Who's Afraid of Cola Colonialism?

Welcome to the world of Chicken MacMaharajas and McSpicy Paneers

Namaste and welcome back to The Global Jigsaw.

This week I bring you another guest post from a very special writer who is not only one of India’s leading economic analysts and columnists, but also my father: Swaminathan Aiyar.

My father has been a staunch defender of globalization for decades, arguing - often in the face of much criticism - that it is a positive force for mélange from which all sides benefit. In 2005 he had written a piece -  My family and Other Globalizers -  that continues to do the round on social media, even today. It was written in the aftermath of my marriage to Julio, a Spaniard, which had followed on the heels of my brother’s marriage to a German.

In it he had concluded that from the point of view of our family, far from globalization equaling westernization, it looked more like “Aiyarization.”

I quote him here:

“Our ancestral home is Kargudi, a humble, obscure village in Tanjore district, Tamil Nadu. My earliest memories of it are as a house with no toilets, running water, or pukka (paved) road. When we visited, we disembarked from the train at Tanjore, and then traveled 45 minutes by bullock cart to reach the ancestral home. My father was one of six children, all of whom produced many children (I myself had three siblings). So, two generations later, the size of the Kargudi extended family (including spouses) is over 200. Of these, only three still live in the village. The rest have moved across India and across the whole world, from China to Arabia to Europe to America. This one Kargudi house has already produced 50 American citizens. So, dismiss the mutterings of those who claim that globalization means westernization. It looks more like Aiyarization, viewed from Kargudi.”

In this guest post for The Global Jigsaw he continues in this vein:

**********

Wander into any large shopping mall in India and you will see fast food outlets from the USA: McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Domino’s, and others. Along with iconic American food, they hawk iconic American drinks like Coca Cola and Mountain Dew.

Is this a triumph of cultural invasion? Globalization after the end of the Cold War has spurred fears of colonialism returning by other, more insidious, means. I remember attending an international seminar in 1999 where delegates from developing countries sounded terror-stricken that globalization meant Cola Colonialism, overwhelming not just their economies but culture too. Delegates from Africa, in particular, feared that everything from food and drink, to music and literature in their countries would become Americanized, leaving them without cultural roots of their own.

I was the only speaker to strongly welcome cultural globalization as something that would enrich India and help India enrich the world too. I recalled many in India who had feared global forces. After becoming independent in 1947 India strove for economic self-sufficiency, believing that without such economic independence, its political independence would be crippled. Fear of foreign investment and foreign trade was buttressed by fear of foreign cultural influences. Foreign exchange was scarce and rationed.

Today’s guest author, Swaminathan Aiyar, with his son-in-law

Then came the era of economic reform and globalization after 1991. India began opening in myriad ways.  After some hesitation, all the American icons of food and drink came into the country. The Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the religious-cultural wing of the Bhartiya Janta Party, was paranoid about Indians succumbing to the charms of McDonalds’ burgers and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

A gang of RSS agitators attacked and trashed the first outlet of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Later, in the 1998 general election, one of the BJP’s campaign slogans was “Computer chips yes, potato chips no.” This expressed the party’s willingness to accept high-tech foreign companies, but not those peddling fast food. 

Yet the fear of being overwhelmed by foreign foods turned out to be plain silly. Kentucky Fried Chicken found it could not attract Indian customers with its standard American fare---they were too used to traditional flavours. The company faced competition from tandoori chicken, which was so entrenched that foreign competition could not even dent its popularity.

KFC also faced competition from chicken pakora, a traditional Indian dish that was also a form of batter-fried chicken but made with a different batter including lentils. The first outlet of Kentucky Fried Chicken closed while the company experimented with new flavours that would better suit the Indian palate. Its progress was gradual, but it eventually gained a modest market share with an Indianized menu.

McDonalds faced an even bigger problem. Hindus consider the cow sacred and most do not eat beef. The standard McDonalds beef hamburger could not be marketed in India. The company thought that Indians would go for a lamb burger. But this failed. Indians prefer chicken to any other meat. Many Indians are also vegetarians.

So, McDonalds experimented over several years with many new foods with an Indian touch that nobody had ever thought of before. It eventually settled on a menu with items like Chicken MacMaharaja, McSpicy Paneer (cottage cheese) burger, and McAloo Tikki (a spiced potato patty). That was not remotely like what McDonalds sold in America or Europe, but it finally brought the company financial success.

