Passage to India

A Report on the People’s World Water Forum and the World Social Forum

By Maude Barlow
January 26, 2004

Part Three: Solidarity Tour to Kerala, January 21-23

After the World Social Forum, I participated in a trip to two water-bottling plants where local protest is growing. This trip, for me, was the most important of my two weeks in India.

The southern state of Kerala has had progressive government for years and it shows. There are not the great disparities between rich and poor that characterize Mumbai and New Delhi. Everyone has work to do and life in the towns and villages of this beautiful agrarian state is very much like it was decades ago. However, in Plachimada, a small community in the interior of Kerala, a grim struggle has grown between the local tribal people (Dalits and Adivasis) and the Hindustan Coca-Cola Company. Coke and Pepsi use satellite imagery to locate reservoirs of groundwater in India, and have set up dozens of controversial bottling sites in poor rural communities around the country.

The Plachimada project is located on 38 acres of former rice paddies and extracts up to 1.5 million litres of water every day to be made into Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Thumbs Up, and other products. Every day, 85 trucks, each containing 600 cases of 24 bottles, leave the plant, exporting local water far away. Within a year after the plant opened, local water sources started to dry up, putting hundreds of farm families out of business. All 260-bore wells installed by public authorities have gone dry. As well, the soil, water and air around the plant have become contaminated from the sludge by-product, which includes cadmium and other trace metals. What is left of the water is not fit for bathing or cooking, so high are the chlorides from wastewater pumping from the plant.

For almost two years now, the local women have staged a daily sit-in directly across from the Coke plant (see cover photo). All day, every day, in rain or shine, old women, young women and babies, occupy a low-set straw shelter and sit impassively staring at the trucks coming and going from the plant, surrounded by hundreds of private security guards the company has hired. Coke sued the women, demanding that their picket be dismantled. The local people fought back in court and won a lower court ruling that allowed them to continue to picket and limited the amount of water that the company can extract. The company is now appealing that ruling and it is likely to go to the highest court in India.

The “World Water Conference – 2004” was held in a huge outside stage, set up directly across from the plant and equipped with loud-speakers so powerful that everyone in the Coke plant heard every word of the two-day event. The local activists, backed by M.P. Veerendrakumar, the head of a major newspaper publishing company who opposes the Coke plant, put on a wonderful event, filled with fiery speeches, moving theatre and music, and graced by every major political figure in the region. At the public rally on the second evening, there were easily 5,000 people in attendance. Significantly, the World Water Conference also adopted the Plachimada Declaration.

I sat with the women protesters for several hours, sharing stories of grandchildren (through an interpreter) and even borrowing some for much-needed hugs. A favourite memory of this time was asking a group of beautiful young schoolgirls, dressed in white uniforms, “Who wants to be Vandana Shiva when they grow up?” and seeing every hand reach in the air instantly! We were invited in to the Coke plant, where we met with officials who assured us that there was plenty of water in the region and the farmers’ dried up wells had nothing to do with them. We emerged from the plant to a bank of television cameras and denounced the company in no uncertain terms.

On the last day of the trip, vans and buses took us to a nearby community that is fighting a Pepsi plant causing similar devastation on the local people. Here we read out the Plachimada Declaration promising our support and calling for a boycott of Coke and Pepsi – something I have long wanted to do. I left India feeling a very deep commitment to help the people of these rural communities fight the theft of their water by these unscrupulous companies and to build an international movement to reclaim water for people and nature.

On February 18, the Kerala State Government ordered the Coke plant to be shut down for 4 months because of its effect on the water in the area. Coke is now trying desperately trying to sell the plant. This is a clear victory but we must continue to work with our friends to ensure that the plant is permanently closed.

• Part One: The People’s World Water Forum in New Delhi, January 12-14
• Part Two: The World Social Forum in Mumbai, January 16-20
• Part Three: Solidarity Tour to Kerala, January 21-23

 

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