Mayilamma

Mailamma was directly affected by Coca-Cola's operations in Plachimada, in Kerala's Palakkad district. The water in her well (in Vijaynagar colony in Plachimada) had been so heavily polluted by Coca-Cola's operations that it has been deemed unfit for human consumption.

Mailamma was a central figure in the campaign to hold Coca-Cola accountable for water shortages and pollution in the area, and it was under her leadership that the community forced the Coca-Cola bottling plant to shut down in March 2004. The plant has remained shut down since.

Mailamma, a member of the Eravalar tribe, was the founder of the Coca-Cola Virudha Samara Samiti (Anti Coca-Cola Struggle Committee) in Plachimada which has spearheaded the campaign against Coca-Cola. The Anti-Coca-Cola Struggle Committee has held a continuous vigil directly outside Coca-Cola's factory gates since April 22, 2002, demanding its permanent closure.

Mailamma lived with her extended family in Vijaynagar Colony in Plachimada, and is survived by three sons and a daughter.

[Mailamma was the recipient of the prestigious Speak Out award by the Outlook magazine and the Sthree Shakthi Award in recent years.]

Mayilamma passed away on Jan 6, 2007.

Thanks to Savad Rahman for sharing this news and the lady's photograph.

A place called Singur

Singur. A place in the Hoogly district of West Bengal.

"I won't give up my land," says 48-year old Loknath in an article that appeared in Mumbai newspaper DNA. He knows that some ‘boro karkhana’ (large industry) will come up, for which he has to give up his farmland, his sole source of income.

The story goes that the CPM-led Left Front Government of West Bengal is set to acquire the multi-crop lands at Singur to make way for a small car factory. A move that will leave many farmers like Loknath landless. It's not just the farmers-- apparently this move will render more than ten thousand local inhabitants including farmers, sharecroppers and daily labourers jobless.

A group of scientists from various research institutes have personally visited the area and declared that it is beyond any doubt that the earmarked lands are extremely fertile and vast majority of those grow multi-crops throughout the year, and a group of research scientists from the Center for Studies on Social Sciences (CSSS), Kolkata have tried to capture this in a documentary film “Abad Bhumi” (Right to Land). They have also prepared an online petition that addresses the Governer of West Bengal. Don't know how much it'll help though.

Yet another example of the much-hyped "Globalization" eating up our resources and not accounting for it? Probably. But we may forget that soon.

As we already seem to have forgotten that the Colas have been sucking out our groundwater and ruining our villages (they fill the soil with toxics in return as a token of their gratitude) -- be it Mehendiganj in Uttar Pradesh (where Coca Cola draws out more than 250,000 liters of underground water per day and dumps toxic wastes) or Plachimada in Kerala (where the plant was shut-down once following a court order and is operational again now). In Shivaganga, Tamil Nadu, people's protest prevented a plant of Coke being set up in a region that was already facing water scarcity. There are silimar stories of struggles from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, Patna and Hajipur in Bihar, Satharia Jainpur, Simhachavar in Ballia, Hathras in Aligarh, Dasna–Masoori in Ghaziabad, Bijnor in U.P., Badoli and Panipat in Haryana, Mandideep and Bhopal in M.P., Ahmedabad and Herea in Gujarat, Kudus and Thane in Maharashtra. Now the issue is whether the drinks have pesticides in it (Bahu Tulsi and Aamir Khan are assuring us they are safe) or whether having pesticides is a non-issue as even mother's milk has it, or whether it is right to compare Cola with Mother's milk.

* * *

[Some details and updates on the Singur story at PCFS page:

Forced Eviction of Farming Communities in Singur, West Bengal (and other links)

Also see: Tata Motors defends site selection at Singur, Times of India, 21 October 2006.

CPM defends the move: All India Kisan Sabha (CITU) leader and Industries Minister in People's Democracy]

Cola and Pesticides: Skirting real issues?

Centre for Science and Environment has (again) found out that the levels of pesticides in bottled softdrinks are high. Kerala and Karnataka Governments have already banned the drinks. Many environmental and social activists seem to be welcoming the ban.

I smell a rat. Now what has happened is that the main issue is that the Colas have pestisides in them! And both the times, these "findings" appeared when the people's struggle against the exploitation of ground water was beginning to gain attention. There is enough reason to believe that all this is happening as a big game to skirt the real issues and divert people's attention.

[see
INDIA: Coca-Cola swallows villagers' fresh water

Communities Protest Coca-Cola in Tamil Nadu
The people in Sivganga in Tamil Nadu are agitating against a soft drink maker's plans to exploit large amounts of water from the region, which is already facing water scarcity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3096893.stm
Waste product from a Coca-Cola plant in India which the company provides as fertiliser for local farmers contains toxic chemicals, a BBC study has found.]

Last year, the Edinburgh Students Association at University of Edinburgh brought a motion of boycott of coke. The reason given was the exploitation of ground water in Kerala and ill treatment of workers in Columbia. This motion was not passed, but I feel it was more genuine than the CSE's findings and the bans that followed.

Not the least, these findings also hide the real cause for concern regarding these pesticide levels-- the extent to which the continued use of pesticides have been contaminated. [see this Hindu article: They told me they were safe..]