The story of how blissful ignorance allows Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages to deprive Mehdiganj, Varanasi of its water

What does 'being water positive' really mean for the villages where manufacturing plants are situated ?

Bottled drinks are commonplace and we often reach for them without a thought. We may even feel good about our purchase as we read about the companies' commitment to water security' printed on the label. 

What does 'being water positive' really mean for the villages where manufacturing plants are situated ? This article examines the case of one such plant in Mehdiganj, PO Benipur, Arajiline block, Dist Varanasi and its effect on the groundwater levels in the area. The village has led an agitation against 4 specific negative impacts of the plant, acheiving moderate but measurable success.

This year, the movement comes to a crisis point as despite a warning by the Central Groundwater Development Board, the plant applies for a four-fold expansion.  

Excerpt of map showing Varanasi and Mehdiganj

The area:

Mehdiganj is  a small village just off the Grand Trunk Road, a few kilometers from Varanasi. Benipur, of which it forms a part, had a population of less than 11000 persons in 2001. The primary occupation is agriculture with the predominant crop being wheat. In addition to the wheat, some farmers grow vegetables. While horticulture is not an expanding business, the village is known for the mangoes it produces.

The background:

Since  Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCCBPL)  set up its plant in 2000, the villagers claim it has defrauded them in four crucial areas:

• Excessive withdrawal of groundwater leading to its depletion
• Disposal of sludge and wastewater
• Encroachment of land and evasion of stamp duty
• Ignoring labour laws and other harassment of the residents

A complete narrative of the struggle can be obtained here. Also read the account on Lok Samiti's site here.

The present crisis:
In 2009, Arajiline block was declared 'critical' in by the Central Groundwater Board. Despite that, in February 2012, HCCBPL applied for a NOC to expand its operations.

HCCBPL's application for increasing withdrawal by 200,000 cum per annum in a critical area
(Please download the letter using the links provided below this article)

This expansion will increase withdrawal to a 250,000 cubic metres per annum from the original 50,000 cubic metres - an increase of 4 times over the present consumption. This will have disastrous impacts on the farmers in the surrounding area. The groundwater in the area is dropping at the rate of  more than 1 m per year. It is now at about 13.5m below ground level from just 3.5 m in 2002. The area is already exploited to 96.39% of its total capacity. The deeper the water table, the more energy farmers need to expend to irrigate their fields. A point will soon come when farmers can no longer afford to pump water out, whereas HCCBPL has the economic means to drill further. A lack of irrigation will affect the quality and yield of their market-bound vegetables.

The fallacy of water-positive manufacturing
Several bottled water companies including HCCBPL promote their water conservation efforts. In this case, Coca-Cola claims that it is recharging 120% the quantity of the water that it sucks out of the aquifer. The numbers are arrived at not on the basis of empirically rigorous measurement, but on the basis of generous thumb-rule estimations.

HCCBPL has constructed several rooftop rainwater harvesting units. It arrives at the quantity of water being harvested by multiplying the rainfall considered 'normal' for the area with the square metres that drain into each unit. However, the area has not received 'normal' rainfall for all but two years since 2004. The inefficacy of the rainwater harvesting structures have been confirmed by both CGWB and HCCBPL.

Several of these rainwater harvesting units are neither in the immediate vicinity of the plant, nor in the 10km radius buffer zone, but in government buildings upto 30km away. If there are any benefits, they need to be considered at a 'global' scale, because the farmers certainly do not benefit from these.

Similarly, HCCBPL is proposing to compensate for its expansion by rainwater harvesting. This is proposed to be done by converting existing village tanks into percolation tanks by excavating the deposited clay layer that acts as a water holding strata. While this may theoretically benefit some wells, it will definitely have a negative impact on lift irrigation from the tanks, as they will no longer hold water. This will further increase farmers' costs by forcing them to expend more energy in lifting water. It also needs to be mentioned here that regular desilting and maintenance is carried out in these tanks by the Panchayats through MGNREGA. However, this has not stopped HCCBPL from claiming credit- and groundwater- by a proposed deepening of these village tanks.

The tank at Mehdiganj in April 2013

The response:
Lok Samiti is gearing up to meet this crisis by sourcing all the information they can, relentlessly keeping on top of any progress in the application, and writing letters to government officials. You can download the letter they are forwarding to various government agencies below. It provides a succint and convincing testament to the importance of not increasing groundwater withdrawals in the area.

The activists:

Their address:

Lok  Samiti
Nagepur
PO Benipur, Dist. Varanasi, UP 221 307
E-mail: loksamiti@gmail.com

And now it's your turn:

The gap between the origins of our food and our awareness of where it comes from, is increasing daily. Very often, a wilful blindness seems to be the norm. I am referring to an increasing tendency to ignore the more squeamish reality of our food. It is this tendency that is giving rise to concerned news articles, blog posts, and books.  

While it is most apparent when we order a meat dish prepared boneless with the specific intent that it will not remind us of where it came from, it also applies to soft drinks. We ignore as we drink 'just one bottle' of a fizzy drink that this was produced in a factory along with millions of others, to satisfy the craving of a million individuals who are each drinking 'just one bottle'. 

Bottled drinks in their many forms are an ubiquitous part of our lives today. The real cost of these drinks, as we have seen in this article, is far more than the Rs 30/- we pull out of our wallets. The real cost is paid by entities that do not even figure in our everyday transactions- the environment, our global 'trust fund' of fossil aquifers, and the people living near the plants where bottled drinks are produced. This case study refers to Coca-Cola, but the issue is true for all purveyors of bottled water no matter how 'water-positive' they claim to be.

