TN is making Pepsi and Coke cry

Few give me more satisfaction than seeing deeply corrupt organisations like Pepsi and Coke suffer. The traders from Tamil Nadu decided to ban sales of soft drinks from Pepsi and Coke. The reason given is that these companies kill local competition and also take water from agriculture. I want to pause my joy and critically analyse the players involved.

The easiest party to shed light is the government of TamilNadu. TamilNadu is a state under serious water crisis. In response to a PIL, the government has filed an affidavit in support of these two companies. Their rationale is they are only diverting excess water to the bottling plant. It is difficult to find a case of more blatant corruption, where authorities have sold themselves to the lobbyists.

The second party is also quite easy, the soft drink manufacturers and their association. Nothing bad can be said about them which is untrue. Firstly, they don’t care about either the environment or their consumers. Secondly, the fact that they are using the age old excuse of providing employment to people suggests that they have run out of ideas. Drug cartels and human traffickers employ people. That cannot be used as a justification. Thirdly, nothing that people are saying is actually false. They have done all that.

The last and the most important party is the traders’ association. How come after all these years they have realised the impact of these multinational soft drinks manufacturers. They were supportive of these companies when they were distributing fridges. They didn’t support the local producers when Pepsi and Coke bought stock from Indian companies and broke them. They did that just to make people forget these products. Let’s just accept the premise that they have finally come to understand these companies. Even then they aren’t replacing it with something good. They are going to replace it with other carbonated sugary drinks. This just reeks of disguise. It just looks like a deal gone wrong or some other financial issue.

Overall, it is just fun to watch three despicable parties contest it. I just hope this continues for long. It can only be good when multinational companies are held to ransom.