The state of Kerala in South India has been a hotbed of labor activism since it became the first place in the world to freely elect a Marxist government in 1956. There’s a joke about Kerala people (called Malayalees after their language, Malayalam) that goes like this: one Malayalee, two opinions; two Malayalees, trade union; three Malayalees, bandh (strike).
There’s been a labor dispute around two Coca Cola plants in Kerala that’s fallen into allegations of ground water overuse and poison fertilizer (dutifully and uncritically reported by Humboldt County hippie Alex Cockburn in Counterpunch). It was recently settled by the High Court of Kerala, a pretty uncorruptable body:
The Kerala High Court has ordered Perumatty village council (panchayat) to grant a licence for Coca Cola to extract up to 500,000 litres of water a day at its Plachimada bottling plant. The Court overturned an earlier ruling that underground water belongs to the public and the Government must protect it.
The Plachimada Solidarity Committee says the campaign to close the plant will continue and urged the panchayat to appeal to the Supreme Court. Activist C.R. Bijoy, said: “The issue is about who has the fundamental decision making power over the use of natural resources, and it is about the survival of the people.”
Coca-Cola, which produces Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Thums Up and Limca, started bottling in March 2000. At its peak the plant produced a million bottles daily. Villagers allege that water levels dropped sharply and the remaining water caused dizziness, diarrhoea and skin rashes. They allege that Coca-Cola persuaded local farmers to use waste sludge containing cadmium and lead as a fertilizer.
This is one of many protests against Coca-Cola India: Coke is even banned in Parliament. However, the company says that allegations are without scientific basis and that in some areas water levels actually rose after it introduced rainwater harvesting. It cites a number of community and environmental awards as evidence of good practice.
If you’ve read Cockburn’s spin on this saga, you’ll have a different idea about what happened, so you have to choose who’s more credible: a hippie on vacation, or the High Court. It’s not much of a contest as I see it.
Doesn’t it seem to you that the High Court’s job was to decide in favor of either the Plachimada Solidarity Commitee or the Coca-Cola Company. The Court decided in favor of the Coca-Cola Company. Thus, acording to the Court, the “evidence” presented by Coca-Cola was more “credible” than the “evidence” presented by the activists. So, perhaps your readers should be really deciding whether to believe Cockburn the activists or the Coca-Cola Corporation. Neither Cockburn nor the members of the High Court have anything really at stake here, as do the activists & the Coca-Cola Company.
Sorry, I messed up a sentence. Should read:
So, perhaps your readers should really be deciding whether to believe the activists or the Coca-Cola Company.
Cockburn has a lot at stake – he has to prove that modernization is bad for people and that poverty, ignorance, and backwardness are good. That’s the business that he’s in.
We both know that rainfall in Kerala is sporadic, and wells often run dry if the monsoon is late. So blaming a drought-induced shortage of water on Coke is ridiculous.
You speak in support of self-determination for Keralites, then suggest they’d be “backward” without Coca-Cola?
The people of Kerala are not ignorant or backward.
The larger question here is about modernization. Cockburn is against it, and I’m for it. The poorer Kerala people I’ve known are for it too, of course.
Cockburn lives in the center of marijuana cultivation in North America – Petrolia, CA in Humboldt County. He has a romantic view of agriculture and its profitability and a very limited knowledge of life in Kerala.
Could you quote Cockburn’s statement that he “against modernization”–I can’t find it.
Thanks.
What’s your view of agriculture?
Modernization = globalization. Are you unclear on Cockburn’s stance on globalization?
Modern societies take people off the farm into more productive capacities in the industrial and service sectors. As long as a nation’s resources are committed primarily to agriculture, it won’t develop.
Anti-modernization activists like Roy and Cockburn want to replace efficient, mechanized farms with a patchwork quilt of farms so small they’re more like backyard gardens. This is ludicrous and would starve hundreds of millions of people if implemented. Fortunately, policy makers don’t take these nuts seriously so there’s little danger of this.
Um, you left out a significant piece:
(Emphasis mine.) It doesn’t appear anywhere that Coca-Cola’s capacity was in any way related or limited to the amount of rainfall beforehand, considering the needs of other water users, does it?
It is simply not convincing in and of itself that water levels would rise after rainwater harvesting if that rain would otherwise have gone into the water table.
Bottom line: neither you, nor I, nor Cockburn, nor the judges themselves are civil engineers knowledgable in depth about the particulars of the water table, its size versus rainfall, and its overall relationship to Coca Cola’s capacity and the needs of other water users, so bascially none of us really know what we’re talking about, although I would grant that it appears that the judges might be slightly more informed, but again, by whom is another question which isn’t clear.
Rainwater harvesting can raise the level of the water table by limiting evaporation and runoff, John. Kerala doesn’t have snow pack and most of its monsoon rain ends up in the ocean.
The fact that you aren’t a civil engineer isn’t particularly important – the court heard testimony from many experts, and determined that Coke’s claims were more plausible than those of the anti-globalization activists.
Limiting the haul of water during droughts is perfectly reasonable, and nobody has a problem with it, including Coke.
The bottom line here is that Cockburn’s account of this conflict has been found by a competent court to be bullshit, but it continues to circulate.