But let us stick to the issue of Mehdiganj. They are at a crisis now. Despite the authenticity of their concerns, despite the reams of data that they have backing their claims, they may still not be heard. Despite their courage, Goliath might still defeat them.

What can you do to ensure Mehdiganj is not deprived any further of its water ?

http://www.indiawaterportal.org/sites/indiawaterportal.org/files/varanasi_toposheet_ng-44-12a_perry_castaneda.jpg

http://www.indiawaterportal.org/sites/indiawaterportal.org/files/application_pg1.jpg

http://www.indiawaterportal.org/sites/indiawaterportal.org/files/mehdiganjcgwaletterfeb142013.pdf

http://www.indiawaterportal.org/sites/indiawaterportal.org/files/application_pg2.jpg

Making a killing from hunger

http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=39

For some time now the rising cost of food all over the world has taken households, governments and the media by storm. The price of wheat has gone up by 130% over the last year.[1] Rice has doubled in price in Asia in the first three months of 2008 alone,[2] and just last week it hit record highs on the Chicago futures market.[3] For most of 2007 the spiralling cost of cooking oil, fruit and vegetables, as well as of dairy and meat, led to a fall in the consumption of these items. From Haiti to Cameroon to Bangladesh, people have been taking to the streets in anger at being unable to afford the food they need. In fear of political turmoil, world leaders have been calling for more food aid, as well as for more funds and technology to boost agricultural production. Cereal exporting countries, meanwhile, are closing their borders to protect their domestic markets, while other countries have been forced into panic buying. Is this a price blip? No. A food shortage? Not that either. We are in a structural meltdown, the direct result of three decades of neoliberal globalisation.

Farmers across the world produced a record 2.3 billion tons of grain in 2007, up 4% on the previous year. Since 1961 the world’s cereal output has tripled, while the population has doubled. Stocks are at their lowest level in 30 years, it’s true,[4] but the bottom line is that there is enough food produced in the world to feed the population. The problem is that it doesn’t get to all of those who need it. Less than half of the world’s grain production is directly eaten by people. Most goes into animal feed and, increasingly, biofuels – massive inflexible industrial chains. In fact, once you look behind the cold curtain of statistics, you realise that something is fundamentally wrong with our food system. We have allowed food to be transformed from something that nourishes people and provides them with secure livelihoods into a commodity for speculation and bargaining. The perverse logic of this system has come to a head. Today it is staring us in the face that this system puts the profits of investors before the food needs of people.

Market realities

The policy makers who have shaped today’s world food system – and who are supposed to be responsible for averting such catastrophes – have come out with a number of explanations for the current crisis that everyone has heard over and over again: drought and other problems affecting harvests; rising demand in China and India where people are supposedly eating more and better than in the past; crops and lands being massively diverted into biofuel production; and so on. All of these issues, of course, are contributing to the current food crisis. But they do not account for the full depth of what is happening. There is something more fundamental at work, something that brings all these issues together, and which the world’s finance and development chiefs are keeping out of public discussion.

Nothing that the policy makers say should obscure the fact that today’s food crisis is the outcome of both an incessant push towards a “Green Revolution” agricultural model since the 1950s and the trade liberalisation and structural adjustment policies imposed on poor countries by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund since the 1970s. These policy prescriptions were reinforced with the establishment of the World Trade Organisation in the mid-1990s and, more recently, through a barrage of bilateral free trade and investment agreements. Together with a series of other measures, they have led to the ruthless dismantling of tariffs and other tools that developing countries had created to protect local agricultural production. These countries have been forced to open their markets and lands to global agribusiness, speculators and subsidised food exports from rich countries. In that process, fertile lands have been diverted away from serving local food markets to the production of global commodities or off-season and high-value crops for Western supermarkets. Today, roughly 70% of all so-called developing countries are net importers of food.[5] And of the estimated 845 million hungry people in the world, 80% are small farmers.[6] Add to this the re-engineering of credit and financial markets to create a massive debt industry, with no control on investors, and the depth of the problem becomes clear.

Agricultural policy has completely lost touch with its most basic goal of feeding people. Hunger hurts and people are desperate. The UN World Food Programme estimates that recent price hikes have meant that an additional 100 million people can no longer afford to eat adequately.[7] Governments are frantically seeking shelter from the system. The fortunate ones, with export stocks, are pulling out of the global market to cut their domestic prices off from the skyrocketing world prices. With wheat, export bans or restrictions in Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Argentina mean that a third of the global market has now been closed off. The situation with rice is even worse: China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, India and Cambodia have banned or severely restricted exports, leaving just a few sources of export supply, mainly Thailand and the US. Countries like Bangladesh can’t buy the rice they need now because the prices are so high. For years the World Bank and the IMF have told countries that a liberalised market would provide the most efficient system for producing and distributing food, yet today the world’s poorest countries are forced into an intense bidding war against speculators and traders, who are having a field day. Hedge funds and other sources of hot money are pouring billions of dollars into commodities to escape sliding stock markets and the credit crunch, putting food stocks further out of poor people’s reach.[8] According to some estimates, investment funds now control 50–60% of the wheat traded on the world’s biggest commodity markets.[9] One firm calculates that the amount of speculative money in commodities futures – markets where investors do not buy or sell a physical commodity, like rice or wheat, but merely bet on price movements – has ballooned from US$5 billion in 2000 to US$175 billion to 2007.[10]

