On April 21, 2024, the Chief Minister of Kerala, received a letter from the CEO of Coca Cola informing the company’s intent to bequeath it’s 35-acre land that contain the now shut bottling plant established in 2000 in Plachimada village of Palakkad district. While this may read positive for the uninitiated as few are used to hearing multinational companies closing down their operations. Yet, this departure of Coca Cola veils beneath, the dirty intersections of corporate power, state collusion and their unending efforts to silence and oppress the struggles of Aadivasis (Scheduled-Tribes in administrative parlance and the most marginalized social group in India) and their right to health and development in India. The departure of Coca Cola leaves the question of compensation to the tune of 2160 million Indian Rupees legally owed by the company towards the damage of livelihood and health of Aadivasis unanswered.
The protracted saga of more than 20-year-old conflict between Aadivasis of Plachimada and Coca Cola started in 2002 after the company established its bottling unit in 2000. The company was ushered in by the then state government riding the narrative of ‘development’, promising land and water for company’s operations. Company identified Plachimada for its operations and acquired 35 acres of paddy cultivated land with the promise of jobs for the local tribal community. Very soon the plant guzzled water for its operations depleting the ground water table in the region while also poisoning the soil with lead and cadmium from its toxic residue. The farmlands turned toxic and unfit for agriculture, many started taking ill and tribal hamlets found the well water unfit for drinking or other household purposes. The protest that soon followed, popularly called ‘Coca Cola virudha Janakeeya Samara Samithy’ (Anti Coca Cola people’s movement committee) by the local Aadivasi community went on to become what could be termed as one of the hallmarks of community resilience against a transnational giant. The struggle resulted in legally stalling the operations of the bottling plant in 2004, and a permanent shut down decision by the company in 2017.
Despite the resilience mounted by the Tribal and Dalit communities, the movement in its early phases failed to garner support from political parties and the initial support withdrawn by many. The community also had to surmount litigations as well as the company exploiting judicial mechanisms by moving against the local self-government who revoked its permission. The company acquired favourable judgement from the State high court to continue its operations. Despite these hurdles the movement persisted with much resilience finally forcing the Kerala Government to pass a legislation to establish a special tribunal in 2011 to seek compensation for the environmental damages caused by the company’s operations. However, as of today the special tribunal bill is yet to procure the Presidential assent and have been repeatedly withheld by the Union government despite multiple attempts by the State government.
The Plachimada bottling plant is a textbook case of a ‘pathological system’ that allows commercial entities to maximise their profit while externalizing the harm of doing so to the communities at large specifically within low-income countries with impunity. While the popular soft drinks products from the plant are cheap to buy, they invariably fail to include the societal cost involved in their production. Despite closing down of the bottling plant, the toxic affluents from its operation has for a longtime to come robbed the Aadivasi communities of Plachimada of their livelihood from agriculture and access to drinking water. This further exacerbates pre-existing health inequities and, in this case, long lasting negative impacts on health determinants of Aadivasis. The affected communities are left without any democratic recourse to justice, and till date no courts of justice nor governments at the State or Centre has been able to implicate Coca Cola company for the environmental and health damages it has produced. Nor is there a political will for governments to ensure compensation that Aadivasi community deserve for the damages they have suffered.
While the Plachimada movement might not be a complete success, there are still learnings to be gathered in terms of the Aadivasi communities’ ability to stall a major transnational corporate power. It is, therefore, urgent for the community at large to take cognizance of the increasing role of transnational corporations in exacerbating pre-existing health inequities by undermining democratic institutions. It is also the prerogative of the development experts including public health professionals to locate existing civil society actions against exploitative practices of transnational corporations and generate learnings from them to further strengthen such initiatives in their fights to protect their health and fundamental rights.
About the author: Sreenidhi Sreekumar is a Postdoctoral Fellow with an interest in Commercial Determinants of Health and related health inequities. He is currently working at the Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru, India. Sreenidhi Sreekumar’s time was supported through the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance fellowship (IA/CPHS/22/1/506533) awarded to Dr Upendra Bhojani
Competing interests: None
Handling Editor: Neha Faruqui