Title: Understanding Plachimada’s Rift- The Ecological Crisis that shut down the Cola factory.

Author: Sneha S Najeeb

Abstract

In the context of neoliberal strategies of extraction of imperialist rent whose brunt is

borne by the labor and nature of the peripheral countries, this paper attempts to illustrate
the processes unleashed on the Adivasi village of Plachimada as a result of the Cola
Company factory setup, that drove the people to wage a relentless resistance that
culminated with the shutdown of the factory. The paper relies on the theory of metabolic
rift to understand the process of depletion and contamination of groundwater and soil
resources of the village due to the factory and reaffirms the relevance of the theory in not
just the understanding of the export of matter from the countryside to the industrial town
and the rupture in the replenishment cycle, but the contradictions arising from the
location of industry in the countryside, and its effect on the agriculture-dependent
population. With the use of secondary data from reports, the paper attempts to conclude
that these contradictions of the rift resulted in the creation of a reserve army, who now
severed from their earlier livelihood sources due to changes in natural conditions, were
forced to migrate, if not resist. The paper, therefore, reaffirms the relevance of the
metabolic rift in understanding the rupture in natural conditions of replenishment as well
as human-nature relation and views it in this case as an outcome of the imperialist rent
extraction, in the larger picture of extracting super profits forsaking the ecology of the
peripherical countries by the global capital.

Keywords: Plachimada, metabolic rift, reserve army of labour

Symbolically seen as a fight between US imperialism and the most downtrodden and poorest of a
developing country, Plachimada’s struggle has over the years received solidarity in the form of
rallies and blockades all over the state of Kerala. The daybreak of April 22, 2002 witnessed the
resistance of over thousand people led by the Anti Coca-Cola Peoples Struggle Committee of
which Mayilamma and other Dalit and Adivasi protestors of Plachimada are a part of. The whole
Panchayat stood against the factory, subsequently cancelling its license. With a protracted legal
battle in parallel to protests for years, the resistance grew stronger, spreading the tale of harmful
effects of Coca-Cola’s manufacturing setup that has resulted in production halt in 2004 and
subsequently led to awareness for studies on the carcinogens present in the commodity itself,
leading to a partial ban on carbonated drinks in the country (Raman, 2010).
The presence of the factory caused the people of Plachimada to suffer from skin diseases,
stomach pain and nausea to low birth weight of children born after 2000s, anemia, burning
sensation in the eye, cough, asthma and so on. Even food cooked in the water from the wells
spoil within hours (Bijoy C R, 2006: Jayakumar, 2010). The enquiry into the reality that shaped
the determination of the people of Plachimada goes beyond the immediate devastating health
ramifications and into the disruption of human interaction with nature through labour caused by
the factory.

The Arrival of Cola Factory in Plachimada

In 1977, pre-neoliberal reforms, the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) of the Indian
government stated that all foreign companies including the subsidiary of Coca-Cola, the
Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd cannot operate without disclose the ingredients that
goes into their commodities not can it have the foreign company owning more than forty percent
of its shares. Unwilling to accept to this terms and lessen its equity stakes, Hindustan Coca-Cola
Beverages Pvt. Ltd was expelled from the country. With the change in Indian laws
accompanying neoliberalism, Coca-Cola company was permitted to re enter the market and
underwent rapid expansion of its production by setting up factory chains with seventeen
manufacturing units as well captured close to three fifths of the soft drinks market by 2003. It
was able to become one of the top foreign direct investors in the country with manufacturing
units set up in rural areas due to the cheap and plentiful availability of water, labour and land
(Raman, 2010). The first of its factories was set up in Plachimada, in 2000. The factory was
located in Moolathara village, Perumatty panchayat of Chittoor taluk in the Palakkad of Kerala.
Within the village, the area around the plant, specifically the East and South side that comprises
of Madhavan Nair colony, Vijayanagaram colony and other hamlets- Thotichipathi and Rajiv
Nagar make up the area known as Plachimada.