The situation today is untenable. Look at Haiti. A few decades ago it was self-sufficient in rice. But conditions on foreign loans, particularly a 1994 package from the IMF, forced it to liberalise its market. Cheap rice flooded in from the US, backed by subsidies and corruption, and local production was wiped out.[11] Now prices for rice have risen 50% since last year and the average Haitian can’t afford to eat. So people are taking to the streets or risking their lives to journey by boat to the US. Food protests have also erupted in West Africa, from Mauritania to Burkina Faso. There, too, structural adjustment programmes and food-aid dumping have destroyed the region’s own rice production, leaving people at the mercy of the international market. In Asia, the World Bank constantly assured the Philippines, even as recently as last year, that self-sufficiency in rice was unnecessary and that the world market would take care of its needs.[12] Now the government is in a desperate plight: its domestic supply of subsidised rice is nearly exhausted and it cannot import all it needs because traders’ asking prices are too high.

Making a killing from hunger

The truth about who profits and who loses from our global food system has never been more obvious. Take the most basic element of food production: soil. The industrial food system is a chemical-fertiliser junkie. It needs more and more of the stuff just to keep alive, eroding soils and their potential to support crop yields in the process. In the current context of tight food supplies, the small clique of corporations that control the world’s fertiliser market can charge what they want – and that’s exactly what they are doing. Profits at Cargill’s Mosaic Corporation, which controls much of the world’s potash and phosphate supply, more than doubled last year.[13] The world’s largest potash producer, Canada’s Potash Corp, made more than US$1 billion in profit, up more than 70% from 2006.[14] Panicking now about future supplies, governments are becoming desperate to boost their harvests, giving these corporations additional leverage. In April 2008, the joint offshore trading arm for Mosaic and Potash hiked the price of its potash by 40% for buyers from Southeast Asia and by 85% for those from Latin American. India had to pay 130% more than last year, and China 227% more.[15]

Table 1. Profit increase for some of the world’s largest fertiliser corporations

Company	Profits 2007 (US$ million)	Increase from 2006 (%)
Potash Corp (Canada)	1,100	72%
Yara (Norway)	1,116	44%
Sinochem (China)	1,100	95%
Mosaic (US)	708	141%
ICL (Israel)	535	43%
K + S (Germany)	420	2.8%

Source: Compiled from corporate reports

While big money is being made from fertilisers, it is just a sideline for Cargill. Its biggest profits come from global trading in agricultural commodities, which, together with a few other big traders, it pretty much monopolises. On 14 April 2008, Cargill announced that its profits from commodity trading for the first quarter of 2008 were 86% higher than the same period in 2007. “Demand for food in developing economies and for energy worldwide is boosting demand for agricultural goods, at the same time that investment monies have streamed into commodity markets,” said Greg Page, Cargill’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Prices are setting new highs and markets are extraordinarily volatile. In this environment, Cargill’s team has done an exceptional job measuring and assessing price risk, and managing the large volume of grains, oilseeds and other commodities moving through our supply chains for customers globally.”[16]

Table 2. Profit increase for some of the world’s largest grain traders

Company	Profits 2007 (US$ million)	Increase from 2006 (%)
Cargill (US)	2,340	36%
ADM (US)	2,200	67%
ConAgra (US)	764	30%
Bunge (US)	738	49%
Noble Group (Singapore)	258	92%
Marubeni (Japan)	90*	43%*

Source: Compiled from corporate reports
*Data is for Marubeni’s Agri-Marine division only.
Absent from this list is Louis Dreyfus (France), a private agricultural commodities trader with annual sales in excess of US$22 billion, which does not report its profits.

Managing and assessing are not so difficult for a company like Cargill, with its near monopoly position and a global team of analysts the size of a UN agency. Indeed, all of the big grain traders are making record profits. Bunge, another big food trader, saw its profits of the last fiscal quarter of 2007 increase by US$245 million, or 77%, compared with the same period of the previous year. The 2007 profits registered by ADM, the second largest grain trader in the world, rose by 65% to a record US$2.2 billion. Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Foods, a major player in Asia, is forecasting revenue growth of 237% this year.

The world’s big food processors, some of which are commodity traders themselves, are also cashing in. Nestlé’s global sales grew 7% last year. “We saw this coming, so we hedged by forward-buying raw materials”, says François-Xavier Perroud, Nestlé’s spokesman.[17] Margins are up at Unilever, too. “Commodity pressures have increased sharply, but we have successfully offset these through timely pricing action and continued delivery from our savings programmes”, says Patrick Cescau, Group CEO of Unilever. “We will not sacrifice our margins and market share.”[18] The food corporations don’t seem to be making these profits off the back of the retailers. UK supermarket Tesco reports profits up 12.3% from last year, a record rise. Other major retailers, such as France’s Carrefour and the US’s Wal-Mart, say that food sales are the main factor sustaining their profit increases.[19] Wal-Mart’s Mexican division, Wal-Mex, which handles a third of overall food sales in Mexico, reported an 11% increase in profits for the first quarter of 2008. (At the same time Mexicans are demonstrating in the streets because they can no longer afford to make tortillas.[20])

It seems that nearly every corporate player in the global food chain is making a killing from the food crisis. The seed and agrochemical companies are doing well too. Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, reported a 44% increase in overall profits in 2007.[21] DuPont, the second-largest, said that its 2007 profits from seeds increased by 19%, while Syngenta, the top pesticide manufacturer and third-largest company for seeds, saw profits rise 28% in the first quarter of 2008.[22]

Such record profits have nothing to do with any new value that these corporations are producing and they are not one-off windfalls from a sudden shift in supply and demand. Instead, they are a reflection of the extreme power that these middlemen have accrued through the globalisation of the food system. Intimately involved with the shaping of the trade rules that govern today’s food system and tightly in control of markets and the ever more complex financial systems through which global trade operates, these companies are in perfect position to turn food scarcity into immense profits. People have to eat, whatever the cost.

