The Coke Machine Part 8
In the meantime, Rogers explored how he could attack c.o.ke's financial interests, including its interlocking board of directors with Sun Trust Bank, the descendant of Ernest Woodruff's Trust Company of Georgia, which still owned some 50 million c.o.ke shares. Without any money to create a sustained campaign against the bank, however, Rogers was unable to create much momentum. But as summer turned to fall, the Campaign to Stop Killer c.o.ke hit upon a new target to put pressure on the company's image almost completely by accident. As luck would have it, it took virtually no resources at all: college campuses.
Colleges have been centers of activism at least since the Vietnam War; even as unions were fighting downsizing in the 1980s, however, labor issues were hardly on the radar of the privileged, middle-cla.s.s, mostly white students who gravitated toward global issues such as the wars in Central America or the nuclear-freeze movement. As environmental issues took prominence in the 1990s, unions were frequently on the opposite side of battles pitching jobs against the environment. centers of activism at least since the Vietnam War; even as unions were fighting downsizing in the 1980s, however, labor issues were hardly on the radar of the privileged, middle-cla.s.s, mostly white students who gravitated toward global issues such as the wars in Central America or the nuclear-freeze movement. As environmental issues took prominence in the 1990s, unions were frequently on the opposite side of battles pitching jobs against the environment.
Then came Nike. In the campaign against sweatshops, students led the boycott against apparel companies on behalf of workers overseas. By the late 1990s, activists were making connections between environmental, labor, and human rights issues, which they saw as casualties of a globalizing economy pushed through by international inst.i.tutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the benefit of multinational corporations and politically connected elites. The backlash burst into view in protests at the WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999, when thousands of activists locked themselves together on street corners and skirmished with riot police and tear-gas-wielding National Guardsmen to shut down the talks.
The inevitably dubbed "Battle in Seattle" inaugurated the modern anti-globalization movement (or as some within the movement insisted on calling it, the "anticorporate globalization" movement). This time, unions were allied with environmentalists, marching side by side in Seattle with activists dressed as sea turtles under the slogan "Teamsters and Turtles Together!" After Seattle, a patchouli-scented caravan of activists and black-masked anarchists followed the economic elite to meetings of the WTO, IMF, G8, and Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in cities across the world, stalling much of their agenda.
Even after energy was siphoned off from the movement in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the new alliance between environmental and labor activists against corporate globalization held strong. It's that att.i.tude students brought with them when they returned to campus in the fall of 2003, at the same time the Campaign to Stop Killer c.o.ke was finding its feet. Suddenly, here was a campaign against the very symbol of American capitalism, accused of horrific crimes of murder and intimidation in a far-off country. Rogers encouraged anyone who wanted to run with the campaign to download literature and campaign materials from the Campaign to Stop Killer c.o.ke's website. But even he was surprised when word came that a 1,200-student college in Illinois had removed c.o.ke from its campus in favor of Pepsi after a student pet.i.tion. Soon after, 1,400-student Bard College in upstate New York followed suit, on the basis of violations to the code of conduct it implemented for vendors after the sweatshop campaign.
It was enough for the Coca-Cola Company to take notice. "Unfortunately, Bard College officials appear to be relying on discredited allegations that have been reviewed and repeatedly rejected by courts and independent investigations in the United States and Canada," c.o.ke spokeswoman Lori Billingsley told the Atlanta Business Chronicle Atlanta Business Chronicle (without elaborating on which investigations she was referring to). "There is no factual or legal basis that our company and its bottling partners were responsible for wrongful conduct in Colombia." (without elaborating on which investigations she was referring to). "There is no factual or legal basis that our company and its bottling partners were responsible for wrongful conduct in Colombia."
Despite c.o.ke's denials, the college campaign really took off across the Atlantic when the 20,000-student University College Dublin scheduled a referendum on dropping its contract with c.o.ke. With three thousand votes cast, the measure pa.s.sed by fewer than sixty votes. c.o.ke flew into action, sending in a public relations representative from Latin America to give a presentation in support of the company; SINALTRAINAL countered by sending Luis "Chile" Garcia to present its side. When a revote came down on November 19, 2003, the campaign won by an even higher margin than before-causing the first serious blow against the company, and putting the Campaign to Stop Killer c.o.ke on the map.
In a sense, colleges seemed the perfect venue for the campaign-a way to "cut out markets" in the one place that c.o.ke was most eager to keep them in order to develop that key early brand loyalty. Meanwhile, Corporate Campaign could rely on a virtually unlimited amount of foot soldiers that cost it virtually nothing-a not insignificant fact given that the campaign never had more than a $100,000-a-year budget, compared with c.o.ke's $30 billion. The college battle also created waves far from campus, as the media piled on c.o.ke's alleged misdeeds overseas. c.o.ke's hometown Atlanta Business Chronicle Atlanta Business Chronicle wrote a long, unflattering article, and business magazine wrote a long, unflattering article, and business magazine Forbes Forbes ran a cover story t.i.tled "c.o.ke's Sinful World" that mentioned the situation in Colombia. Rogers's strategy of publicly embarra.s.sing the company was working-and the company only dug itself into a deeper hole when it tried to fight back. When Carleton College invited c.o.ke spokeswoman Lori Billingsley to speak in the spring of 2004, Rogers was in the audience. When she repeated her a.s.sertion that an independent investigation had cleared the company, he leaped up, yelling, "They're lying! They're lying!" The investigation, he told students, was done by the company's own law firm White & Case, the same firm representing them in the ATCA case in Miami. "There's a moment in history that's very rare where students have the power to change one of the largest corporations in the world," he continued, urging them to boot c.o.ke from campus. Following the meeting, the student senate voted twelve to eight to remove Carleton's c.o.ke machines. ran a cover story t.i.tled "c.o.ke's Sinful World" that mentioned the situation in Colombia. Rogers's strategy of publicly embarra.s.sing the company was working-and the company only dug itself into a deeper hole when it tried to fight back. When Carleton College invited c.o.ke spokeswoman Lori Billingsley to speak in the spring of 2004, Rogers was in the audience. When she repeated her a.s.sertion that an independent investigation had cleared the company, he leaped up, yelling, "They're lying! They're lying!" The investigation, he told students, was done by the company's own law firm White & Case, the same firm representing them in the ATCA case in Miami. "There's a moment in history that's very rare where students have the power to change one of the largest corporations in the world," he continued, urging them to boot c.o.ke from campus. Following the meeting, the student senate voted twelve to eight to remove Carleton's c.o.ke machines.