The demographic profile helps us understand that Plachimada mostly belongs to the marginalised
sections of the society. 24 percent of the population belong to the tribal community of Eravalan,
7 percent belong to Scheduled castes who are landless agricultural labourers. The rest of the
population primarily consists of other backward castes and marginalised sections such as
Ezhavas, Tamil migrants and Muslims who have low educational levels as compared to the rest
of the State. Almost 32 percent are illiterate with 5percent having attained secondary education.
Considering that only 14 percent of the households rely on non-agricultural wages as their
income, the predominance of agriculture as the source of livelihood is evident. Most of them
own between one to ten cents, sufficient only for dwelling. The agricultural fields with more than
five cents are owned upper caste Hindus and other intermediate castes, and hire these
marginalized sections as labourers for meagre daily wage of eighty rupees for men and forty
rupees for women. Paddy and coconut are the major cultivations. Toddy tapping became a
predominant income earner, to an extent that it attracted in migration of labourers, making toddy
tapping the primary source of income for almost 450 of them of which sixty percent have
migrated from southern districts of Kerala. The plains and the Poonthalpadams are the prominent
physiographic forms in which cultivations takes place, and the latter requires irrigation in
summers which helps it contribute to the rice production of the state (Bijoy C R, 2006:
Jayakumar, 2010).

For paddy and coconut cultivation, irrigation is critical. The total watershed area of Plachimada
is around 14.69 sq kilometers that drains to the Chitoorpuzha river. Of this, 10.42 sq kilometers
are of cultivable area and 5.21 sq kilometer is irrigated area. The area has a lesser average
rainfall and a warmer temperature in summer compared to the rest of the state, and is in the most
drought prone district of Palakkad. This is primarily due to its location of being situated in the in
discontinuous region of Western Ghats where warm winds are blown. There is no pipeline for
water, and therefore has 179 agricultural wells, 2753 open domestic wells, 66 public wells and
37 bore wells are used. So groundwater is of utmost importance. Before 2000s, the people
primarily used open wells for water and slowly shifted to using bore wells due to water pollution
in the open wells (Jayakumar, 2010).

Plachimada has been chosen due to strategic reasons- it is one of the most backward regions in
the state, which guarantees minimum resistance and lesser wages, making extraction of water
and exploitation of labour easier. The factory was set up in the year 2000 after acquiring 34.64
acres, mostly paddy fields of Plachimada violating the Kerala Land Utilization Act of 1967 that
bans land used for food crop cultivation to be used for non-food crop purposes. . The land
acquired was close to the Dalit and migrant settlements and Adivasi colonies, who did not
benefit much from the hype around employment created by the construction of the factory. Of
the 380 workers needed for factory’s functioning, only 130 workers were permanent and the rest
were temporarily hired on daily contract wages. Of these jobs, only few were given to the
residents of Plachimada, that too the daily wage jobs (Raman, 2010).