The urgent need for a policy rethink

The larger backdrop to this perverse food market situation is the global financial system, which is now teetering on its flimsy axis. What began as a localised housing loan collapse in the US in 2007 has unravelled into something far more serious, as people realise that the emperors of the global financial system have no clothes. The world economy is living on debt that no one can pay. While central bankers and Lear jet executives try to patch the holes and restore confidence, the underlying truth is that the system is close to bankruptcy and no one in power wants to take the necessary tough measures: not the IMF, nor the World Bank, nor the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations. Not much more than public relations glitter can be expected from the G8 meeting in June.

Similar problems lie at the heart of the food crisis: an ideologically driven elite has forced countries to wrench open markets and let the free market run, so that a few megacorporations, investors and speculators can take huge payoffs. Many countries have lost that most basic power: the ability to feed themselves. This loss, coupled with the corruption that plagues our countries and trading systems, shows that neoliberalism has lost any legitimacy that it might once have had. It is a measure of how out of touch these ideologues are that many now openly call for more trade liberalisation as a solution to the food crisis, with some even proposing that the rules of the WTO be changed to prevent countries from imposing export restrictions on food.[23]

The World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, has tried to win the world over with his call for a “New Deal” to solve the hunger crisis, but there is nothing new about it: he calls for more trade liberalisation, more technology and more aid. Today’s food crisis is the direct result of decades of these policies, which must now be rejected. While immediate action is necessary to lower food prices and to get food to those who need it, we also need radical changes in agricultural policy so that small farmers around the world gain access to land and can make a living from it. We need policies that support and protect farmers, fishers and others to produce food for their families, for the local markets and for people in cities, rather than money for an abstract international commodity market and a tiny clan of corporate boardroom executives. And we need to strengthen and promote the use of technologies based on the knowledge and in the control of those who know how to grow food. To put it another way, we need food sovereignty, now – the kind that is defined and driven by small farmers and fisherfolk themselves.

Social movements around the globe have been struggling to promote such a reversal of strategy, only to be dismissed as unrealistic and backward by those in power, and often violently repressed. The glimmer of hope in this crisis is that the situation can be reversed. Peasant organisations have concrete proposals about what needs to be done to resolve the crisis in their countries, and governments should listen to what they are saying. Already some governments are talking of a policy change towards food self-reliance.[24] Others are starting to question the fundamental rationale of pushing for more free trade. Neoliberal hawks at the top of the global food policy pyramid have lost whatever credibility they may think they once had. It is time for them to move out of the way so that the visions of food sovereignty and agrarian reform that come from the grassroots can take their place and get us out of this hellish mess.

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Going further:

• Overview: FAO, World Food Situation: http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation
• Overview: Financial Times, “The global food crisis”, interactive map, last updated 21 April 2008: http://tinyurl.com/6knmy8
• Overview: Stefan Steinberg, "Financial speculators reap profits from global hunger", Global Research, Centre for Research on Globalisation, Montreal, 24 April 2008.
  http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8794
• Overview: Confédération Paysanne, “Les révoltes de la faim dans les pays du Sud : l’aboutissement logique de choix économiques et politiques désastreux”, Press release, 18 April 2008: http://tinyurl.com/5glx8u (French only)
• Structural Adjustment Programmes: “UNCTAD official blames food crisis on structural adjustment programme,” This Day, Lagos, 23 April 2008: http://allafrica.com/stories/200804230375.html
• Food sovereignty: http://www.viacampesina.org and http://www.nyeleni2007.org
• Agrofuels: GRAIN, Agrofuels special issues, Seedling, July 2007, http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=68
• Rice in the Philippines: GRAIN, Philippines and beyond: rice crisis – reaping the 'fruit' of market capitalism, Hybrid rice blog, 22 April 2008, http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=201

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References

1 Bloomberg, quoted by the BBC, London, 14 April 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7344892.stm

2 BBC, “Action to meet Asian rice crisis”, London, 17 April 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7352038.stm

3 See http://www.riceonline.com for daily reports. With many Asian rice exporters out of the game, needy countries from Asia and Africa are turning to the US market where prices are going through the roof.