Meanwhile, students started campaigns at more than a hundred other colleges, lured by the opportunity to do something concrete about the overwhelming issue of global injustice. "It's something that students feel personally connected to, because it's something they can hold in their hand," said Avi Chomsky, a professor of Latin American studies at Salem State College in Ma.s.sachusetts, the next campus to sever its ties with c.o.ke.
As the student campaigns started to gain momentum, they rallied around the idea of a truly independent investigation into the Colombia murders that would determine once and for all the truth of the situation: What hand did local bottling plant managers play in fomenting the violence against the union, and how much and when did bottling heads and the Coca-Cola Company itself know about that violence. The stakes for c.o.ke were high in such a scenario-agree to an investigation and it would be able to put the case behind it once and for all; but if something turned up in the investigation that was unflattering to c.o.ke's image, it would cause a backlash even greater than the one it was currently facing, not to mention potentially open it up to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. And in 2003, c.o.ke could ill afford any more controversy. It was already fighting for its life in the midst of the obesity crisis, not to mention dealing with the fallout from its catastrophic dip in earnings after the death of Goizueta and the rejection of Ivester.
Given that context, it's surprising that the company executives actually considered giving in to activist demands on this point-even in one case agreeing sincerely to carry one out. When c.o.ke's general counsel Deval Patrick was being honored as a civil rights pioneer by the legal nonprofit Equal Justice Works, the campaign saw an opening. Patrick had formerly headed the civil rights division in the Clinton administration Justice Department, before becoming a corporate lawyer for the likes of Ameriquest, Texaco, and finally c.o.ke, which he joined in 2000. He was hailed as a reformer, trying to extricate the company from its legal troubles in the nineties with the channel-stuffing allegations and the frozen c.o.ke fraud revealed by whistle-blower Matthew Whitley. Collingsworth sent a letter to his colleagues at Equal Justice Works criticizing c.o.ke, which he said profited "from human rights violations while limiting liability to a local ent.i.ty that is a mere facilitator for the parent company's operations." When one of the nonprofit's members raised the issue publicly at the awards ceremony, Patrick impulsively pledged to create an independent delegation to Colombia "so we could see that those workers were in fact organized and were able to be organized."
When Patrick got back to headquarters, however, CEO Doug Daft nixed the idea, telling Patrick in March 2004 that it wouldn't happen. Patrick resigned a month later, with The Washington Post The Washington Post quoting "sources close to the situation" as saying "the frustration played a role in Patrick's decision." c.o.ke denied it, saying Patrick's decision to resign was "predominantly personal." Running for governor of Ma.s.sachusetts a year later, however, Patrick said that even though c.o.ke's internal investigations hadn't turned up links between the Colombian bottlers and paramilitaries, he had pushed for an independent investigation to give consumers "confidence in the brand." In his mind, he said, "either of two things would happen. . . . Either that independent investigation would confirm what we had found with our internal investigation, or we would find something we didn't know, in which case we needed to know and the bottling company needed to know it and deal with it." The company refused, he said, and "that's why I resigned." His devotion to principle, however, hardly stopped him from accepting a $2.1 million consulting contract with the company on the eve of his successful gubernatorial campaign. quoting "sources close to the situation" as saying "the frustration played a role in Patrick's decision." c.o.ke denied it, saying Patrick's decision to resign was "predominantly personal." Running for governor of Ma.s.sachusetts a year later, however, Patrick said that even though c.o.ke's internal investigations hadn't turned up links between the Colombian bottlers and paramilitaries, he had pushed for an independent investigation to give consumers "confidence in the brand." In his mind, he said, "either of two things would happen. . . . Either that independent investigation would confirm what we had found with our internal investigation, or we would find something we didn't know, in which case we needed to know and the bottling company needed to know it and deal with it." The company refused, he said, and "that's why I resigned." His devotion to principle, however, hardly stopped him from accepting a $2.1 million consulting contract with the company on the eve of his successful gubernatorial campaign.
Rogers takes credit for forcing Patrick out of the company-the first casualty of Killer c.o.ke's corporate campaign. He also suspects that the campaign played a role in Daft's own retirement from the company shortly thereafter. Whether or not that's true, Rogers did at least ensure he went out with a bang. Unlike the tepid protests at the previous year's shareholder meeting, Rogers intended the 2004 meeting to be an affair to remember.
Rogers had a love-hate relationship with shareholder meetings. It was his one opportunity all year to confront his enemies in the ring, a love-hate relationship with shareholder meetings. It was his one opportunity all year to confront his enemies in the ring, mano a mano mano a mano. But he also hated the pressure of direct confrontation. He couldn't sleep the night before c.o.ke's annual meeting in April 2004, and he was still scribbling notes as he sat in the audience in the ballroom of the Hotel Dupont in Wilmington, Delaware, not exactly sure what he would say.
At least he had a new weapon in his a.r.s.enal. Just a month earlier, a New York City councillor, Hiram Monserrate, had released a report from a fact-finding mission to c.o.ke plants in Colombia. In ten days, Monserrate and his team had met with dozens of c.o.ke workers and c.o.ke FEMSA managers who admitted that it was possible that bottling plant managers may have worked with paramilitaries without authorization. Shockingly, however, those officials said neither Coca-Cola nor any of its bottling companies had ever done any internal investigations into the violence. The report's conclusions were d.a.m.ning to the company. "c.o.ke has shown-at best-disregard for the lives of its workers," it stated, adding that the company "has allowed if not itself orchestrated the human rights violations of its workers, and it has benefited economically from those violations, which have severely weakened the workers' union and their bargaining power."
Sitting in the audience, Rogers grew increasingly angry listening to Daft standing at the podium. After he declared record first-quarter profits of $1.13 billion-an increase of 35 percent over the previous year- Daft addressed the Colombia situation, saying not only that Coca-Cola was innocent of any violence but that no union member had ever been harmed on the grounds of a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Colombia. That was too much, for Rogers, who leaped to the microphone as soon as Daft opened the floor to comments.
"After months of investigation into Coca-Cola," he began shouting, "all evidence shows that the Coca-Cola system is rife with immorality, corruption, and complicity in gross human rights violations including murder and torture. Mr. Daft, you lied earlier today about the situation in Colombia," he continued. "Isidro Gil was a.s.sa.s.sinated, murdered, in one of your bottling plants in Colombia." As Rogers's voice boomed off the ballroom's high ceiling, Daft impatiently tried to break into his speech, warning Rogers had exceeded his two-minute limit. "Please do not interrupt me, Mr. Daft!" Rogers yelled, as audience members started joining in the call for him to be quiet.
