PESTICIDES IN COCA-COLA AND PEPSI - Cultural Anthropology

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 22:4
(developed) countries such as the Netherlands and that Coca-Cola is produced by a 200-year-old
company.
15. Interestingly, the fact that production and marketing of Coca-Cola and Pepsi in India is undertaken
by local subsidiaries does not dilute their connotation of being “foreign” brands.
16. In Pakistan, Naqvi describes “family as the vessel of middle class consumerism” (2005:4318).
According to him, Coca-Cola is now shifting to a more differentiated strategy of “brand
association” with youth culture, as opposed to interjecting itself in representations of national
culture.
17. In a fit of self-righteous rage, the CEO of PepsiCo India called the controversy a “trial by
Kangaroo Courts”: “These have been very unfortunate and sad days for our civil society . . . this
is yet another instance where our democracy and constitutional freedom of speech are being
used to sensationalize a non-issue.” The crisis, according to the CEO, was not because of the
absence of standards for beverages, or the presence of pesticides in Pepsi, but because of lack of
“norms for our society at large and NGOs in particular and the rules of engagement” (Bakshee
2003).
18. The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo’s sponsorship of cricket also came under a cloud. An
article entitled, “Cricket Sponsorship in Jeopardy,” mentioned that “sources in the Board of
Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Doordarshan [the state-owned television channel] said
that if the two companies were implicated for any wrong doing, they might wash their hands
off Pepsi” (Shukla 2003b).
19. Even the slogan raised at some of these anti-Coca-Cola–Pepsi demonstrations, “Quit India,” is
the same as Gandhi’s ultimatum to the British in 1942. “In Mumbai, protestors smashed soft
drink bottles and demanded a ban on the two brands. ‘Quit India . . . Coke and Pepsi,’ read a
placard” (Hindustan Times 2003).
20. In a highly symbolic act, India’s Parliament banned Coca-Cola and Pepsi in its cafeteria, and,
instead, offered “lassi [buttermilk], coconut water, and lemonade” (Das 2003). The purpose
was to strip Coca-Cola and Pepsi of the legitimacy of being “quality” products consumed by
the ruling elite.
21. The equation of “foreign” with “impure” appears to be a characteristic of culinary classification,
cross-culturally (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Liechty 2005) and, especially, in case of food
in Indian culture, which is saturated with notions of purity and pollution, therefore, serving
as a powerful social marker of inclusion as well as exclusion, hierarchy, and status (Appadurai
1988).
Editor’s Note: Other Cultural Anthropology articles have also examined the practices and effects
of MNCs. See, for example, Suzana Sawyer’s “Bobbittizing Texaco: Dis-Membering Corporate
Capital and Re-Membering the Nation in Ecuador” (2002). Articles that examine middle-class
formations and practices include Vassos Argyrou’s “ ‘Keep Cyprus Clean’: Littering, Pollution,
and Otherness” (1997) and Susan A. Reed’s “Performing Respectability: The Beravā, Middle-
Class Nationalism, and the Classicization of Kandyan Dance in Sri Lanka” (2002).
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Applbaum, Kalman
2000 Crossing Borders: Globalization as Myth and Charter in American Transnational
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