4 Brian Halweil, “Grain harvest sets record, but supplies still tight”, Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5539

5 Katarina Wahlberg, “Are we approaching a global food crisis?”, World Economy & Development in Brief, Global Policy Forum, 3 March 2008,

6 Food policy expert interviewed on Radio France International, Paris, 20 April 2008.

7 “UN food chief urges crisis action,” BBC, London, 22 April 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7360485.stm

8 Sinclair Stewart and Paul Waldie, “U.S. food producers, speculators square off”, Globe and Mail, Toronto, 23 April 2008,

9 Ibid. and Paul Waldie, “Why grocery prices are set to soar”, Globe and Mail, Toronto, 24 April 2008,

10 Paul Waldie, “Why grocery prices are set to soar”, op cit.

11 Bill Quigley, “USA role in Haiti hunger riots”, ZNet, US, 23 April 2008,

12 World Bank, “Can the world market for rice be trusted”, Box 1 on p. 52 of “Philippines: Agriculture Public Expenditure Review,” Technical Paper, World Bank, Washington DC, 2007, http://go.worldbank.org/TGRSK19300

13 Potash and phosphates are two of the main ingredients in chemical fertiliser.

14 David Ebner, “Saskatchewan: A lot more than wheat” Globe and Mail, Toronto, 11 April 2008,

15 John Partridge and Andy Hoffman, “China deal sends Potash soaring” Globe and Mail, Toronto, 17 April 2008,

16 “Cargill income up sharply in third quarter”, World Grain, Kansas City, 14 April 2008,

17 “Tightening belts,” The Economist, London, 10 April 2008,

18 Jonathan Sibun, “Unilever profits surge despite price pressures,” Daily Telegraph, London, 3 November 2007, http://tinyurl.com/6p8tcx; and, “Get set for more price hikes: Unilever chief,” Business Standard, India, 16 March 2008, http://tinyurl.com/694cqn

19 Foo Yun Chee, “Major European retailers post higher profits for 2007,” Reuters, 6 March 2008, www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/06/business/RETAIL.php

20 Associated Press, “Wal-Mart de Mexico’s 1Q profits rise 11 percent on higher sales, cost controls,” 8 April 2008,

21 Monsanto, Annual Report, 2007.

22 DuPont, Annual Report 2007, and “Syngenta anuncia cifra negocio en progresión 28 por ciento primer trimestre”, EFE, 22 de abril 2008,

23 Isabel Reynolds, “WTO should pressure food exporters – Mandelson”, Reuters, 23 April 2008,

24 See, for example, recent comments from West African farmers and officials: Noel Tadégnon, “Le ROPPA préconise une pression sur les autorités politiques pour soutenir l’agriculture africaine,” APA, 23 April 2008, http://www.apanews.net/apa.php?article61599; and, “Réunion extraordinaire du Conseil des ministres de l`UEMOA, hier : 200 milliards pour freiner la flambée des prix,” Le Nouveau Réveil, Abidjan, 24 April 2008, http://www.lenouveaureveil.com/a.asp?n=290011&p=1903

As India goes global the public goes private

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/1671

By Aseem Shrivastava

Picture this. At an air-show in Los Angeles one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world, British Aerospace, invites Mr. Bill Gates of Microsoft to have a go at flying one of the latest models of their Hawk fighter aircraft. Would the American media respond by flashing front-page images of a beaming Bill Gates waving to supporters as he was entering the cockpit of the Hawk, following them up with adulatory reports describing the elevated feelings felt by the unexpected new pilot as he conquered the sound barrier? Or would the event not generate a national scandal that a private businessman accepted the invitation to fly a military aircraft, which ordinarily can only be tested by pilots on public duty?

More than likely the latter possibility would transpire. However, what happened in Bangalore last month was another story, as the Indian national media fell to new depths of celebrity "journalism".

Corporate Americans, having grown up in a world run by car salesmen, will go to any lengths to sell what they must. Thus it came as no surprise when Lockheed Martin – one of the biggest defense contractor firms in the world – invited Mr. Tata into the cockpit of the F-16 Falcon at the Bangalore Air Show in February: the Indian Air Force was, after all, expanding its multi-role combat aircraft fleet and the American company was competing in the Indian arms bazaar with the likes of Sukhoi of Russia. To let corporate India's leading icon of the season have a go at their merchandise must have seemed like an obvious sales ploy. (Would they have tried this gimmick in their own land?)

A private fantasy was gratified. Mr. Tata's dream of flying a fighter jet came true.

Not only India's national English language dailies, even the vernacular press, flashed front page pictures of India's oldest civilian pilot, waving like a rock-star to fans as he stepped into the cockpit of the fighter aircraft. The Times of India gushed that "Tata group chairman Ratan Tata soared to new heights". Delhi's Hindustan Times said that he "had a wonderful time." The Indian Express said that Mr. Tata had "a terrific, terrific ride." Even the ordinarily sober The Hindu said that Mr.Tata had an "exhilarating experience."

All this quoted without the dimmest trace of irony. When boys get their toys, it is indeed "wonderful" and "exhilarating". It is evident from the unanimity of the reports that Mr.Tata indeed had a jolly good time up in the high skies.

The most remarkable fact of all – the corporate boss of a leading private concern playing with military gadgetry, normally accessible only to men and women in public uniform – went unobserved by our free press. In the day of "Corporate Executive Officers", when businessmen are taking seats of pride in Parliaments and political leaders are more than happy to see described what they do as a "job", not to mention holding shares in companies, how does it matter if ancient public norms are blithely flouted and one of the most precious distinctions in the annals of democracy is quietly erased?

Public morality has gone corporate long back. The public has been colonized by the private ever since the era of manic privatization was thrust upon us. The joke is on us, the on-looking public, who don't seem to realize that the time-honored separation of the private and the public spheres is an inconvenient anachronism, an obstacle to mounting prosperity which should be kicked off the growth path.