Rogers continued on about the Monserrate report and the ATCA lawsuit, as Daft ordered his microphone shut off. Security guards moved in, but the former boxer wouldn't be taken out of the ring without a fight. "You're getting out of here," said one guard, trying to put an arm around Rogers's neck in a chokehold. "Oh no, I'm not," said Rogers, struggling free. Three more guards came to help, knocking out Rogers's legs and tackling him to the floor, knocking off his gla.s.ses. "I'm not leaving," he continued to yell, even as Daft pleaded from the podium for the police to be gentle. Finally, Rogers relented and they carried him out of the room. "We shouldn't have done that," Daft said to a fellow executive on the podium, even as more members of the audience-a fired-up member of the Teamsters, several student activists-repeated the call for an independent investigation into the murders.
To this day, Rogers insists he hadn't intended the meeting to turn physical-but he doesn't regret what happened. "It certainly got more attention," he grins. One person who noticed was B. Wardlaw, a descendent of a member of the 1919 syndicate and the company's largest individual shareholder, with 77,000 shares of common stock worth more than $4 million at the time. "The cops didn't have to choke you and drag you off to earn my respect," he wrote in a handwritten note to Rogers. "But, hey, Ray, I certainly admire the way you handle yourself!" Enclosed was a $5,000 check to Corporate Campaign, Inc.
Meanwhile, major stories on the incident appeared in The Washington Post The Washington Post and and The Atlanta Journal-Const.i.tution The Atlanta Journal-Const.i.tution, casting an unflattering light on Daft. And a month later, a new Fortune Fortune cover story slamming c.o.ke mentioned its refusal to investigate in Colombia a "public relations nightmare." Encouraged by so much success just a year into the campaign, Rogers redoubled efforts for the coming school year-looking for a big campus in the United States that could serve as a poster child for the campaign. By that time, however, Colombia wasn't the only issue being talked about on campus. Rogers's open invitation to take part in the Campaign to Stop Killer c.o.ke was taken up by a campaign against c.o.ke in another country. While less sensational than murder, the allegations were potentially damaging to c.o.ke's core business in one of its key growth markets overseas-India. cover story slamming c.o.ke mentioned its refusal to investigate in Colombia a "public relations nightmare." Encouraged by so much success just a year into the campaign, Rogers redoubled efforts for the coming school year-looking for a big campus in the United States that could serve as a poster child for the campaign. By that time, however, Colombia wasn't the only issue being talked about on campus. Rogers's open invitation to take part in the Campaign to Stop Killer c.o.ke was taken up by a campaign against c.o.ke in another country. While less sensational than murder, the allegations were potentially damaging to c.o.ke's core business in one of its key growth markets overseas-India.
NINE.
All the Water in India The sun has yet to come up over the horizon as a boy pushes his wooden skiff into the current of the holy river Ganges. Already the city is waking up. Yellow lights shine from the tiers of steps along the bank, and men stripped to the waist and women in colorful saris descend for ablutions to Ganga Ma in a ritual as ancient as anything on earth. Nowhere in the world is water as revered as in Varanasi, the holiest city of Hinduism, where every Hindu Indian is expected to bathe at least once in life, and where, Hindus believe, to be cremated is to skip to the head of the line of reincarnation straight through to liberation.
Temples built centuries ago by maharajas from desert lands line the steps along the river, or ghats, where the sacred and profane intermingle now with the dawn. Tourists with zoom lenses watch from rowboats as ascetics smeared with ash strike yoga poses on concrete walls and dhobiwallahs dhobiwallahs soaked thigh-deep in the river beat the city's dirty laundry against stone blocks. Ads painted on the ghats boast of guesthouses and book-stores, silk emporiums and German bakeries. Amid piles of trash and scavenging children, someone has painted in English: "Fortunate are those who live along the banks of Ganga." soaked thigh-deep in the river beat the city's dirty laundry against stone blocks. Ads painted on the ghats boast of guesthouses and book-stores, silk emporiums and German bakeries. Amid piles of trash and scavenging children, someone has painted in English: "Fortunate are those who live along the banks of Ganga."
Among all of the ironies of the river, however, the deepest is how much the water of this holy river is rife with pollution. The upstream side of Varanasi has a fecal coliform bacteria count of 600,000 per liter-more than one hundred times what's considered safe for bathing. At the downstream end, levels approach 15 million. Meanwhile, a toxic soup of heavy metals-including cadmium, chromium, and lead-flows downstream from the electroplating factories, tanneries, and brick kilns. All of that makes the Ganges, as The Economist The Economist put it, "a cloudy brown soup of excrement and industrial effluent." put it, "a cloudy brown soup of excrement and industrial effluent."
It's not a lack of environmental laws that makes it that way-regulations in India are as strict as those in the United States or Europe. Nor is it insufficient resources or political will. Since 1985, the government has spent some 14 billion rupees ($300 million) on an ambitious cleanup plan that includes sewage treatment and chromium recovery. Sadly, the plan has been a colossal disappointment, beset by power failures and local indifference, lack of enforcement, and outright corruption. Nearly half of those who bathe regularly in the river suffer from skin diseases and stomach ailments, according to local health officials. The World Health Organization estimates that Ganges river water accounts for the deaths of 1.5 million children each year. This is the environment the Coca-Cola Company reentered in 1991 after more than a decade away from the country. The question is whether the company would follow the prevailing laxity in environmental enforcement or set a higher standard in keeping with the image of international harmony it so a.s.siduously projects. As with water issues in Mexico or labor protections in Colombia, however, it has been accused of falling far short of the mark.
On a drive through the outskirts of Varanasi, the smells of diesel, s.h.i.t, and curry a.s.sault the nostrils, carried through the open window of the taxi with a blast of 110-degree heat. For those unused to it, the humidity makes even breathing a ch.o.r.e. The car narrowly avoids countless collisions as it merges onto the Grand Trunk Highway, a chaos of cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and honking cargo trucks running clear between New Delhi in the west and Kolkata (Calcutta) in the east. Just as suddenly as it entered the highway, however, the taxi veers through a claustrophobic alley to break suddenly into agricultural fields. Water buffalo and wooden carts amble slowly past orderly plots of green wheat and sugarcane, pixilated with the bright saris of women stopping to weed and till. The landscape looks almost biblical-or would if not for the Bollywood music screeching from the Lok Samiti school in the middle of the village of Mehdiganj. through the outskirts of Varanasi, the smells of diesel, s.h.i.t, and curry a.s.sault the nostrils, carried through the open window of the taxi with a blast of 110-degree heat. For those unused to it, the humidity makes even breathing a ch.o.r.e. The car narrowly avoids countless collisions as it merges onto the Grand Trunk Highway, a chaos of cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and honking cargo trucks running clear between New Delhi in the west and Kolkata (Calcutta) in the east. Just as suddenly as it entered the highway, however, the taxi veers through a claustrophobic alley to break suddenly into agricultural fields. Water buffalo and wooden carts amble slowly past orderly plots of green wheat and sugarcane, pixilated with the bright saris of women stopping to weed and till. The landscape looks almost biblical-or would if not for the Bollywood music screeching from the Lok Samiti school in the middle of the village of Mehdiganj.
