America once gave a patent on haldi. Yes, the same haldi your mother puts on every cut.
In 1995 the US Patent Office gave the University of Mississippi Medical Center a patent for using turmeric powder to heal wounds. On paper, the idea now belonged to them.
Dr R A Mashelkar was heading CSIR in India then. His team decided to fight it. They dug out old Sanskrit texts and Indian medical papers showing we had used haldi on wounds for centuries.
On 13 August 1997 the US cancelled the patent. The whole fight cost India about 5 lakh rupees.
It was the first time a developing country got a US patent on its traditional knowledge cancelled. After that India built a digital library of old Ayurveda and Yoga texts so nobody abroad could do this again.
Next time you put haldi on a cut, remember someone had to go to America to prove it was ours.