The Result of Factory in the Village – The Metabolic Rift

The production in the factory affected three interrelated natural phenomenon- it led to a decline
in water table, caused water contamination and soil contamination. Groundwater is a common
resource and the major source of water for the residents of Plachimada. The distribution of it
solely depends on one’s ability to use the available groundwater before it gets exhausted by
someone else or other factors that result in it drying up. With the set up of the factory, almost 8
to 15 lakhs of litres of water were drawn daily using a total of eight wells- Six bore-wells and
two open wells inside the factory compound to produce around 35 crore litres of beverages.
Within two years, the ground water table of nearby areas depleted as the factory drew more than
the allowed limits set by the Panchayat, increasing the scarcity of water in the village. This
translates to the ability of the capital to exhaust the available groundwater resource that is for the
rest to use, and deprive those dependent on it from its use. Apart from depletion of the water
table, the dumping of the factory waste in the form of sludge has led to both water and soil
contamination. Sludge waste of almost 1.5 to 3 lakh discharge from the factory was dumped
initially within the compound, and then onto open fields and land sites around the village. This
toxic sludge leached onto the water table, especially in the rainy season, rendering the scarce
water unfit for agriculture or human consumption. Further, the dumping of sludge onto dried
borewells added to this problem. The 2002 report from Sargam Metals Laboratories confirmed
that the testing samples from two borewells near to the factory showed high levels of hardness
and salinity. Within a month, protest broke out in front of the factory with the people of
Plachimada demanding complete shut-down of the factory. By 2003, it was confirmed by the
Primary Health Centre that certified that the water in that area as not potable (Bijoy C.R, 2006).
Apart from dumping of sludge into waterbodies, the company also distributed the sludge as
fertilisers to farmers. BBC Radio in 2003 revealed the report of University of Exeter that
confirmed soil contamination and presence of carcinogens in the soil as well as the sludge as
fertilizers. Both contained high levels of cadmium and lead, carcinogens that could result in
damage of the nervous system and the kidney as well as liver. According to the Hazardous
Wastes (Management and Handling) Amendment Rules (2000), the maximum amount allowed
for cadmium is 50 mg/kg and for lead 5000 mg/kg whereas in Plachimada the sample showed
100 mg/kg cadmium and 1100 mg/kg lead. Though the level of lead was permissible, the criteria
was its amount in soil and not as a fertilizer, and therefore the distribution of sludge as fertilizer
to farmers was indeed hazardous. Apart from carcinogens, high levels of other heavy metals such
as nickel, chromium and zinc were also shown in the sample (Waite, 2004). Therefore, it was
concluded that the distribution of sludge as fertilizer has led to severe soil contamination.

The conditions of restitution of both the soil and water has been damaged by the company,
creating a rift. The rift in metabolism occurs when the relation between humans and the material
elements of Earth are severed and blocks the conditions of restitution of nature due to capitalist
mode of production. This metabolic rift was explained by Marx in reference to the second
agricultural revolution that came about due to advancement in soil chemistry and subsequently
the emergence of the fertilizer industry. The large scale expansion in both industry and
agriculture with the latter upon intensive pressure impoverishes the soil and trades the produced
agricultural commodities to the industry filled towns, curtailing the ability of soil to replenish
itself as the nutrient elements of the soil is not returned to the village but ends up as sewage in
towns, augmenting the rift. The disturbance in the soil nutrient cycle due to the inability to
recycle the constituent elements that results in concentration of the nutrients in industrial towns
and concentration of soil exhaustion in the countryside is expressed as the ‘antagonism between
country and town’ (Foster, 2000).

In the case of Plachimada, though both the water cycle as well as the soil cycle has been
disturbed, it is not due to the loss of energy transfer due to spatial distance of the town and
village. Rather, it is the coming up of industry within the village that has caused the problem.
However, the basic tenet that the export of matter outside the immediate vicinity of production,
that is production for consumption elsewhere for exchange value rather than production for
consumption in nearby premises has led to water depletion in Plachimada, disruption the natural
conditions of restitution of water within the village. Kiloliters were pumped daily to manufacture
beverages that are sold all over the country, making the flow of matter back to the water table of
Plachimada impossible.

“Normally, every land owner can draw a reasonable amount of water, which is necessary
for his domestic use and also to meet the agricultural requirements. It is a customary
right. But, here, 510 kiloliters of water is extracted per day, converted into products and
transported away, breaking the natural water cycle. A portion of the rain water is stored
as ground water and the balance flows away. The ground water stored in normal
circumstances is partially depleted by moderate extraction for domestic and agricultural
purposes and also by evaporation through vegetation on the surface. Again, when the
rains come, the underground reservoirs called aquifers get recharged and the cycle goes
on. If there is artificial interference with the ground water collection by excessive
extraction, it is sure to create ecological imbalance” (Perumatty Panchayat vs State of
Kerala)

It is clear that the excessive extraction of water by the factory beyond replenishing limits and its
export outside Plachimada has caused a serious disruption of the water cycle, severely depleting
the groundwater table of that area. However the problem does not end there. The contamination
of water and soil has also worsened the conditions of replenishment, and has put more pressure
on the people to force out of their existing livelihoods.