The all-important distinction between the private and the public realms – dear in the past not only to democracies but to all self-respecting polities since the days of Greece and Rome – is being openly undermined in India, in vulgar mimicry of the successful pioneering trail blazed by corporate totalitarianism in that most famous of all democracies: the United States of America. If it works there, it must be good, and thus worthy of emulation.

Why reducing the public to the private is deadly

But why anyway is it a good thing to retain the distinction between the private and the public realms? Haven't we been delivered the technocratic wisdom often enough from the highest pulpits that running a government is essentially no different from managing a company? So what's wrong with it if men and women are corporate executives one day and ministers or bureaucrats the next, as long as they are honest (sic) and capable? What's wrong, for that matter, with the government making an open offer to the Tatas that it was willing to use public money to help it financially in its recent purchase of the British steel company Corus Inc (even as it complains about lack of resources when it comes to allocating more funds for development programs for women and children)? Or with the government declaring Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as public utility services under the Industrial Disputes Act and, with a happy conflation of the private with the public interest, making strikes and collective bargaining illegal, while enabling contract labor?

Well, if nothing is wrong with all this, why don't we campaign for an amendment of the Constitution, and make it the most urgent formal task of the government to enable corporations to maximize profits, enrich themselves (in the name of development via the long dysfunctional trickle-down effect) or, more simply, just legalize graft? Indeed, our government has been doing precisely that, offering sops to corporates via tax breaks, SEZs and the like, obsessed as it is with the maximization of the rate of national economic growth – to the effective exclusion of virtually all social goals, including development – for years now.

Listening to the chorus of applause from the mainstream media both in India and in the West, it would seem that this democracy has overcome its erstwhile socialist infantilism and finally matured into corporate adulthood – allowing, as is only in the fitness of things, men and women of eminence to occupy top corporate positions today and high offices in government tomorrow. In fact, in the age of (An)globalization, well-connected members of our ruling elites have long been in the habit of changing offices globally – having manned the upper echelons of imperial projects in the offices of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington virtually being a prior qualification to be at the national political helm in New Delhi, a custom which is finely attuned to the needs of our imperial masters.

What could be wrong with such an efficient arrangement? Free and fair elections are after all not fundamentally different from free and fair markets. We choose our leaders in one place, our cars and favorite magazines in another. And we expect our leaders to entertain us, just as we find amusement in driving fast cars (thanks to Vijay Mallya New Delhi's Rajpath, which once hosted political protests, might well see a F-1 race soon) and watching thrilling films. Such is the lure and charm of a Laloo Prasad Yadav. So what's wrong if Ratan Tata, the corporate Pope, is also seen as a rock-star with all the star quality that comes with the role? Only sour grapes and petty envy would bicker about such a thing.

Is it? If the government becomes a business, then profits and growth obviously become its overriding pursuits. What then? Who is allowed to criticize this noble project and all it inevitably involves, especially today? What happens to human rights, to labor standards, to environmental regulations, to tax laws, to social commitments and political promises for distributive justice? To the Constitution itself? In fact, one is entitled to ask, what happens to law and public morality? Shall we simply open up the market for justice too? Shall we experiment with private judicial systems in addition to privatizing the executive branch and the legislature (public offices are already auctioned in so many parts of the world)? In short, shall we just dispense with public liberty altogether and write into law a formal "corpocracy" which finally prises open all political markets, legitimizes private tyranny and inducts it into the visible mainstream of the affairs of state?

But somewhere, the line between public and private will have to be drawn, if only because in the absence of a robust public realm, private parties – driven by the will to power – will fight their way to war with each other, at our expense. (They already do, even in the presence of strong governments. So how much more so in their absence, unrestrained by any law or public morality whatsoever!) Society will not survive for long under such circumstances.

Among so many other things, isn't democratic government there precisely because the unrestrained pursuit of private commercial interest leaves no time or room for worrying about matters which concern everyone, not just a minority constituency of privilege? BAE and Lockheed Martin can't help themselves from selling arms across the world. It is their stock-in-trade, their line of business. And the imperatives of competitive capitalism will not brook any complacency, the reason that public restraint is necessary. To cut costs and grow their market shares corporations will scour the earth, loot indigenous peoples, pollute air and water and slog pliant female labor for 12 or 16 hours a day. Without public restraint what is there to prevent them from committing such crimes and hasten the end of civilized society itself?

Laws are there to protect public and individual liberty against oppression by those who hold power. This is why the rule of law is rightly regarded as one of the enduring achievements of civilized humanity. If it is threatened today – by imperial gluttony and other varieties of barbarism on the one hand and a relentless, unmitigated, corporately nurtured, state-sanctioned greed on the other – the answer is not to allow classes and social groups who hold power to further consolidate their influence. Both courage and wisdom actually lie on the side of challenging and restraining such power in the larger interest. Indeed, it may turn out – given the emerging facts on climate change and other looming environmental crises – that our very survival as a species might come to hinge on the evolution of a new public ethic which finds it within its imagination and character to do so.

In this task the media can be an accomplice or an obstacle. What we have seen so far makes the media resemble nothing so much as a disheveled theatre stage occupied by a bunch of image-toting lackeys of shadowy moneyed men in pin-striped suits, their shotguns held not too far from the heads of editors. They have monopolized the mike, carrying on their petty private squabbles within range of public audibility, putting the public to sleep with their tabloid perversions, while quietly conspiring to keep off-limits any authentic discussion of issues of genuine public significance.