Nobody fears any more that McDonalds will overwhelm and change India’s culture. Instead, India has changed McDonalds’ culture. The company was once infamous for an absolutely standardized, monotonous range of fast foods. But its Indian experience helped change its global strategy, and it now tailors its menu to local tastes in every country it goes to.

Domino’s has proved a big success in the Indian pizza space. It too Indianized its menu to attract customers, so that pizzas on offer now include Cheese ‘n Corn, Keema Dopiaza (ground goat meat and onion) and Peppy Paneer and Chicken sausage.

All major foreign food chains have entered India, but the country’s formidable range of local cuisines—every state has its own flavours and dishes - remain dominant. Indeed, Indian fast-food chains have expanded, learning from the American experience of using franchises. Kamat Hotels, Saravana Bhavan and Sagar are three top chains selling south Indian food. Vada pav chains include Jumboking and Goli.

 Haldiram has become India’s top producer and exporter of indigenous snacks and sweets. It once feared being snowed under by competition from Pepsi in an Indian snack called bhujiya. Those days are long gone. Haldiram now seeks to conquer America. Meanwhile, Pepsi has created an Indian snack, Kurkure, that it now exports.

Even earlier, fusion was taking place between western products and Indian tastes. The most dramatic example is Maggi Noodles, marketed by Nestle. The company found on entering India that to succeed it had to cater to Indian tastes, and so came up with a variety of Indian flavours for its product. Maggi Noodles is now so popular that it is sold cooked on the spot by thousands of roadside stalls. It has gained such wide acceptance that most Indians now view it as an Indian food. Youngsters may not even know that it did not exist a few decades ago and was invented by foreigners.

Indians traditionally cooked in ghee, an expensive form of clarified butter. Hindustan Lever (the Indian subsidiary of Lever Brothers) decided to find something much cheaper and succeeded with a hydrogenated vegetable oil—you could call it a variation of margarine—that looked and tasted like ghee without being so heavy on the palate or wallet. This carried the brand name Dalda and attained such popularity that “Dalda” became a generic name for all kinds of hydrogenated vegetable oil produced by rivals. It became so embedded in local cooking that most Indians would be surprised to learn it was a British product. As with Maggi Noodles, Dalda represented a cultural fusion that enriched both sides.  

Actually, what passes for American food is itself a form of cultural fusion. Hamburgers, as you can tell from the name, originated in Hamburg, Germany. Hot dogs are also widely called Frankfurters, since they hail from Frankfurt. The U.S. happily integrated foods from all the countries from which it attracted immigrants.

Pizza is an import from Italy, although American restaurants claim to be selling Chicago Pizza or New York Pizza, and have chains like Pizza Hut and Domino’s. Go to the food courts in U.S. shopping malls and you will find stalls selling Chinese, Mexican, Thai, and Japanese food. But it is not easy to find foods that are uniquely American.

Creole food from the American South is distinctive, although originating in Caribbean cuisines. Jambalaya, Maryland Chicken and Maine Lobster are distinctive American dishes, and you can lengthen the list, yet it hardly adds up to a distinctive U.S. cuisine. America has succeeded by adapting foods from the rest of the world.

I started this article by describing events at an international seminar on cultural threats from globalization. Some of the African speakers were very glad to hear from me that India had changed McDonalds’ culture rather than the other way round. But they feared their own countries were not as strong culturally as India. Many of them were small countries without great historical traditions.

There is something to this. Yet, let me give an example of how a developing country can make the culture of a colonial power its own and beat the colonial power at its own game. I refer, of course, to cricket.

This quintessential British sport was once a monopoly of white countries. But today the cricket-mad Indian subcontinent dominates international cricket. India now provides by far the largest audience and spectator cash, acquiring the clout that goes with the most money. But Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have risen fast too. Even Afghanistan has suddenly made such large strides in cricket that it looks capable of beating England.

Sri Lanka is a small country that is hardly studied or mentioned in international matters. But in 1996 Sri Lanka won the World Cup in cricket. Such a small island may seem incapable of becoming world number one in anything, yet Sri Lanka has proved otherwise. It took on the sport of a colonial conqueror and conquered the colonist. Had it tried to keep out foreign influences and looked inward culturally, it would never have attained such heights.

The lesson is clear. Stop quivering in fear of globalization. In this milieu, even a small developing nation can become global number one.

******

I hope you enjoyed this post enough to consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Subscribing is easy, just click here:

You can also buy a subscription for a friend. It is the gifting season and a present of ideas is never a bad idea :-)

Also, do share as usual, so we can keep growing our community.

Until next week,

Pallavi