Public Health
By Kaushal Kishore*
Food Adulteration and the Honeygate
The spice adulteration factory functioning at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh came to the light in early December. They were packing donkey’s dung and straw powder in the packets of spices. However, it was not the spice of any well-known brand, still that kind of business is also going on in our country. Before that New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment (CSE) had exposed Honeygate; the adulteration of honey. The shocking observation of this investigation revealed that most of the branded honey in Indian markets were adulterated. Meanwhile, a factory was caught red handed in Agra that was occupied in making desi-ghee (clarified butter) out of animals–fat, bones and hooves.
These all are cases of messing up with the public health in order to gain a heavy profit. The figures of food adulteration are increasing day by day despite the efforts of state administration to curb the menace.
The outcome of a series of raids in Uttar Pradesh raised serious concern over the question of adulteration across the country. The owner of this spice factory at Hathras is said to be an office bearer of Hindu Yuva Vahini. Eighteen years ago, this organisation was founded by Yogi Aditya Nath, the current Chief Minister of the state. As such the issue is politicised. A few year back the MLA from Bahujan Samaj Party was found to run a similar Desi-Ghee factory in Agra.
The involvement of public figures in such illegal activities is an outcome of the institutionalisation of the public service. It seems to be impossible to annihilate the food adulteration business with the efforts of state administration alone. The adulteration of milk has been a serious problem across the length and breadth of India since the introduction of white revolution. The boom in the milk adulteration business is noticed every year during the season of winter festivals around Diwali. This kind of fatal experiments are continued on large scale in spite of the administrative strictness. This devaluation of morality in the marketplace is not only in violation of the law, but also causes many fatal diseases. The modernity peals off layer after layer in the interpretation of its political economy.
The team of Sunita Narain at CSE has brought sensational revelations after the tedious investigation about the syrup imported from China and similar products manufactured in India. The institute is being targeted by the top brands of honey and the regulatory authority, as well. Some of these brands can successfully hide the adulteration in the tests prescribed by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). As a consequence, the market is full of advertisements claiming the purity of their honey. After taking cognisance of this report, the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari wrote a letter to his colleague Piyush Goyal. The Chairman of Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, Bibek Debroy too referred to the CSE report in his column in a daily newspaper. He also talked about the study of Beekeeping Development Committee released by the Central Government in June 2019. Here he suggested that adding syrup was mandatory in order to make the honey tasty.
India that looks like a bee hive in the map is the eighth largest honey producer in the world. China is on the top in this list. However, there is a great demand for Indian honey in countries like USA, Canada, Germany, Japan and Middle East. In fact the natural honey is beneficial for human health. In this natural process the cycle of life is embedded. There is a proverbial wisdom in the West, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” The Belgian scholar Maurice Maeterlinck, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, wrote a book ‘The Life of The Bee’ in 1901. He said, “It’s actually estimated that more than a hundred thousand varieties of plants would disappear if the bees did not visit them.” After mixing the sugar syrup with the raw honey, the new fluid does not really remain honey. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India should frame rules for the processing of honey while taking care of this fact.
Apart from milk and products made from it, adulteration in spices, honey and other food stuffs is leading to rampant profiteering in the country. Not only the syrup imported from China, but the use of such substances produced in India should be stopped. The state agencies and common people are needed to show sensitivity in order to achieve this goal.
*The writer is a social activist and author of The Holy Ganga (Rupa, 2008), Managing Editor of Panchayat Sandesh, and his column Across The Lines appears in the vernacular publications.
I despair of any food being pure in India. We are too adept at adulteration, and worse, justifying and playing it down. We need strong, incorruptible Food Safety and Purity Commission. But can we ever hope to get such an impossible dream as a reality? All this has led to poor health, children with problems, people with diseases such as diabetes.
Sujatha Mathai.