It is time that the newspapers and the TV channels woke up from their somnolence and put an end to the charade of glamorizing the rapid encroachments on the best traditions of democracy. The Lockheed-Martins, BAEs and Tatas cannot be expected to behave with a sense of public responsibility. They would not be where they are had they had that. They have to be exposed and restrained. It is impossible without the media.

If freedom matters to us, we must heed Rousseau: "A free people obey laws and laws only, and it is by the force of the laws that it does not obey men."

Aseem Shrivastava is an independent writer. He can be reached at aseem62@yahoo.com.

Bhopal: Generations of Poison

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15485

by Nityanand Jayaraman, Special to CorpWatch
December 2nd, 2009

Note: with translation assistance from D. Narsimha Reddy.

Babu Lal Gaur is a much-reviled man in the slums that surround the derelict Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. As the Minister of Gas Relief and Rehabilitation in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, he is responsible for the welfare of the more than half a million survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy.

“If betrayal had a human face, it would be Gaur's,” says Hazra Bee, a gas victim, and veteran of two 500-mile marches for justice from Bhopal to the Indian capital New Delhi. “As Minister, Gaur has done nothing to help me, my son or others in our situation. But, he is actively working to let Union Carbide and Dow get away without fulfilling their responsibilities.”

Now 54, Hazra Bee still finds it difficult to keep from crying when she talks about her son. Twenty-five years ago, Bee had carried her four-year-old son as she fled the poison cloud hissing out from Carbide's death factory. Now 29, Mansoor has severely compromised lungs and cannot do strenuous work. As a child, he was susceptible to frequent coughs and ruptured an eardrum during a coughing fit. The ear was operated on, but pus still flows out from time to time, his mother says. “I pray to Allah that no mother goes through the torture that Bhopali women have experienced,” she says.

At midnight of December 2-3, 1984, Union Carbide's pesticide factory leaked poisonous methyl iso cyanate into its densely populated neighborhood. More than 8,000 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and at least 500,000 exposed to the poisons. In 2001, Union Carbide became a 100 percent subsidiary of Dow Chemical. It was the world's worst industrial accident.

A quarter century since the disaster, a new generation of children is being maimed by the second wave of Bhopal's chemical disaster. Thousands of tons of toxic materials still lie abandoned inside the factory, and in soccer-field sized evaporation ponds outside. The poor design of Union Carbide's waste disposal systems, including containments, is allowing toxins to escape into the surrounding environment. Two explosive reports released on December 1 by the London-based Bhopal Medical Appeal, and the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment (CSE) confirm local parents' worst fears: Groundwater and soil inside and outside the factory hold dangerous levels of chlorinated solvents, pesticides and heavy metals. [See box.] Every rain spreads the poison to groundwater that more than 30,000 people rely on as their main source of drinking water.The leaching toxins are linked to congenital disorders including deformities and brain damage. “A preliminary house-to-house study we did found that birth defects in communities affected by water contamination is ten times the national average,” says Satinath Sarangi, a long-time Bhopal activist and founder of the free Sambhavna Clinic for gas victims.

Carbide Site Continues to Leak Poisons Two studies released on December 1, 2009 confirm the presence of toxic chemicals in the soil and groundwater in and around the Union Carbide facility. They add to the more than a dozen reports warning that although the plant is abandoned, it remains a danger to human health. A Bhopal Medical Appeal study of four hand-pump samples revealed that three of four samples have above-safe levels of chlorinated solvents, particularly chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. Chloroform levels were two to three times higher than U.S. EPA drinking water guidelines, while carbon tetrachloride exceeded World Health Organization's drinking water guidelines by 900 to 2,400 times. Complementing this study is the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment's report, a comprehensive analysis of pesticide, chlorobenzene and heavy metal contaminants. The researchers tested soil samples from inside the factory and the solar evaporation pond outside. They also sampled drinking water sources outside the plant, and surface water inside the factory. The latter had the highest pesticide contamination, at 0.28 ppm, or 561 times the Bureau of Indian Standards' (BIS) permissible limits for drinking water. This water is not used directly for drinking. All drinking water samples contained total pesticides at between 1.1 to 59.3 times permissible levels stipulated by BIS. One sample of hand pump water from New Arif Nagar contained 122 times the permissible level of lead and 30 times the permissible level of cadmium. The factory site and the solar evaporation pond are still heavily contaminated, the CSE study found. All soil samples contained chlorinated benzenes, in addition to lead, mercury, arsenic and Chromium. Mercury levels are as high as 8188 parts per million, or 164 times higher than Canadian standards for acceptable levels in industrial areas. The CSE study concludes that the profile of chemicals found in the groundwater match that of the toxins detected Union Carbide's wastes. “There is no other source of these chlorinated benzene compounds and pesticides than UCIL,” it declares. The UCIL plant is “a continuous source of groundwater contamination,” the study warns. Carbamates – (a class of pesticides) that are moderately persistent and should not be seen in groundwater so long after the factory closed – were found at significant levels. The government of Madhya Pradesh denies the existence of any contamination of soil or groundwater. But these and previous reports present overwhelming evidence that contamination is extensive and exposes residents to serious long-term health effects. See: www.bhopal.org for the BMA study, and www.cseindia.org for the CSE report.