Several hundred people, mostly women and children, sit on blankets spread on the gra.s.s between smudged yellow walls. Onstage, teenage girls in saris of crimson, saffron, and cobalt shake their hips and arms to the Bollywood numbers, seemingly impervious to the heat. In contrast to Chiapas, there is no obesity here. The peasants live lean and close to the bone, and children sport the sallow eyes and sharp angles of malnutrition. After the dancing, the head of the school, Nandlal Master, steps up to the podium to congratulate the girls on completing a summer certificate program, with courses including candlemaking, sewing, and computers. With speakers buzzing, he announces the name of each girl along with that of her father, as one by one they rise to accept their diplomas.
The school is only the most visible project of Lok Samiti, which translates to "people's committee" in Hindi. "Lok Samiti follows the Gandhian idea of village democracy," Nandlal says after the ceremony, once the girls have piled into a three-wheeled pickup to be taken home. The air fills with the woodsy smell of burning cow dung, as the men congregate around a buzzing electric light. "Our idea is that people in the villages should have jobs and stay rather than go to the city, and that production should be done by hand and not by machines."
The villages around Varanasi are prized for their silk saris, and Nandlal himself comes from a family of weavers. His father died when he was only five years old; perhaps because of that loss, he in turn has become a father figure to some of the village children, teaching weaving skills and eventually opening his own school. Over time, the group grew into a one-stop social services agency, called upon to settle land disputes and domestic squabbles, and performing a group marriage ceremony for couples each spring. So it was only natural that farmers would come to the committee when they began having problems with their neighbor, a Coca-Cola bottling plant.
The plant here dates back to 1995, built by Indian company Parle to produce local soft drinks Thums Up, Limca, and Gold Spot. In 1999, however, a division of Coca-Cola India purchased the plant and almost immediately workers began clashing with the company over working conditions. As in Colombia, only a fraction of the workers in the plant-some thirty-five or forty people-are permanent. The rest, up to two hundred workers, are employed only on short-term contracts, allowing the company to save on pay and benefits. Unhappy with the arrangement, workers appealed to company management for a more favorable deal-the company said no.
The real problems with the company, however, began when the farmers surrounding the plant began to experience problems with their crops and livestock they had never had before. The day after the graduation ceremony, Nandlal introduces a group of villagers who have gathered under a thatched awning to tell their tale. "The first major problem was that Coca-Cola used to discharge this wastewater. It was reaching the farmers' land and destroying the land, making the land barren," states Urmika Vishwakarma, a woman who has worked with Lok Samiti to administer micro-loans to women in the village. "All the animals who drank it died; anyone who touched it got blisters."
Originally, c.o.ke channeled its wastewater through a culvert under the Grand Trunk Highway into a ca.n.a.l that eventually made its way into the Ganges. In December 2002, however, the government blocked the culvert during highway reconstruction, spilling effluent into the fields. For months, the water pooled by the side of the highway, turning the fields into a rank, fly-drawing soup.
At that time, several villagers came to Lok Samiti to help. As they began to investigate, the farmers told Nandlal about a more insidious practice by which the bottling plant had been distributing the sludge from the plant's wastewater treatment-a dry, white-colored ash-to farmers as fertilizer. After they used this ash, says Vishwakarma, "nothing would grow." Then there was the drought. The entire state of Uttar Pradesh-of which Varanasi is a part-began experiencing water shortages in 2002, when the yearly monsoons began to fail. But the villagers around Mehdiganj say that their problems began several years earlier, when water levels began to drop precipitously around the Coca-Cola plant. The villagers now gather around an open well in the center of the village, sending a metal bucket down on a rope some sixty or seventy feet. Only in the last few inches does it hit water. Another well nearby is completely dry-one of ninety-seven wells that Lok Samiti says have dried out since the plant began operation in 2000, nearly half of the 223 wells they have surveyed in villages neighboring the plant.
The villagers name a number of factors in that decline-including lack of rainfall and drought. But as in Chiapas, they blame also c.o.ke's deep bore wells for literally sucking their land dry-exacerbating an existing problem if not causing the problem itself. Under the leadership of Lok Samiti, the villagers staged their first rally in front of the plant in May 2003, drawing only a few dozen people to protest. At the same time, they appealed to the local district magistrate, who ordered c.o.ke to clean up its spilled wastewater and install a pipe under the highway to divert wastewater into a ca.n.a.l flowing into the Ganges. Not that the new drain fixed the problem; it just moved it to a less visible location. Across the highway from the plant in Mehdiganj, Nandlal leads the way through fields to a spot in one ca.n.a.l where a pipe protrudes. "There, that's where the Coca-Cola plant discharges their water," he says, pointing to an area where the water is sc.u.mmy and green, with dried patches of white powder on the rocks.
A local farmer who lives a few yards away says the fields close to where the water comes out of the pipe are unproductive compared with those in other areas. If the water from the ca.n.a.l is used to grow sugarcane, it has an off taste. Once, when the plant restarted operations after shutting down a length of time, the ca.n.a.l overflowed into his fish pond, killing all of the fish he was raising for sale. Neighbors, he claims, have lost cows or buffalos. "I am not a doctor, I am not sure how they died," he says. "But they drank that water."
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The plant itself is sectioned off the highway by two gates topped with barbed wire. Unlike representatives of Coca-Cola FEMSA, who refuse to even talk about their operations, much less show off a bottling plant, the local bottler Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. agrees to a tour of the interior. Leading the way is Kalyan Ranjan, Hindustan Coca-Cola's external affairs manager for Northern India. Short and nattily dressed, he wears dark sungla.s.ses and a permanent scowl. But he is also remarkably patient with a day and a half's worth of questions about c.o.ke's operations-which is more than can be said about any of c.o.ke's public relations representatives in the United States or Mexico. itself is sectioned off the highway by two gates topped with barbed wire. Unlike representatives of Coca-Cola FEMSA, who refuse to even talk about their operations, much less show off a bottling plant, the local bottler Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. agrees to a tour of the interior. Leading the way is Kalyan Ranjan, Hindustan Coca-Cola's external affairs manager for Northern India. Short and nattily dressed, he wears dark sungla.s.ses and a permanent scowl. But he is also remarkably patient with a day and a half's worth of questions about c.o.ke's operations-which is more than can be said about any of c.o.ke's public relations representatives in the United States or Mexico.
