Bending over backwards to protect Indian yoga

Experts compile database of poses to guard against cultural piracy by western big business.

New Delhi // On the first floor of a modern office block in central Delhi, Neetu Saxena and about 40 colleagues sit hunched over rows of computers painstakingly entering data in alphanumeric code. At first glance, it could be a scene from any one of the Indian information technology companies that have fuelled the country's economic boom over the past 20 years.

But Ms Saxena is not writing new software, or performing back-office services. She is a doctor of yoga and part of a team working to protect technology India developed thousands of years ago. "Yoga is Indian," she said in an interview. "Foreign countries are trying to patent it. Our traditional knowledge needs to be protected." Ms Saxena is one of 200 experts employed by the Indian government to compile the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), a unique database designed to prevent foreign companies from patenting products based on ancient subcontinental know-how.

Established in 2001, the library began by trying to prevent "bio-piracy" in the pharmaceutical industry by collating and translating remedies from India's three main traditional medicine systems: Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha. But the government is now increasingly worried about cultural piracy, particularly in regard to yoga, which is often stripped of its religious overtones and repackaged to cater to non-Hindus in the West.

In 2002, the government was outraged to learn that the Los Angeles-based "guru to the stars", Bikram Choudhury, had been awarded a copyright for the 26 postures he uses in his "hot yoga" sessions. "We do not want to stop people practising yoga, but nobody should be able to claim they have created a new yoga and start charging franchise money," the head of the library, Vinod Kumar Gupta, said. "Yoga should be free for everyone to use just as it is in India."

India's health and science ministries established the TKDL after the United States and European Union issued patents for basmati rice and medical products containing neem and turmeric, two plants widely used in Ayurveda and Unani. Employees of the project study India's vast canon of ancient Sanskrit, Urdu, Persian, Arabic and Tamil texts, including sacred scriptures such as the Hindu holy book the Bhagavad Gita, for descriptions of old remedies and techniques.

Identifying the information and entering it on the database, where it appears in English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese, is complex and time consuming, requiring language experts, IT specialists , doctors of traditional medicine and yoga - and lawyers. "Our job is huge," Mr Gupta said. "We are a civilisation which is 5,000 years old, which has a tradition of codifying knowledge. We have transcribed 150 texts; we are in the business of transcribing another 200, and I am sure this is not even half a per cent of what exists in this country."

The database already contains 200,000 medical formulations employing ingredients as varied as ostrich fat (for aches and pains), powdered nightingale droppings (a skin lightener and laxative) and charred sea crab (for constipation, ulcers, cataracts and dental stains). The aim of the database is to establish "prior art", the legal principle that an idea cannot be patented if it is already in the public domain.

India struggled to prove that in the past, and was drawn into lengthy legal battles because most traditional knowledge is now passed on orally. Since 2006, however, foreign patent offices have had access to the TKDL so they can check whether something is already known in India. Last year, the European Patent Office threw out 13 applications for products using traditional Indian knowledge without India having to send lawyers.

"Zero cost and the time period is three or four months compared to spending years and millions of dollar fighting a case," Mr Gupta said. Patent offices in the United States, Germany and Japan also use the TKDL and Mr Gupta hopes Canada, South Africa and Australia will gain access soon. But ultimately the library is just an interim measure. What developing countries like India really want is an international law that prevents bio- and cultural piracy and generates income for holders of traditional knowledge.

After years of lobbying, members of WIPO, the UN agency for intellectual property rights, finally began talks on such a law last year, but it is unclear whether members can agree given the disparate interests of developing and developed nations. Many developed countries dispute the need for a such a law, saying the threat has been overstated, while the pharmaceutical industry says it would discourage companies from looking for new cures from medicinal plants.

So, until Mr Gupta gets the law he dreams of, he will carry on expanding the TDKL. In September, he plans to add details in five languages of 900 yoga poses selected from 20 seminal texts - including some more than 2,000 years old. Entries for the most popular 250 will include video clips to be filmed in the Himalayas this month. His team will then continue scouring old texts for descriptions of less common yoga poses to prevent any claims that a new form of the ancient art has been invented.

"Patents, you must understand, are the engine of an economy: whether a country becomes rich or doesn't become rich is primarily down to its technology," he said. "When you buy a technology from the West it is the choice of the West to give you that technology or not and they will not give you it for free," he added. "We say these knowledge systems also earn us some rights because they have been preserved by this country and if others want to use them, they should pay for it."

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