The substantive damage on water and soil has detrimental impacts on the agriculture, animal
husbandry and employment of the people of Plachimada. The impact in agriculture can be seen
primarily through the decline in income and yield of farming households, increased precarity of
agricultural labour and the decline of toddy tapping. Agriculture incomes drastically reduced to
less than half of the earning pre-2000s due to low yield, as was reported by 91 percent of farming
households. The mean annual production of varieties of paddy combined in 1998-99 was 5445
kilograms that fell to 2578 kilograms in 2003-04. Similarly, vegetable production also fell from
644 kilograms to 285 kilograms. The employment of hired labour in agricultural fields also came
down, leading to migration to other villages as 72percent of those who migrated stated that it was
due to unemployment in Plachimada since 2000. Toddy tapping, a significant income earning
activity for many families also declined to half with the number of coconut palms taken for toddy
tapping fell as tapping contractors assigned only the coconut palms that are irrigated. Therefore,
the number of coconuts annually produced declined more than half between 1998-99 and 2003-
04 from 10839 to 4239 nuts.
The water crisis had tremendous impact on other aspects as well. The need to go afar 5 kms to
fetch drinking water that was earlier readily available near them has led to women losing wages
due to the increased time now required for social reproduction. Animal husbandry declined in
Plachimada, and this is due to the lessened life span of birds and animals as well as decline in its
productive capacity. Upon testing, Kerala Agricultural University has found in its samples high
levels of chromium and copper in addition to cadmium and lead in fodder, milk, meat and egg
samples which explains the worsening situation of animal husbandry that has resulted in the
decline of both the household income as well as the health of people (Jayakumar, 2010).

Clearly, it not simply the day to day activities but also people’s relationship with nature that is
being affected due to the factory. To Marx, humans are a part of nature and needs the external
natural environment to sustain. He defined metabolism as the relation between nature and society
(between organic and inorganic nature) that is mediated through the process of labour. By this,
he means that the labour is a process through which the metabolism between nature and man
interacts so that human can appropriate the materials from nature using nature (that is their body)
and mould the materials to fulfil their needs. Through this process, human changes both the
external nature and themselves (inorganic nature). Using the concept of metabolism, Marx
elucidates the complicated needs and relations between and amongst humans and nature that is in
capitalist system comes in an alienated manner. This is because while all production is
appropriation of nature, it is in capitalism that there is a need to severe the relation between the
producers and the materials elements of Earth. This separation of the inorganic nature from
organic nature through the capital-wage relationship is alienation. The relation of labour and
earth dissolutioned is the bedrock of primitive accumulation (Foster, 2000).

Explaining about primitive accumulation, Patnaik states that it is an ongoing process existing
throughout the capitalist mode of production. It does not necessarily mean progression for all
involved, as it is misconstrued that the separation enables the producer to be the worker who
sells their ‘free labour’, and is automatically absorbed into the workforce nor does it not worsen
the situation of landless labourers who are assumed to be already free wage labourers without
anything to lose in the process of primitive accumulation. In Plachimada’s case, we see that
contrary to ‘free labour’ being employed in industry, there has been an addition to the reserve
army of labour with those forced to migrate out from Plachimada, not having the guarantee of a
job even in other villages as many of them remained unemployed. As for landless labourers, they
do have the customary rights to lose in the process of primitive accumulation, as evident by the
loss of access to water from nearby sources for those in Plachimada. In the name of
‘development’, the metropolitan capital was invited by the neoliberal state to set up a factory,
encroaching not just the land and water of the people of Plachimada but also destroying their
relation with the inorganic nature. In the neoliberal era, primitive accumulation takes the form of
accumulation through encroachment, that goes beyond the idea of primitive accumulation of
capital to include the public sector assets along with the expropriation of people and nature
(Patnaik, 2017 ). Accumulation through encroachment as a concept looks at the expropriation of
people from their livelihood and nature, inculcating expropriation of nature within the inner logic
of capitalism and explains the expulsion of people of Plachimada from their agricultural
occupation through pollution and depletion of the natural resource essential to these activities-
water and soil (Patnaik,2008). In Plachimada’s case, the metropolitan capital of the Coca-Cola
company of Atlanta, USA has expropriated the people of Plachimada by alienating them from
their water and soil, subsequently resulting in expropriation from agriculture and forcing
migration as wage laborer’s, thereby rupturing the existing relations of production.

