Hygiene? What kind of bird is that?

FDA action on elite eateries is great, but will it sustain?

Alok Tiwari

When Tukaram Mundhe, IAS, took charge as Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration commissioner last May some fireworks were expected. This was his 25^th posting in 21-year career, meaning he has stayed in a post for less than a year on average. True to form, he began a series of raids on hotels and restaurants across the state that exposed glaring violations of food safety norms. Refreshingly, he targeted the established names instead of street food vendors.

To the south, Karnataka’s FDA took similar action in India’s tech capital Bengaluru. There the targets were five-star hotels. They did not turn out to be much different from the elite eateries in Maharashtra. Everywhere that FDA officials went the story was same. Stale or expired raw material including vegetables, meat, milk and other dairy products, expired ingredients, improper storage, improper segregation of veg and nonveg items, dirty cooking surfaces, dirty floors, rat and other pest infestations, no mandatory health check-ups for the staff. Most of the establishment checked had multiple violations.

While the extent of the violations was shocking, it was hardly surprising. In a country that lives and breathes ‘anything goes’ attitude, why should what it eats should be an exception? When none of our municipalities can guarantee something as basic as clean drinking water, when our governments can get away by doing precisely nothing about utterly foul air in most of our major cities, why should big hotel brands and eateries think it necessary to maintain hygiene? Of course, there are laws. There are laws about everything. We Indians excel at ignoring them or at least getting around them.

The indifference towards food safety discovered in posh kitchens of Maharashtra and Karnataka would be found anywhere. If anything, it would be worse in other states. Why just in kitchens, anything you pick up to check will be found in violation. The best of buildings would be found violating fire safety norms. Buses of all operators, whether state or private, would be deficient in safety standards. It is a safe bet that if someone were to look closely, even railways and airlines would be found cutting corners on safety. These things surface whenever there is a major accident or a disaster but soon everything is forgotten. Major pharma companies probably would be an exception, but that is only because their facilities are checked regularly by US FDA. Safety violations are omnipresent in India.

While we may be lackadaisical about safety, about hygiene and cleanliness we are positively cavalier. India is a country defined by dirt and lack of hygiene, not just with respect to food. So ubiquitous is dirtiness that we notice it only when it is not there. Finding a public toilet is itself a minor miracle; a clean one is proof of God’s existence. Corners of all public buildings are smeared with pan-laden spit. We are a vast open-air toilet, a spittoon, and a garbage bin all at once.

There cannot be two people more different than Mahatma Gandhi and Narendra Modi. Yet both had to exhort to their countrymen to adopt cleanliness. Think about it, a man fighting the greatest imperial power on earth found it necessary to simultaneously tell Indians that toilets need to be cleaned and there is no shame in doing it. Six decades later a prime minister needs to tell citizens that it is a good idea to build a toilet at home and use it. The wonder of India is that it managed to thwart both men in this respect. Smell of human faeces and urine remains the defining one for the country.

Little wonder, then, that FDAs in most states exist only to allow these violations. Mundhe may have kicked some life into the organization for the time being in Maharashtra. Or some minister or bureaucrat may have woken up in Karnataka, but rest assured we will return to our default filth soon. It is only a matter of time before an establishment of someone important is touched and Mundhe is asked to cool it. Already Bombay HC has advised him to be practical, “since this is India”. Being unclean, like walking on footpath, is our fundamental right. The founding fathers just forgot to put it in Constitution.

Citizens are appealing to the Maharashtra CM to let Mundhe remain in the saddle for a couple of years. I would not bet on it. The machinery is just too big and there are just too many interests to allow this kind of campaign to go on. One fully appreciates that FDAs across the country do not have the necessary staff and resources to carry out their brief fully. The tragedy is that they do not have the will for it too. Their main job is to look the other way as unscrupulous businesses play with our health. That is why politicians keep them understaffed, lest some officers at local level develop a conscience and start enforcing rules.

A personal anecdote is instructive. Many years ago, a reader had come to the office of the newspaper I worked carrying an unopened packet of sweets he had bought from a prestigious chain in Nagpur. Inside the transparent packet an insect was clearly visible. When told we would need a complaint with FDA to proceed with the story, he had an interesting tale. He said the manager of the shop had offered him a significant sum of money to not make a complaint. Manager had a simple logic, “Either you take this money and forget the matter. Or we would give the same money to the officials, and they would forget the matter.”

Sounds cynical? Unfortunately, that is how regulation works. Action by Mundhe may be temporary. Raids in Bengaluru may be sporadic. Yet, they do tell us that the system can work if someone inside wants it to. That is a reason for hope.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Aug 13, 2026