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Journalism of Courage
When it comes to former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, two pieces of information remain most popularly known. First is that he was born on a leap day (February 29, 1896) — he would go on to celebrate less than 25 birthdays at the time of his death in 1995.
Second, is that he would consume his urine, which eventually took on the popular sobriquet of ‘Morarji Cola’. A subject of jokes aplenty as well as serious discussion in certain circles, the story of ‘Morarji Cola’ today holds near-mythical status. But is it really true? Or is the story of ‘Morarji Cola’ just another urban legend that has been willed into existence by sheer repetition?
The year was 1978. India’s first non-Congress government was in power, helmed by Morarji Desai. Over 80 years old at the time, Desai had waited for over a decade to occupy the prime minister’s office — he was a strong contender to succeed Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966, only to be pipped by a relative novice named Indira Gandhi.
And After Indira’s over-decade-long rule (including nearly two years of Emergency, from 1975 to 1977), Desai promised to usher in some major changes. Notable among these was undoing India’s pro-Soviet tilt, which became especially strong after the signing of the Indo-Soviet Treaty in 1971.
Desai sought to mend India’s then-strained relations with the United States. In January 1978, US President Jimmy Carter visited India, and in June, Desai landed up stateside. But instead of his statesmanship and the situation of the Janata Party in India, Desai’s US visit is most remembered for something else.
Morarji Desai, during the visit, sat for an interview with journalist Dan Rather for CBS’s weekly news magazine 60 Minutes. During the interview, Desai told a rather stunned Dan Rather about his proclivity to partake in urine.
Rather asked Desai about the secret behind his spritely health at the age of 82, to which Desai responded by saying that his diet consisted of fruit and vegetable juices, fresh and natural milk, plain yoghurt, honey, fresh fruits, raw nuts, five cloves of garlic every day. “And I drink five to eight ounces of urine every morning on an empty stomach,” he added.
“Yack! You drink your urine? That is the most repulsive thing I have ever heard,” Rather retorted.
Desai, however, was unperturbed, and described drinking urine as a “natural treatment”. He said: “If you observe the animals, you will see that they drink their urine to stay fit … In my country mothers used to give babies their own urine when they were suffering from stomach ache. And in the Hindu philosophy … Cow’s urine has been considered holy, and it is prescribed in every ceremony. People must drink it.”
In fact, Desai went on to talk about how American scientists were preparing urine extracts for heart trouble. “So your people are drinking other people’s urine but not their own. And it costs dollars, thousands of dollars, while theirs [their own] is free and more effective,” he said.
He concluded by telling Dan Rather about the virtues of drinking one’s own urine. “If you drink all your urine, in just a few days the body becomes purified. By the third day your urine is without any colour or any smell or any taste and it will be pure almost like water. You will feel very good because your system is improved and cleansed considerably,” Desai said.
He added: “Drinking urine fights the cause of all diseases, and it costs you nothing.”
