific veracity. The matter has since been appealed and the final appeal is pending before the CIC.
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What is more shocking is that the JNU has refused to reveal the laboratory data behind the impugned studies published abroad to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) that functions under the Minstry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. In a formal communication sent to CCFI, the ICAR has openly termed the JNU study as fabricated.
According to All India Network Project on Pesticide Residues of India Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), there is no sample of vegetable found in India with any banned pesticides as mentioned in the JNU report. The question is if these pesticides do not exist anywhere in the world for the last 25 to 30 years, how can Indian farmers have access to such banned pesticides?
Initially, the JNU cited an University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines not to disclose the laboratory data behind the published studies. However, UGC has since contradicted the stand taken by the JNU categorically stating that there is no such restrictive guidelines.
What is research misconduct, a new and emerging white collar crime? The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, which functions under the Ministry of Human Resources defines the term ‘research misconduct’ as follows:
“Research misconduct or fraud in science refers to the fabrication, falsification, plagiarism in proposing, carrying out or reporting results of research and deliberate and dangerous or negligent deviations from accepted practice in carrying out research. It includes failure to follow established protocols if this failure results in unreasonable risk or harm to humans, other vertebrates or environment. It shall also include facilitating of misconduct in research by collusion or concealment of such actions by others and by any plan or conspiracy or attempt to do any of these things.”
CCFI asserts that the JNU scholars committed research fraud on several counts as captured in this definition.
Many economically advanced countries such as US, EU, Japan, and China have strong legislations to investigate and punish scientists who commit research fraud. A scientist was given a hefty fine of $7.2 million and 57 months imprisonment in the USA by the Office of research Integrity (US-ORI) in 2015 following the research misconduct. CCFI is of the opinion that the Central government should consider coming out with similar legislation in India.
Indian agriculture, which ranks second in production and sixth in agri exports globally, can ill afford fabricated and malicious publications in foreign journals. Incidences of research misconducts, such as JNU, puts unnecessary doubts in the minds of people about the safety of Indian agricultural commodities and affects the exports of agriculture products from the country.
The government will have to ensure that the public-funded institutes are held accountable for malpractices and performances are measured on the quantity & quality of their research output. Scientists committing fraud is termed as scientific misconduct, but given the ramification of such studies, time may have arrived to make it a criminal fraud as misconduct degrades trust in science and is potentially more dangerous causing real-world harm.
