It is lunchtime at Ansal Plaza, Delhi’s newest shopping centre. ÂInside the ground-floor branch of ÂMcDonald’s, Ashish and Jasmeet are busy doling out seven-rupee (about 90c) Âice-cream cones to a group of schoolboys.
The restaurant is half-empty or half-full, depending on your view of global capiÂtalism. At first glance the branch resembles any McDonald’s restaurÂant across the world. We could be in French Guyana, the most recent Âaddition to the Âcompany’s empire, or Kuwait, or Russia. Only when you spot a small sign on the wall do you Ârealise that this is ÂIndia. It reads: “No beef or beef Âproducts sold at this restaurant.”
Four years after arriving in Delhi and Bombay, McDonald’s is poised to launch a huge Âexpansion programme in India, its last great frontier. There are plans to increase the Âexisting 24Â restaurants to 80. That McDonald’s has come here at all seems curious. The subcontinent has revered the cow for thousands of years. The creatures are everywhere in India — on traffic islands, grazing in rubbish dumps, in temples — everywhere, that is, except on your plate. To give an idea of how highly the animal is revered, nobody thought it odd when 634 cows, en route to a slaughterÂÂhouse in Muslim BanglaÂesh, were rescued from a train by Âanimal rights activists last year. The sight of naked Hindu saints holding pro-cow rallies is not unusual.
McDonald’s, by contrast, is the world’s largest user of beef. Hundreds of thousands of animals have died since McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc, first opened a modest burger parlour in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955. From humble beginnings, Kroc set out on an epic voyage of expansion that was to take McDonald’s into 119 countries, sweeping aside barriers of Âideology, language and taste.
But in recent years there has been resistance to his global Âvision from concerned environmentalists around the world. As the stand-off between anti-Âglobalists and multinationals continues, India has become the last big battleÂground. If McDonald’s can Âsucceed here, without beef, it can Âsucceed anywhere, so the reasoning goes. To woo customers, the company has devised a unique marketing strategy.
India is the only country in the world where McDonald’s does not offer beef. With 140-million Indian Muslims, pork is off the menu, too. This leaves chicken and mutton — the ingredient of its flagship “MahaÂraja Mac”. There are other Âadditions to the menu specifically designed to lure ÂIndia’s middle class, such as the McAloo tikki burger. All foods are strictly segregated into vegetarian and non-vegetarian lines. Even the mayonnaise has no egg in it, so as not to Âoffend vegan sensibilities.
Vikram Bakshi, McDonald’s managÂing Âdirector in India, admits that beef was a “complete no-no” from the start: “We have to be sensitive to the culture here. No beef and no pork. We are absolutely politically correct. The point is to be commercially viable. Using beef would take us away from 80% of our customers.” McDonald’s was drawn to ÂIndia because of its huge potential market of one billion people, says Bakshi.
He points with pride to the new McDonald’s on the road between Delhi and Agra, which allows customers to munch ÂMahaÂraja Macs en route to the Taj Mahal. More branches in north India will follow, he says. Critics complain that McDonald’s food is “bad”, “expensive”, even “un-Indian”. They Âalso claim that ÂMcDonald’s, together with Âother fast-food outlets that arrived in the mid-Nineties, is losing money. “India has a very ancient food culture.
We are not going to change to American Âpatterns of consumption,” says Dr Vandana Shiva, Âdirector of the ÂResearch FoundaÂtion for ÂScience, Technology and Ecology. “McDonald’s will Ânever become part of mass culture in ÂIndia, because most people can’t afford to eat there.” Indians, she says, are gradually “waking up” to the threat posed by foreign multiÂnationals to traditional methods of farming and ecology. The fledgling fast-food industry in India has been keeping a low profile Âbecause of such opposition.
Five years ago Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) found its new restaurant in the Westernised city of Bangalore under siege from farmers and Âanti-Âglobalisation protesters. Customers had been staying away too, put off by what they regarded as high prices and inedible food. The mob ended up vandalising the restaurant. KFC eventually abandoned India altogether.
“India is no Thailand, where we could create the ÂKentucky magic within two years of operations,” its former managing director in India, Sandeep Kohli, conceded. “We closed because the economics didn’t work out.” Many of the multinationals which came to India after economic liberalisation in the Âearly 1990s made the same mistake as KFC. They overÂestimated the size of India’s middle class. It is about 100-million, though the figure of 200-million is often bandied about. And it is Âdiscerning.
Many fast-food outlets discovered to their horror that their restaurants were rarely full. They embarked on a desperate round of price cuts. A Big Mac “Lamb Wonder” today sells for the Âlowly sum of 19 rupees (about R3). McDonald’s has had a Âhappier time in ÂChina, where its 260 restaurants are Âfrequented by the better off and the Âurban rich. There, Ronald McDonald has been transmogrified Âinto ÂUncle McDonald (and Aunt McDonaldÂ).
In Japan, which was Âassimilated into the Kroc empire 30 years ago, there are more than 3 000 branches. There are few countries in Asia where McDonald’s has yet to penetrate. To avoid the chain entirely you would have to go somewhere Âreally remote: Afghanistan, perhaps, with its landmines, civil war and ÂIslamic fundamentalism. Or there is Bhutan, a small, esoteric Himalayan kingdom of few tourists and no beefburgers, where there exists a long Âtradition of scepticism towards dubious Western ideas.