The first glimpses inside the plant there are underwhelming. In the stairwell just inside the entrance, a Sundblom Santa Claus smiles from an old poster, his red suit faded by the sun. Farther along, the cubicles lining the corridor upstairs are dilapidated, their walls sagging. In the conference room, the tables are covered with peeling contact paper and are surrounded by red plastic lawn furniture and, incongruously, a black leather couch.
Sitting down on the sofa, Ranjan sighs and says the allegations against the company have been blown out of proportion. Yes, water levels in the area have fallen, but the problem is the persistent drought, not the extraction from the plant. "If the question is groundwater depletion, the answer is yes. If the question is whether it's the responsibility of c.o.ke, the answer is no," he says. "The simple reason is we are the smallest user, so in that sense, we are the smallest contributor to the problem." Sticking to the corporate playbook of diffusing responsibility for the problem, he says c.o.ke uses only 3 percent of the area's groundwater, while agriculture accounts for more than 80 percent.
As for solid waste, he says the company disposes of it at a government-designated facility, and has never distributed it for fertilizer. "We have never dispensed biosolids to farmers," he says. "Not an ounce, never ever, not here, not anywhere." That vehemence is surprising, since Hindustan Coca-Cola's own vice president said as recently as 2003 that the sludge was "supplied to farmers free of cost, as it was found to be a good soil conditioner." Another statement on c.o.ke's website a.s.serts that "since 2003, we no longer distribute biosolids to any area farmers for agricultural use," implying that up until 2003 it did, in fact, distribute sludge.
Ranjan does admit that the company had a problem with wastewater flowing from the plant, but it lasted only three or four days, despite contemporary media accounts that say the problem persisted for months. Even so, he says, the water that flowed from the plant was treated wastewater, which should have been completely harmless-a fact that Ranjan says he will demonstrate after the plant manager, Sanjay Bansal, arrives to lead a tour.
Bansal shows the way to the pump house, where the plant has two bore wells-one with a capacity of 50,000 liters per hour, and a backup of 30,000 liters-for a total extraction of some 15 million liters during June, its busiest month. From there, a pipeline leads to the water treatment facility, where Bansal explains a seven-step process of purification, starting with the application of lime and bleach, continuing through a carbon filter to remove chemicals, then ultraviolet light to kill bacteria, and then successively smaller filters that remove any particles left in the water. From there, the water pa.s.ses into the bottling facility. "German," Bansal nods approvingly at the Krones automatic electronic bottling machine on the way past a blur of gla.s.s bottles-the one part of the plant that looks identical to the Coca-Cola Enterprises plant in Ma.s.sachusetts.
Finally, to complete the cycle, the water pa.s.ses to the wastewater treatment plant, which looks surprisingly rudimentary compared with the shiny and complex intake treatment room. A catwalk leads over several open tanks where water is sprayed with ammonia to reduce the pH level and aerated in a froth to reduce the oxygen bacteria need to survive. The water is then filtered through tanks where chemicals and bacteria dry as sludge, while the rest of the water is pumped into holding tanks to be flushed out as waste.
A small laboratory full of test tubes and beakers checks the wastewater for pH as well as dissolved solids and biological oxygen demand (BOD)-a measure of dissolved organic matter that can lead to bacterial growth. A whiteboard on the wall shows that on the day of the tour all of these measures are below the standards set by the Central Pollution Control Board of India. To prove that the water can support life, Bansal shows off a small tank containing two ground fish, which he says are swimming in the same treated wastewater that will be flushed from the plant. "That is the ultimate test," he says.
Leading the way into the manager's office, he introduces a local farmer from the nearby village of Karipur named Dudh Nath Yadav. The bottling company has done a lot of good for his village, he says, giving young people employment at the plant. While he says the groundwater has receded in the past four or five years, the farmers protesting c.o.ke have exaggerated the amount, which he puts at only fifteen feet. "They don't have too much support," he says of the protesters. Ranjan chimes in, insisting that he has never seen more than 150 people protesting in front of the plant, half of them from the Lok Samiti school.
Of all of the claims that Ranjan makes, the idea that protesters have very little support is the most easily contradicted. Photos, eyewitness accounts, and independent news reports have doc.u.mented thousands of people at a time protesting in front of the plant in Mehdiganj. And that is neither the first nor the only place that c.o.ke has met opposition in the country. In fact, not since France after World War II has any country shown such vehement opposition to c.o.ke on so many fronts, part of a rocky history that has beset the company for decades.
c.o.ke first entered India in 1958-back when the recently independent country was openly welcoming the investment of foreign corporations. In short order, c.o.ke became the dominant soft drink in the market. The mood of the country changed in the 1970s, however, when a lingering mistrust of foreign powers led to a backlash against multinationals. Then Parliament pa.s.sed a law requiring companies to divest at least 60 percent of their shares to local investors. Despite the fact that some twenty-two bottling plants were already majority-owned by Indians, the Coca-Cola Export Company that supplied them with syrup was not. Not only did the government demand divestment from the syrup plant, it also required c.o.ke to divulge the recipe for the secret formula, an obvious deal-breaker for the company. c.o.ke's executives from John Pemberton to Robert Woodruff hadn't spent so much time imbuing the secret formula with such totemlike secrecy only to throw all of that away for the sake of one country. Reluctantly, c.o.ke packed up and left in 1977. in 1958-back when the recently independent country was openly welcoming the investment of foreign corporations. In short order, c.o.ke became the dominant soft drink in the market. The mood of the country changed in the 1970s, however, when a lingering mistrust of foreign powers led to a backlash against multinationals. Then Parliament pa.s.sed a law requiring companies to divest at least 60 percent of their shares to local investors. Despite the fact that some twenty-two bottling plants were already majority-owned by Indians, the Coca-Cola Export Company that supplied them with syrup was not. Not only did the government demand divestment from the syrup plant, it also required c.o.ke to divulge the recipe for the secret formula, an obvious deal-breaker for the company. c.o.ke's executives from John Pemberton to Robert Woodruff hadn't spent so much time imbuing the secret formula with such totemlike secrecy only to throw all of that away for the sake of one country. Reluctantly, c.o.ke packed up and left in 1977.
Into the breach came Thums Up, a drier and fruitier cola made by the Indian company Parle that quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed up the market c.o.ke had left behind. The tide turned back in the 1990s, however; with the new globalization fostered by the WTO and IMF, countries were told that the key to prosperity was privatizing industry and reducing barriers to foreign investment. India relaxed its ownership guidelines, and c.o.ke began exploring a return to the country-which it did in a big way in 1993. Facing opposition from Parle, however, c.o.ke simply bought up the company, along with its brands.
