Papad is a thin, crisp, Indian cracker we serve with a meal. Most people don’t notice it but, I have adored it since I was a child. My family calls me the papad connoisseur.
There are two manufacturing methods of Papad- one machine made, and the other hand made. I can distinguish them, because the machine made one has a distinct grain created by mechanical rollers and is cut in perfect circles, while the hand made one has an uneven thickness and no grain. Since childhood, my favorite papad is handmade by a company called Lijjat. Lijjat is dedicated to women’s empowerment in India as they employ over 40,000 women and no men. They started with a loan of just Rs. 80, or about $1 today.
One day I bought my favourite Papad, and the quality was awful. As I looked more closely, I noticed it had a machine-made grain. Immediately, I realized this did not empower the poor women who Lijjat employs to roll Papad by hand, this kind of manufacturing makes them obsolete. Concerned, I emailed Lijjat, who confirmed all their Papad was still hand-made.
I decided to look into it, and so read ‘Principles of Investigation’. The most important thing is that the facts speak for themselves and any person’s conjecture is not important. What I had was a copycat made to look like Lijjat Papad. The women’s empowerment logo had been removed. I researched the company making the copycat and found it had a CEO a CFO and a sales and marketing guy. They sold pulses, including UDAD Dal, which is the main ingredient in Papad but the spelling of UDAD on the copycat packet was URAD – a spelling that also appeared on the company’s website.
I called up the store where I bought the fake Papad to raise my concerns- they claimed there was a flood in the Lijjat Factory in Gujrat, so had changed suppliers. I searched the internet and called Lijjat in India, but there was no evidence of a flood.
Next, I called the copycat company to ask if they were in partnership with Lijjat. I spoke to suspect 3 who insisted that they had the registered trademark for Lijjat. Now, a registered trademark protects a brand’s copyright and I learnt that in the UAE, the court awards the trademark to the company that filed first in the home country – in this case, India - and it became clear to me that the copycat company were breaking the law, and that I could do something about it.
I gave all the information to Lijjat, who told me they had ‘Initiated the necessary legal action’. I was so happy, knowing that I had helped to protect someone, somewhere in the world. Recently, Lijjat won the case against the copycat company, and the original Lijjat Papad is back on shelves!
Serendipitously, I found myself talking to the son of the copycat company’s CEO and reckoned with the whole impact of my investigation. We spoke about the difficulties the case had brought to his father and why I had done the investigation. While the conversation was difficult and extremely awkward, I had the invaluable experience of coming face to face with the people I had affected. The conversation forced me to consider the human impact on the other side of the case, something I had never thought about. However, I had to balance this with a fraud that could potentially rob poor women of their livelihood for the sake of cheap profit. It’s important to take actions you believe in, by carefully considering your course of action to make sure it is just and fair. Even if people do bad things, and you hold them accountable, you still affect and impact real people’s lives. Can you look them in the eye afterwards and say ‘Yes that was me, that’s what I did and I stand by it’.
Good powerful story coming straight from the heart.