EVERYBODY loves to hate the two cola firms but ironically, many of those very people despising them like to imbibe their products. Coca Cola and Pepsi might be the most popular brands in India, but they are also the most envied and hated brands.

The ‘cola wars’ in India are always colourful, as many politicians, the media, unions, business groups and other sundry players join in with their own agendas. The ‘pesticide-in-colas’ controversy has once again hit the headlines, as state governments rush to ban the consumption of soft drinks at schools, colleges and hospitals, while some – like Kerala – have also banned the production, sale and consumption of the two brands in the entire state.

But in a country where a majority of people do not have access to clean and safe drinking water, and where even in cities like Mumbai and Delhi, not many would dare drink water directly from the taps in their homes, and office-goers are forced to eat food from roadside vendors – leading to a spate of diseases including jaundice, cholera and gastroenteritis – the heat generated by the presence of pesticides in expensive soft drinks largely consumed by the affluent does appear strange.

Much of the chest-beating and moral outrage about the presence of pesticides in the two American colas is typical hyperbole. Ever since the stormy petrel of Indian socialism, former Industries Minister – and Janata Party leader – George Fernandes threw out Coca Cola from India in 1977 (the American giant returned about 15 years later, following the opening of the economy), the cola brands have come to be looked upon (by many Indians) as big evil representatives of imperialism and capitalism.

Yet, the two colas have captured an 80 per cent market share of the $2 billion Indian soft drinks market, indicating their huge popularity. Both the firms hire top Bollywood and cricket celebrities, paying them millions of rupees for endorsements, thus entrapping the younger generation to the fizzy (many would say harmful, because of their high calorific content) stuff.

The two American colas have, however, managed to not only survive, but even thrived, despite several assaults on them. Thus, after the Americans invaded Afghanistan – and later Iraq – demonstrations were held all over the country against President Bush and the US government, with many also calling for a boycott of Pepsi and Coke. There has been virtually no dent in sales, however.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based environmental NGO, had lambasted the two multinationals about three years ago, accusing them of selling stuff contaminated with pesticides. Sales dropped initially, but later picked up, as both notched record sales.

The CSE last week, after conducting extensive studies, once again repeated the charges against Pepsi and Coke, accusing them of selling soft drinks with residues of pesticides about 25 times higher than the proposed standards. But the government has still not come around to stipulating the standards for soft drinks, enabling the two firms to claim that they are not violating any norms.

The dispute between the government and the cola firms now revolves around the presence of pesticides in sugar. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has been working out the draft norms for the presence of pesticides in colas, and has stipulated 0.1 ppb (parts per billion) for individual pesticides, and 0.5 ppb for a combination of pesticides.

For packaged water, the BIS has set a 0.1 ppb limit for pesticides, and the same is also applicable to the water content in colas. The cola firms are confident about purifying the water to the desired level. However, the BIS and other government departments deny that Indian sugar is contaminated with pesticides, though the two soft drinks giants claim there was a presence of pesticides in the samples they had got analysed.

The India Health Ministry is now once again asking the BIS and other bodies to work out minimum standards for pesticides in sugar. But the sugarcane lobby is powerful in states like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and it would be difficult to enforce the norms, once they are out.

The premature ban imposed on the two soft drink majors by the Kerala government – its chief minister, V. Achuthanandan has been a virulent critic of the American firms, and has nurtured the anti-cola movement in the state for several years – has come in for a lot of criticism by business.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), the two most powerful business lobbies, have warned that the Kerala government’s move to ban the two products would slow down foreign investments and hurt the country.

They insisted that the state government should respect the due process of law, by conducting tests on the products, sending notices to the companies and seeking their explanation, before imposing an arbitrary ban. The Kerala decision is likely to be challenged in the courts by the two American firms, which have also been facing a lot of protests over the years from many groups in the state.

Unfortunately, politicians and governments in India prefer taking the easy way out. Instead of formulating norms for different food items, reducing the consumption of pesticides in agriculture, or even banning dangerous stuff like DDT, they prefer taking arbitrary decisions without worrying about the legal and economic consequences.

India is one of the largest producers and consumers of pesticides, and while most countries around the world have banned DDT, India continues to produce 10,000 tons of the substance, which is also sold openly and even exported. Samples of breast milk from mothers in Delhi had a few years ago indicated the presence of DDT.

The unchecked use of pesticides has led to disastrous environmental consequences. Water bodies, including rivers, lakes and ponds, are polluted because of widespread usage of pesticides, and even the underground table gets contaminated.

In Kerala, for instance, there has been uncontrolled use of pesticides like Endosulfan in cashew plantations, which has resulted in severe health problems, including birth deformities, in places like Kasaragod in the northern part of the state.

According to S. Naseema Beevi, head, department of entomology, at the Kerala Agricultural University, several vegetable samples that had been tested indicated high levels of pesticide residues.

The CSE has maintained in the past that its charges against Pepsi and Coke were incidental, as the larger campaign was against the misuse of pesticides in the country.

The Indian Council of Medical Research in a report pointed out that over half of all food commodities produced in the country were contaminated with pesticides. Worse, the levels in 20 per cent of the food were way above the maximum tolerance levels.

Most of the fruits and vegetable that are sold in the cities are found to be contaminated with organo-chlorine pesticides. Apples, grapes and other fruits are also contaminated with dangerous substances, but millions of unwary consumers eat them even without washing the fruits.

The use of pesticides has come down substantially in recent years. India produces about 45,000 tons of pesticides annually at present, down from a high of 80,000 tons in the 1990s.

According to Pradeep Dave, president, Pesticides Manufacturers and Formulators Association of India, pesticide sales fell to Rs35 billion last year from Rs40 billion in the previous year.

The use of genetically-modified (GM) crop like Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton has also helped in slowing down the use of pesticides. Total land under cultivation in India is around 140 million hectares, but Bt cotton accounts for a mere 1.5 million hectares. Cotton is cultivated on 9 million hectares of land, and the commodity is the largest consumer of agro-chemicals in the country.

But pesticide consumption is not expected to decline sharply, or at least until GM crops account for about 20 million hectares of land under cultivation, which is a long way off. The government will have to come out with more stringent pesticide control laws to ensure that Indians do not get poisoned, not just by soft drinks, but by most food items.