The Congress president seems to believe two of the biggest food and beverage corporations had humble beginnings. On at least one, he isn’t too far off the mark.
New Delhi: The sentiment may have been right but the analogies not so much. On Monday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi kicked off a storm, online that is, after announcing that the founder of McDonald’s was a ‘dhaba wala,’ (food vendor), and that the man behind Coca-Cola was a ‘shikanji waala’(lemonade seller).
Speaking at an OBC outreach rally in New Delhi, Rahul, hoping to convey that those work hard in India do not get due benefit, said, “Voh America mein shikanji bechta tha, paani mein cheeni milaata tha (Coca-Cola’s founder used to sell shikanji in the United States, he used to mix sugar in water).”
As for McDonald’s, the Congress president said, “Who started McDonald’s? He used to run a dhaba.”
LIVE: Congress President @RahulGandhi addresses the #OBCSammelan https://t.co/nakYv0xBEj
— Congress (@INCIndia) June 11, 2018
After some basic fact-checking, here is how his claims fared:
Was McDonalds really started by a ‘dhaba wala’?
To be fair, the Congress president wasn’t too far off the mark on this one. While they did not run a “dhaba”, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald, the men behind McDonald’s, manned a hot dog stand at the local racetrack in California in 1937. Business was dependent on the racing season.
The brothers opened a bigger hot dog stand in San Bernardino. In the 1940s, after many rejections, the brother opened a drive-in restaurant, the very first “McDonald’s.”
Did a ‘shikanji wala’ start Coca-Cola?
On this count, Rahul Gandhi clearly had his facts mixed up. “The person who founded Coca- Cola company was a shikanji waala (lemonade seller). He used to sell lemonade in America. He used to mix sugar in water. His experience and skills were appreciated, he got money, and he started Coca-Cola.”
Not even by an infinite stretch of the mind, can Doctor Pemberton, the founder of Coca-Cola, be considered a lemonade vendor. The pharmacist, a lieutenant colonel in the American army, invented his famous concoction not because of expertise at “mixing sugar in water,” as Gandhi claimed, but for his need to cure a morphine drug addiction.
Wounded in the chest during the Battle of Columbus during the American Civil war in 1865, Pemberton became dependent on pain-killers like morphine that contained opium. He decided to invent painkillers without opium for his needs, which led him to his experiment with coca and coca wines, which further led him to invent wine coca syrup.
When fruity soda-based cold drinks gained popularity in the 1880s, as consumption of alcohol went down due to the temperance movement, Pemberton decided to mix the coca syrup with carbonated water and sold it in the market.
Once it was well received, the doctor patented this formula, and Coca-Cola has since grown into the beverage behemoth it has now become.