Initially, c.o.ke set out to create an anchor bottler similar to other parts of the world-but it ran into resistance from the bottlers already existing in the country, which refused to sell out or merge. By 1997, c.o.ke shifted tack to build its own bottling system under a new ent.i.ty called Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd., which now directly runs approximately half of the bottling plants in the country. The Indian government allowed the company under the stipulation that at least 49 percent of shares would be sold to Indian shareholders by July 2002.
Almost from the beginning, c.o.ke's return to India was a disaster. Soft drinks had never caught on much in India outside an urban middle cla.s.s that made up only 10 percent of the population. In the rural areas, people still drank traditional beverages such as coconut water, tea, and yogurt-based la.s.si. By 2002, per-caps in India were dismal, at just 6 bottles per person per year, compared with 17 in Pakistan, 73 in Thailand, and 173 in the Philippines. Making matters worse, c.o.ke made the poor decision to kill the popular Thums Up brand and subst.i.tute c.o.ke instead. The push failed, opening up more room for the ascension of Pepsi. Now Thums Up and Pepsi both command 20 percent of the market, while c.o.ke languishes in third place with 11 percent, despite lavish ad campaigns featuring Bollywood film stars.
Pleading poverty, Coca-Cola India asked the government for a stay of execution in divesting its shares in Hindustan Beverages, arguing it would lead to a fire sale in shares that would hurt the company's all-important brand image. The government granted it, even as the national and foreign press slammed c.o.ke for reneging on its promise. Now, seven years after the deadline, only 10 percent of the company is Indian-owned.
Already in 2001, however, c.o.ke's fortunes were beginning to change, first with a new strategy to divide the market into two separate parts. Sophisticated urbanites were sold an aspirational campaign invoking an upscale American way of life, with the tagline "life as it should be." Meanwhile in the rural market, the company pushed the simpler slogan "c.o.ke means cold" to appeal to a generic love of cold drinks in the steamy back-waters of the country. Akin to its strategy in Mexico, c.o.ke also marketed a smaller bottle for half the price in rural areas. The gambit began to show promise. Volume grew by nearly 40 percent in 2002, with the company breaking even for the first time since reentry. Business, it seemed, had finally turned a corner. Then all h.e.l.l broke loose.
The first rumblings of what would grow into a national condemnation of Coca-Cola began not in Mehdiganj but in a sleepy village in the southern state of Kerala. Once known as the Malabar Coast, Kerala is a sliver of land in southwestern India, just seventy-five miles across at its widest, sandwiched between the ocean and a craggy mountain chain known as the Western Ghats. of what would grow into a national condemnation of Coca-Cola began not in Mehdiganj but in a sleepy village in the southern state of Kerala. Once known as the Malabar Coast, Kerala is a sliver of land in southwestern India, just seventy-five miles across at its widest, sandwiched between the ocean and a craggy mountain chain known as the Western Ghats.
Thanks to the wall of mountains, the state gets more rain than any other in India. Compared with the heat and frenzy of Varanasi, the air here is fresh and cool by late June after the monsoons have hit. Everything is lush and green, framed by picturesque mountain peaks with mist curling around their middles. As in Chiapas, however, all of the abundance can be misleading. Water is unevenly distributed in the state, with some areas in a "rain shadow" behind a mountain peak getting half of the rainfall of a village just a few miles away.
That is the case in Plachimada, where Hindustan Coca-Cola decided to build a bottling plant that began operation in March 2000. The company sank six bore wells to take advantage of the village's seemingly ample groundwater. Excited by the possibility of jobs, both the state and the local village council, the Perumatty Panchayat, fast-tracked approval.
"When Coca-Cola first started, people were very happy," says Ajayan, convener of the Plachimada Solidarity Committee, who grew up a few miles from here but now lives in the southern city of Trivandrum. (Like many Indians, he goes by only one name.) As in Mehdiganj, however, the villagers very quickly changed their tune, when their wells started drying up and their water started being polluted. Driving past palm trees and rice paddies, Ajayan slows the car slightly to point out the gates of the plant. Rising thirty feet above the green undergrowth, a twisted metal frame is now all that remains of the sign where Hindustan Coca-Cola once hung. "Many villages have boycotted Coca-Cola, [but] nowhere in the world has a Coca-Cola unit but Plachimada," Ajayan says proudly.
The resistance that led to that closing started in earnest in 2002, led by a shrunken s.e.xagenarian named Mailamma, who pa.s.sed away a few years ago. Ajayan pulls off the road and leads the way down a path of red earth lined with brick walls to Mailamma's home. In what is becoming a familiar ritual, he shows off the well in her front yard, empty except for a few feet of brackish water. Along with the lack of water, Mailamma and others started noticing a bitter taste to the water they did have. A teacher at a nearby school found that her students were increasingly absent because of stomach ailments and skin rashes, or late because they were sent farther and farther away to fetch drinkable water. Others discovered that the water turned rice brown when used for cooking, or that baths caused itching that lasted for days. As in Mehdiganj, the villagers also allege that the company distributed sludge for use as fertilizer, causing coconuts to shrink and turn yellow.
The problems with the water continue to this day-as evidenced by cl.u.s.ters of bright plastic jugs sitting by the roadside, which are filled every week by trucks the government has forced c.o.ke to provide to bring in clean water. Even so, say residents, there is never enough water to get through the week, so they are forced to continue to use well water-when that is available. A well in the center of the village, just a few feet from the plant, is almost dry, despite the fact that the plant closed more than four years ago. The hand pumps nearby have only recently started to work again, but the water is still polluted. "You taste the water, you'll see," Ajayan urges, pumping the handle a dozen times before water comes out in a trickle. Sure enough, it tastes clean enough at first, but within a few seconds it leaves a bitter aftertaste difficult to describe-like lime with a slightly metallic or sulfurous undertone that clings to the back of the tongue for hours. According to Ajayan, this is a vast improvement from how the water used to taste, back when the community was spurred to action.
c.o.ke hardly could have picked a worse place in India to set up shop than Plachimada. Like Chiapas in Mexico, Kerala has long been a state apart in India, setting up a socialist government in the 1950s and now trading political power between two left-leaning coalitions. The state's social consciousness has led to a literacy rate of over 90 percent, and health stats far above the national average. On the other hand, the antibusiness climate had led to high unemployment, and given Kerala a reputation of little more than a haven for restless trade unions and righteous NGOs. could have picked a worse place in India to set up shop than Plachimada. Like Chiapas in Mexico, Kerala has long been a state apart in India, setting up a socialist government in the 1950s and now trading political power between two left-leaning coalitions. The state's social consciousness has led to a literacy rate of over 90 percent, and health stats far above the national average. On the other hand, the antibusiness climate had led to high unemployment, and given Kerala a reputation of little more than a haven for restless trade unions and righteous NGOs.
