All We Can Hope Is to Stay Alive

A new year, new resolutions—this is the ritual of every year. And at the very top of those resolutions sits good health. It should, because only if health holds will anything else be possible. For our health, we try every remedy under the sun. We make an effort to follow the suggestions and advice offered by our own people, strangers, the media, social media—in short, on every canvas, in every form.

This year too, the effort is the same—but the heart is filled with dread. There is fear about what to eat and what not to eat. Even water feels frightening. And these fears have their reasons—especially after reading chilling reports: that in Indore, India’s “cleanest city,” drinking water allegedly took more than a dozen lives; that in Madhya Pradesh itself, 200 parrots died due to food poisoning; and that in Lucknow, 170 sheep were wiped out after consuming toxic feed.

Human beings, birds, animals—everyone became prey to the same enemy: poison. Poison dissolved in water and food. As the old year ended and the new one began, these stories arrived like a shock, leaving fear in their wake.

Of course, we were already living with fear. We see dark-coloured chowmein sold from carts, bright-red sauces, samosas boiling in blackened oil, and countless other things—and the bag of anxiety stays permanently open. Trust settles nowhere. And yet there exists an entire system that is supposedly built to ensure that what we eat and drink is trustworthy: departments, employees, inspectors, laws, even courts. The FDA, the FSSAI, the health department, municipal corporations—so many systems. On paper, punishments range from fines to life imprisonment. But despite all this, neither the institution responsible for inspections nor a single employee within it can give a guarantee—not for the samosa you eat with such relish, not for the shahi paneer placed on your plate, not for the glass of water set before you, not for the egg, not for the chicken.

The truth is that beyond the airy, ceremonial resolutions of the new year, we carry no real concern for our own health—or for others’. If you want to understand what real concern looks like, look toward those countries we remain eager to visit.

Take the Arab and Gulf countries. There is no compromise with food and drink. The rules are so strict that one can hardly imagine them. Every item must carry an expiry date, no matter what it is. For cooked food, one rule stands above all: “Made today, sold today.” Every item carries the time it was prepared and the time it must be discarded. Not even a minute’s delay is permitted. It is not as if something is cooked once and then sold for a week.

And there is more. In Europe and many Arab countries, whether it is a shop or a restaurant, even the exact temperature at which a refrigerator must run is fixed. Every refrigerator has a digital thermometer; maintaining a temperature logbook is mandatory. Any deviation invites punishment. Another rule is just as rigid: first in, first out—whatever arrived earlier must be sold earlier.

Not only that—staff health in the food business is also monitored. Every food handler must carry a health fitness card. If someone is found working without one, penalties fall on both the establishment and the worker. A slight stench, a dirty floor, or the presence of insects—and the restaurant is sealed immediately.

Europe follows the same discipline. There, the expiry date is treated as sacred. An expired item appearing on a shelf itself becomes a punishable offence. Every food item carries a complete story “from farm to plate.” A milk packet states which farm it came from, the day it was milked, the plant where it was packed, and when it expires. If even one batch has an issue, products are recalled across Europe the very same day. If bacteria are found even slightly above the permitted limit, the entire batch is destroyed and the company faces fines worth millions of euros. When it comes to children’s food, the rules rise to a completely different level—so strict that few places in the world can match them. You cannot lie on packaging. It is not possible to write “natural,” “organic,” or “sugar-free” just because you feel like it. That is a direct crime. Tap water is tested regularly in laboratories. Even mineral levels are prescribed. That is why people drink tap water directly. Street food is almost negligible there. Selling on the roadside is practically impossible because street food vendors must meet the same standards as restaurants. Their location is fixed; you cannot simply park a cart wherever you like. And in terms of accountability, every food business must carry public liability insurance—because if a customer falls sick, a court case follows, and compensation can be so heavy that a small vendor would be ruined.

Now consider America. America’s strictest discipline is its lawsuit culture. People fear litigation more than rules—because if a customer falls ill after eating something, a case worth millions of dollars can be filed directly. Beyond that, licensing, GPS tracking, daily inspections, and expiry enforcement operate with their own severity.

Let us also speak of China. On food safety, China is not behind Europe. Its food safety law is among the strictest in the world. Cooking or selling food without a licence is illegal. China places heavy emphasis on traceability—meaning it must be known where the food was grown, how it was processed, and who sold it. Packaged items record everything.

In America, the Arab world, Europe, and China, one cannot even imagine water pipelines and sewer lines running side by side. It simply cannot happen. If an “Indore-like” water disaster were to occur anywhere there, there would not only be outrage—governments would fall, and many people would receive punishments comparable to those for serious crimes.

In truth, punishments there are not merely financial; criminal cases follow. Rules are not meant to be displayed; they are meant to be enforced. That is why ordinary people there remain genuinely confident about what they eat and drink.

In developed countries, development does not mean only metro trains, expressways, high-speed rail, or tall buildings. There, the measure of development is raising, to the highest possible standard, the safety, health, and well-being of every citizen. Their development rests on a strict legal framework—so strict that no food or water can reach you until it is proven safe. The “farm to plate” system ensures rigorous checks at every stage—from cultivation to processing to transport to sale. Water is so safe that in most such countries, tap water is directly drinkable.

Of course, there is no real comparison between us and countries like China, America, the Arab world, or Europe. And yet, we too are human beings. We too have a right to live. But we are helpless—caught in our own priorities, where development is focused on lifeless things while the living are barely considered. The fault lies with no one else. It lies with you and me—because even in our personal idea of progress, the benchmarks remain those same lifeless objects.

(The author is a journalist.)