Baba Ramdev - In search of Desi and safe Maggi
After announcement of Baba Ramdev to create safe Desi brand of Maggy, the controversy has put the clock back to the days of late eighties and almost whole nineties, when organizations like Azadi Bachao Andolan, Samta Sanghtan , Bharat Jan Andolan,Yuva Bharat, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and some communist and Islamic organizations launched the campaign to boycott goods produced by foreign(European and Ameriacan) multinationals. They had prepared a whole list of multinational products like soft drinks, tooth pastes, fast foods, creams, soaps, shoes, cloths, bikes, refrigerators etc. and its alternative Indian products. Persons active in these organizations took the oath of using only Indian made Desi products instead of items produced by foreign multinationals. Whenever someone found his comrade using MNC products they used to cut jokes on him, so that he felt ashamed and had to apologize and discard that item from daily use. Azadi Bachao Andolan founded by a Mathematics Professor of Allahabad University Late Banwari Lal Sharma has created tons of literature, hours of speeches and miles of human chains on the issue. They created a fiery and powerful orator like Rajiv Dixit on the concept of swdeshi, who started from Gandhian discourse, submerged with RSS ideology and met an untimely death in Baba Ramdev Ashram.
But these organizations and their determinations withered away gradually because wave of globalization was so powerful that it swept the feet of these anti-MNC and swadeshi movements. Coa- cola and Pepsi soft drinks , their chips started appearing on theirs as well as their targeted middle class tables and they started visiting McDonalds and KFC on the alibi of their children. During that period somehow Maggi entered into their kitchens followed by mesmerizing adds of Amitabh Bachhan , Madhuri Dixit and Preety Zinta. On the other hand the Desi companies became partners of MNCs and it became difficult to suggest alternative products .
On Saturday in a seminar on people-oriented media, RSS freethinker Govindacharya suggested two books to understand the present consumerist decline of Media and other areas of society. One –When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Carton and Other –Confessions of an economic Hitman by John Perkins. David C Carton a professionally trained business management personal was in-charge of South Asia American Aid Program. He left his job and wrote many books on ill effects of globalization. In the same way John Perkins , a CIA agent in Latin American countries, exposed the Washington consensus and describing the story of bringing a country into debt- trap by suggesting the formula of structural adjustment.
Now with Nestle caught red handed in violating the prescribed norms of food contents and adding dangerous substances like Lead and MSG in the diets of children , withdrawing their product from the market , again the swadeshi concept has come to a full circle. Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev has promised to launch a desi version of Maggi with no harmful substance. The slogan has been coined as—"Sidhi sev, Sidha kaam, bole Ram Ram.’’ Surprisingly this is going to be branded by Baba Ram Rahim’s MSG (mesaanger of God) but these Babas have their own share of controversy relating to their business, political ambitions and their products.
In the present situation the same question arises that are these desi alternatives a temporary arrangement to give a respite to Nestle and provide them an opportunity to re-launch them, or this is going to be sustainable? Previous experiences does not support the hope of sustainability. But the present experience generates strong hope of regulatory intervention. Indeed awareness researchers across the country can make great contribution in making people and system feel safe about nutrition and public health.
Arun Kumar Tripathi