Coinciding with c.o.ke's arrival, Kerala had also seen a surge in political consciousness of India's indigenous people, the Adivasis, who had won a huge victory in October 2001, when the state returned a portion of their ancestral lands. Emboldened by their newfound political muscle, some Adivasis from Plachimada turned their attentions to the c.o.ke plant. After the problems with water started emerging, some urged to shut the plant down by force. A leftist intellectual who had advised the community in the land campaign, however, urged patience, worried the village would face a backlash if it resorted to violence. "I told them their strength was in the local, but their weakness was in not being able to reach out of the local," says C. R. Bijoy. "We had to make the local s.p.a.ce a s.p.a.ce of struggle."
Under the leadership of Mailamma and an Adivasi tribal chief, Veloor Swaminathan, that is exactly what they did, constructing a forty-foot thatched-roof hut directly across from the plant, which still exists in perfect repair, hung with framed pictures of Gandhi at his spinning wheel among propaganda posters. There they settled in for an around-the-clock sit-in that eventually lasted more than four years and has since been used as a textbook study for how a small group of citizens with limited resources can take down a rich multinational.
At each stage of the protest, the villagers worked with what they had, to gather first evidence, and then support, and gradually expand locally, nationally, and even internationally. From the beginning they sought to legitimize their experience with hard evidence. Sending the water out to a local lab, they were validated to find levels of dissolved minerals so high it was "unfit for human consumption, domestic use (bathing and washing), and for irrigation."
Armed with that science, the villagers demanded that the local council, the Perumatty Panchayat, cancel the plant's license to operate. But the council dragged its feet in the face of c.o.ke's own tests contradicting the villagers' claims of water depletion and pollution. "In the beginning we were not against the plant, because so many people were getting employment," admits former village council president A. Krishnan. "We told them we cannot take any action without investigating."
By now, protests in front of the plant attracted hundreds-and on some days, thousands-of people. As word spread, outside groups such as the Indian branch of Greenpeace used the situation to decry the liberalization of the Indian economy as a cautionary tale of the evils of globalization, adding their own foot soldiers to the protest. The village was fast becoming an activist carnival. For each outside group, villagers would show off their depleted wells, let them taste the water, show them the failed attempts to boil rice. Sympathetic stories in the media followed, emphasizing the David versus Goliath aspects of the story, and day by day political pressure grew.
Eventually, both of the state's two communist parties declared their support for the villagers. c.o.ke maintained the support of the mainstream Congress Party, which then controlled Kerala's parliament, and the left-of-center Janata Dal (Secular) Party, which controlled the local village council. But the panchayat panchayat was wavering in the face of the activist occupation of the village-and c.o.ke itself pushed it over the edge when they rebuffed the council's request for information to dispute the activists' claims. "They were just too arrogant," says Krishnan. "They said we've already talked to the big guys, we don't need to talk to you guys." was wavering in the face of the activist occupation of the village-and c.o.ke itself pushed it over the edge when they rebuffed the council's request for information to dispute the activists' claims. "They were just too arrogant," says Krishnan. "They said we've already talked to the big guys, we don't need to talk to you guys."
Stung by the response, the panchayat panchayat reversed itself, revoking the plant's operating license on April 9, 2003, a year after the protest had begun. The stage was set for a showdown with the state government, which still supported the company. Just at that moment, in July 2003, a BBC radio crew appeared on the scene and dramatically changed the game. Told by farmers that c.o.ke had distributed solid waste as fertilizer, the crew took a sample back to a.n.a.lyze its nutrient content to see if it actually could be used to help grow crops. reversed itself, revoking the plant's operating license on April 9, 2003, a year after the protest had begun. The stage was set for a showdown with the state government, which still supported the company. Just at that moment, in July 2003, a BBC radio crew appeared on the scene and dramatically changed the game. Told by farmers that c.o.ke had distributed solid waste as fertilizer, the crew took a sample back to a.n.a.lyze its nutrient content to see if it actually could be used to help grow crops.
No one expected the results they found. The tests from the University of Exeter revealed not only that the sludge was useless as fertilizer, but also that it contained dangerous levels of the toxic heavy metals lead and cadmium. Samples taken from a nearby well also found toxic levels of lead and cadmium, which is known to cause prostate and kidney cancer with prolonged exposure.
The news report rocked the country, from Plachimada to Mehdiganj. After years of anecdotal reports that the sludge was harmful to livestock and crop production, here at last was proof from an internationally respected news agency. India has long had a double standard about Western foreign countries. On one hand, the long shame of colonialism has created a fierce animosity toward foreign influences-evidenced by the early backlash against c.o.ke. On the other hand, the long period of British rule has created an almost reflexive deference to foreigners. While the tests by the Indian company hadn't resonated, the evidence from a respected British university couldn't be ignored.
Shamed before the international press, the Kerala Pollution Control Board did its own tests, concluding within a week that c.o.ke's sludge contained levels of cadmium four times the tolerable limit of 50 milligrams per kilogram. The following day, the Janata Dal Party held a joint press conference with the panchayat panchayat. Not only did it support the local government in revoking the license, party officials said, but it also vowed to pursue legal action to close down the plant.
In the midst of this controversy, c.o.ke was blindsided by the release of another report that helped turn the growing local backlash into a national movement. A month after the BBC report, on August 5, 2003, a Delhi-based environmental group called the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) called a press conference on a sweltering day in the nation's capital to announce to a crowded room of journalists that soft drinks around the country contained dangerous levels of pesticides. Coca-Cola, it reported, contained residues of DDT and malathion forty-five times the European standards. (Pepsi, too, was called out, for containing pesticides at thirty-seven times the European standards.) of this controversy, c.o.ke was blindsided by the release of another report that helped turn the growing local backlash into a national movement. A month after the BBC report, on August 5, 2003, a Delhi-based environmental group called the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) called a press conference on a sweltering day in the nation's capital to announce to a crowded room of journalists that soft drinks around the country contained dangerous levels of pesticides. Coca-Cola, it reported, contained residues of DDT and malathion forty-five times the European standards. (Pepsi, too, was called out, for containing pesticides at thirty-seven times the European standards.) The issue struck directly at the heart of urban India, where the majority of soft drinks were consumed. No longer was this a question of stealing water from poor farmers, this was a company poisoning everyone. Indian consumers, the findings implied, were not worth the same care that companies lavished on consumers in the United States and Europe where c.o.ke was pesticide-free. c.o.ke's famous promise that its products were the same everywhere in the world had been exposed as a lie.