Conclusion

The broader institutional framework, the law and the power asymmetry between the state
government of a developing country and a multinational corporation taking advantage of it has a
huge role to play in the story of Plachimada’s struggle. The ‘labour-nature-regulation arbitrage’
that explains the global capital by imposing neo-liberal policies lessens regulations so as to
obtain cheap labour and natural resources at a significantly lower cost than what they would have
had to acquire in the respective North countries seems appropriate in the case of Plachimada
(Jha, 2021). Though the case of Cola beverages manufactured produced for domestic sale in
India does not necessarily make it a product of global value system production process, the
concept still applies. Taking advantage of the lessened regulation on equity stakes due to
neoliberalisation, the Cola company makes a comeback. Blatantly violating rules such the
Kerala it still manages to set up a factory, employing less than half of total workers from
Plachimada in low wages while simultaneously destroying their existing livelihood. Without the
resistance, the Cola company would have successfully continued to acquire imperialist rent
through the extraction of surplus value from the daily wage contract workers who are paid below
subsistence as well as the expropriation of natural resources for its use. To produce cheap, the
metropolitan capital violated the domestic laws and saves on the expenditure for proper disposal
of sludge, accrued as profits for it. Divorced from their earlier relations of production due to the
non-viability of agriculture in the face of ecological damage, the laborer become an addition to
the reserve army of labour, not being absorbed into the industry and forced to migrate.
Pushed to desperation, Plachimada fought back. Though the resistance was successful in shutting
down the factory, the struggle to get compensation still carries on. Despite proven beyond doubt
that the company has violated environmental and pollution rules that it could not so easily in its
home country, the power asymmetry is enabling it to run scoot free without compensating the
residents of Plachimada for what they rightfully deserve.
References

Bijoy C R. (2006). Kerala ’ s Plachimada Struggle. Economic And Political Weekly, 5(1), 4332–
4339.
Foster, J. B. (2000). Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review
Press.
Jayakumar, K. (2010). Report of the High Power Committee to Assess the Extent of Damages
Caused by the Coca Cola Plant at Plachimada and Claiming Compensation. Government
of Kerala.
Jha, P. K., Chambati, W., & Ossome, L. (2021). Labour questions in the Global South. Palgrave
Macmillan.
NHRC seeks Plachimada compensation plan from govt. (2022, March 27). The New Indian
Express.
Kerala Panchayat Raj Act and Rules (1994). Section 218, Chapter XX: Public Safety,
Convenience and Health.
Patnaik, P. (2008). The Accumulation Process in the Period of Globalization. Economic and
Political Weekly, 43(26/27), 108–113. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40278907

Patnaik, P. ( 2017 ). The Concept of Primitive Accumulation of Capital. The

Marxist. Ajayan. R (2004) .Long Wait for the Plachimada Victims. Down To Earth
Raman, K. R. (2010). Transverse Solidarity: Water, . Review of Radical Political Economics,
251-268.
Waite, John (Presenter). 2004, January 2. Face the Facts- Coca Cola Update. BBC Radio 4.