Pesticides in Pepsi are not a big deal, says the Supreme Court

Pesticides in Pepsi are not a big deal, said the Supreme Court yesterday. Consequently, the beverage (alt. pesticide) giant PepsiCo walks free again. Of course, this is not surprising. The company and its counterparts in the Indian market have been tried so many times in court that it almost seems like they have evolved into a thriving corporal force engineered to face-slam any criminal charge that crosses their path.

In case we have forgotten, this is not the first time that the FMCG corporate is being indicted on the grounds of pesticide traces being found in their product. In the recent decade, Pepsi and even its bittersweet rival CocaCola have both borne the brunt of the public in the same context.

In the past decade, the cola companies have laid back (and probably sun-tanned themselves), while we the people of India raised our BP levels by banning their colas, burning their banners and dissecting their product samples on the benches of our courtrooms only to watch all the ‘allegations’ get lost in the myriad of mazes and loopholes that the Indian Food Safety ‘Standards’ are made of.

With history repeating itself, what is interesting to watch is how the same issue surfaces after a break every 3 years (muck akin to Halley’s Comet visiting every 75 years) and is gracefully swept under the rug by Pepsi in one clean motion. Accusations, allegations and trials-they all seem pointless now; Pepsi has mastered all the counter-moves.

Certainly, there is no disputing the Supreme Court’s verdict. So we might as well accept what has been indiscreetly handed out to us, with a pinch of salt: There will be pesticide traces not just in Pepsi, but in almost everything you eat; Get used to it. So lets all go drink a can of Pepsi right away and later on spray our bedrooms with Endosulfan, just as a symbolic first step to embracing our dear Court’s memorandum.

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