The day after the announcement, national pride kicked in. India's right-wing Parliament immediately banned the sale of soft drinks in its cafeteria, while protesters in Mumbai (Bombay) symbolically broke c.o.ke bottles and trampled on logo-bearing cups. Elsewhere, angry Indians tore down posters of Bollywood film stars Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor, who'd just signed endors.e.m.e.nt deals with the company. The reaction from the industry was swift, if cynical. "Within days, c.o.ke's men from the Hong Kong group office were in Delhi to personally a.s.sess the situation," wrote Nantoo Banerjee, c.o.ke's former head of public relations, in a scathing tell-all about his former company. "The key message was: manage Parliament, manage ministers, and manage media. . . . To them, everything in India appeared to be 'manageable' with money and connections." Led by Coca-Cola India, the soft drink industry published a full-page ad in India's English-language newspapers stating on the basis of its own tests "we can safely a.s.sert that there is no contamination or toxicity whatsoever in our brand of beverages." The facility CSE used to measure its own tests, the company went on to say, was not accredited highly enough, causing the tests to be hopelessly flawed.
The PR campaign did nothing to dim the public fury-sales of c.o.ke plummeted more than 30 percent in just two weeks. The final blow came when a Joint Parliamentary Committee backed up CSE's findings, saying its study was "correct on the presence of pesticide residues in . . . branded products of Coca-Cola." The company changed courses to diffuse blame. Rather than claiming its drinks did not contain pesticides, it now argued it wasn't their fault if they did did, since hazardous chemicals were endemic to the Indian food and water supply. If the government didn't enforce its environmental regulations, then how could the company be expected to abide by them? c.o.ke, they argued, has just been singled out to further CSE's own political agenda, exploiting the fact they were a foreign company to sway public opinion.
CSE's Kushal Yadav, however, disputes c.o.ke's contention that "everything has pesticides." In fact, he says, tests on fruits, vegetables, and sugar found relatively few cases of pesticide contamination. If soft drinks were contaminated, he concluded, it was from the groundwater that c.o.ke was not cleaning-despite the state-of-the-art water-intake treatment system that the company now shows off at its plant in Mehdiganj.
Whatever the cause, the pesticide story garnered more anti-c.o.ke press in a week than the struggles around groundwater depletion and contamination had in over a year. c.o.ke's most valuable a.s.set-its brand-had been tarnished, and its reputation called into question. A public that had mostly ignored a problem affecting the very livelihood of some of the world's most desperate people had been galvanized by contamination of a daily treat for the middle cla.s.s. On the other hand, if it weren't for the pesticide situation, the overmatched villagers fighting c.o.ke plants in Kerala may never have achieved the opening for national-and international-recognition.
"On the contrary," says Yadav. The pesticide issue "brought out in the open the other issues. Groundwater depletion, groundwater pollution, all of these issues came to the fore." And in the summer of 2003, they began emerging in c.o.ke's home country as well, as the situation in India garnered more and more press in the United States-mostly through the work of one Indian-American activist who worked tirelessly to raise the issue.
Amit Srivastava was born in the United States, when his father, a business management professor, was on a sabbatical at the University of Illinois. His parents were originally from the Indian state of Bihar, a few hundred miles east of Varanasi. He spent his childhood in Tanzania and India, getting a crash course in poverty before going back to Illinois for high school. Originally, he entered the University of Illinois for computer engineering but felt increasingly under pressure to was born in the United States, when his father, a business management professor, was on a sabbatical at the University of Illinois. His parents were originally from the Indian state of Bihar, a few hundred miles east of Varanasi. He spent his childhood in Tanzania and India, getting a crash course in poverty before going back to Illinois for high school. Originally, he entered the University of Illinois for computer engineering but felt increasingly under pressure to do do, not to learn. "I realized very quickly I was never cut out for college work," he says in a taxi, speeding through the agricultural fields outside Varanasi. After his nontraditional upbringing, he never lost a sense of outrage wherever he saw exploitation in his adopted homeland. He dropped out of college and began traveling around the country to organize college students to fight for environmental justice in their communities-frequently involving big corporations he accused of polluting the environment and exploiting people.
Now sporting a ponytail and baseball cap, he looks like he is hardly out of college, despite his forty-four years of age. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, he was frustrated by a lack of awareness of the environmental justice issues he was pushing. Environmentalism then was about saving whales and rain forests, not exposing cancer cl.u.s.ters around Baton Rouge. But he continued fighting, traveling overseas to Norway and j.a.pan to tackle issues in those countries as well. When India began liberalizing its economy in the 1990s, he was naturally drawn home.
"At the time, the entry of corporations into India was a new thing," he says. "I realized the movement in India could stand to benefit from an active movement in some of these countries like the United States where decisions were being made." He launched the India Resource Center in 2002 with a budget of $60,000 a year, much of it originally provided by Body Shop founder Anita Rodd.i.c.k-a true believer in the spirit of corporate social responsibility who had recently traveled to Plachimada and decried c.o.ke's insensitivity there. After traveling there himself the following year, Srivastava knew he'd found a nemesis worthy of his time. "I'll spend my whole life on Coca-Cola if I have to, why not?" he asks.
Despite the growing attention Plachimada was receiving in the international press, the local activists in Kerala were skeptical of being co-opted by international nonprofits who wanted to use the fight to push their own issues. Srivastava came to them with the proposal not to support their struggle from afar but to take the issue to the home of c.o.ke itself-the United States. "The whole point is not to support the struggle, it is to join the struggle," says C. R. Bijoy. "One of the people who picked up on this was Amit."
Like Ray Rogers, Srivastava realized early on that the vulnerability of c.o.ke lay in its brand image. In fact, he hooked up with Rogers in New York in spring 2004 "walking out with two boxes full of propaganda" to begin organizing on college campuses. From then on, anytime SINALTRAINAL raised its own issues on campus, it also mentioned India; when Srivastava made his own visits to campuses, he brought up anti-union violence in Colombia. While Srivastava admits that the Indian situation isn't as dramatic as the murders that took place in Colombia, he argues that in some ways it is more compelling, since the bottling plants there were actually owned by the company in Atlanta, not contracted out to a separate franchisee, making c.o.ke's alleged infractions more direct. And while the violent civil war in Colombia is unique, c.o.ke's water use is an issue all over the world.