EDITORIAL OPIATE TATHAGATA SATPATHY
All of a sudden, all hell is let loose. Nestle, a multinational food company, is slapped with a case and its popular product Maggi dragged out of shop shelves state after state with a rare flourish. The company is literally taken to cleaners over a really serious finding by a state food quality controller that the instant noodle packs – the tastemaker packet rather — contained dangerously high levels of lead. Most urban dwellers in particular are understandably worried. Fact, however, is that we are missing the woods for a tree.
This is not to support Nestle. But, the inescapable question is, what about the rest of the products that we consume, and how safe are they. The question arises from two premises, namely the already well-known allegation that our food safety controllers are hardly doing their job other than pocketing gratifications and hefty bribes, and many of the native food items sold in public are exposed to toxic substances to highly dangerous levels. In real terms, there have been little of governmental initiatives across the country to ensure food safety. Having set up an authority at the central level, or similar ones at state level, alone will not make much of a difference. For instance, food controllers state after state woke up only after their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh zeroed in on Maggi and detected danger. The frenzy with which they act now, that too against just one brand, would have us believe these official agencies came into existence just a day ago or that they had been in a deep slumber. Maybe Maggi was zoomed in on for some ulterior motive. Why were these checks not done decades earlier raises doubts.
The free-for-all in the Indian consumables sector has been astonishing for many years. There was virtually no control and various marketing agencies bribed their way into marketing substances with poisonous content, by way of over exposure to pesticides, fertilizers or chemicals.
The ingredients for our domestically produced items have not been imported. They are local, with high degree of contaminants, and exposed to dirt and filth in immense measure. The very many local companies that produce noodles, chips, pickles, energy or growth drinks such as Horlicks, Boost, Maltova and others to name a few, cannot be trusted to be producing them by observing prescribed safety standards. This is true even of chapatis, naan, fruits, vegetables and even milk and milk products. All these food stuff are infected in multiple ways. With callous dereliction of duty on the part of food safety officials, they all were having a field day. Not just Maggi or Nestle. Since most of these products do not undergo regular and proper and scientific tests, the very many Indian products might come up as much more harmful as well. Therefore, Maggi, per se, should not be the end all of the present safety concern or investigations. It should rather be the starting point of a total, absolute cleaning up of the messy market.
It is high time that all the food items sold in the market – packed, canned, directly sold in mandis as well as super stores – in this country are properly checked. There must be a backward integration to ascertain the source of various ingredients, their effects on human health, and even how they are produced. High levels of chemicals and pesticides are used in the production of vegetables, as also wheat. Apples entering markets have a wax coating, which is highly injurious to health. Fish varieties reach our hands long periods after they are caught, and chemicals like formalin are used as preservatives. In almost every consumable’s production and marketing, mischief is at work so as to earn extra profit. With food safety officials looking the other way, the scenario has been worsening to highly dangerous levels. The ultimate result is people pay through their nose to ‘buy’ slow deaths through consumption of such products.
In olden days, people met their food requirements from the farms close to their homes. There was a direct link between those who produced and those who consumed. No one dared to play mischief. Not anymore. With a sharp upswing in urbanization and a huge growth of population, the source of production of food items and the end user – the consumer — are really far apart. ‘From the Farm to the Table’ is a fallacious concept these days.
The time now is to be alert and ask questions. The consumer needs protection. This Maggi issue may be dealt a death blow by the media itself which could accept advertisements to ‘kill’ the news. Government officials will again look the other way for reasons not so unknown. The health of the nation would suffer again. The only way out is not to get limited to Maggi but to spread the investigations much wider and do it regularly. If the culprits are located, punish them severely. That may be the only way to rein in such a huge disaster from unfolding itself.