“Gaur knew about Union Carbide's toxic contamination even before the disaster,” says Sarangi. A lawyer, Gaur had negotiated a 1982 settlement between Carbide and farmers whose buffaloes died after drinking Carbide's effluents. In 2004, months after Gaur's right-wing Hindu party took over the state government, Gaur told the Christian Science Monitor: “Our state pollution control board in December filed a report that confirms that there is contamination of the groundwater." He blamed the Congress Party government, which his BJP had just defeated, for keeping the studies under wraps. The new state government wants Dow to clean up,” he said.

Today, as minister of all issues relating to Union Carbide and its victims, Gaur denies the presence of contaminants in soil or groundwater.

But at least 13 governmental and non-governmental studies, including CSE's recent release, confirm the presence of Carbide's poisons in the drinking water used by thousands of people. The only reports that found no groundwater contamination were prepared—for Union Carbide—in 1994 and 1997, by India's National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).

Guar maintains that any groundwater contamination in the area was caused by “the oil depots of petrol, diesel and kerosene near the area,” not Union Carbide.

Survivors charge that NEERI's reports and protestations by Gaur and other politicians are part of a sinister campaign to divert attention from the contamination issue, and to deflect corporate liability. "The center and the state government hope to use the 25th anniversary as an occasion to bury the disaster along with all the pending liabilities. This is what Dow wants," said Syed M. Irfan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangarsh Morcha. "Rather than clean-up the site, they are now engaged in cleaning up their image through deceit and denial."

Now It's Toxic; Now It's Not

Last September, India's flashy Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, exhibited his flair for publicity stunts. He had himself photographed wearing trendy sunglasses and handling a rock python to dispel fears that snakes are dangerous. That same day, he entered the Union Carbide factory and handled the toxic material onsite. “I am alive," he proclaimed to journalists. "I am not coughing.”

The next day, irate Bhopalis burnt effigies of the environment minister, prompting him to issue an unconditional apology.

Following Ramesh's example, Gaur declared that he would throw open the factory for 15 days leading up to the 25th anniversary to let people see for themselves how safe the factory site was. Public protests kept the site closed while Gaur vowed to open it anyway and keep it open forever. His chief minister declared the site “100 percent safe.”

“The toxic waste is lying for years, and the toxicity, if there was any, have been washed away during the last so many years,” he told Business Standard a few days before the 25th anniversary. In what must have been music to Dow's ears, he added, “We will not allow Dow to even enter the factory premises [for clean-up].”

Science: For Sale

Exactly a week before today’s 25th anniversary, Bhopal survivor groups served up a banquet with a difference. On the menu was an assortment of “toxic delicacies” – Semi-processed Pesticide on Watercress; Naphthol Tar Fondue; Sevin Tar Souffle; Reactor Residue Quiche; and Lime Sludge Mousse. All served with a complimentary bottle of B'eau Pal water. “Your appetite will contribute to a cleaner Bhopal,” invitees were told. Two prominent scientists – Dr. R. Vijayaraghavan from the Defence Research Development Establishment (DRDE), and Dr. T. Chakrabarti from the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), were named as the chef and sous-chef.

Place settings for the chief minister of the state, senior bureaucrats and Babu Lal Gaur remained predictably vacant.

“The faux banquet is Bhopal's comical, cynical response to scientific skullduggery,” says Rachna Dhingra, one of the buffet organizers. “This was our way of taking a dig at the scoundrels that are masquerading as scientists,” she adds, referring to the opinions given by the heads of high-profile scientific institutions in support of the State Government's decision to throw the dangerous site open.

“For a 70kg man, there will not be any death even if he takes 200gm [of toxic wastes stored inside Carbide's premises] by oral route,” wrote Vijayaraghavan of DRDE. Therefore, he writes in an official opinion given to Madhya Pradesh, the government's plans to open the factory site for public visits would not cause “any untoward, adverse or toxic effect to the public.”

Health Effects of Key Chemicals Found Lead: Exposure increases blood pressure, and risk of kidney damage, miscarriage, nervous system disorders, brain damage, and decreased fertility in men through sperm damage. Children exposed to lead are especially vulnerable to learning disabilities and behavioral disruptions including aggression, impulsive behavior and hyperactivity. Mercury: Chronic exposure of mercury affects the nervous system, causing tremors, spasms, memory loss, severe depression, increased excitability, delirium, hallucination and personality changes. Renal damages have been observed in chronically exposed workers. Arsenic: Exposure to inorganic arsenic can cause irritation of the stomach and intestines, decreased production of red and white blood cells, skin changes and lung irritation. Exposure to high doses can cause skin, lung, liver and lymphatic cancers. Chromium: Adverse effects of the hexavalent form on the skin may include ulcerations, dermatitis and allergic skin reactions, and cancers. Inhalation of hexavalent chromium compounds can result in ulceration and perforation of the mucous membranes of the nasal septum, irritation of the pharynx and larynx, asthmatic bronchitis, bronchospasms and edema. Respiratory symptoms may include coughing and wheezing, shortness of breath and nasal itch. Cadmium: When cadmium accumulates in kidneys it damages filtering mechanisms, causing the excretion of essential proteins and sugars and further kidney damage. Diarrhea, stomach pains and severe vomiting, bone fracture, reproductive failure and possibly infertility, damage to the central nervous and immune systems, psychological disorders, possibly DNA damage and cancer can also occur. Chloroform: Exposure to chloroform may cause irritation of eyes and skin, dizziness, mental dullness, nausea, confusion, headache, weakness, exhaustion and enlarged liver. Chloroform can also cause liver and kidney cancer. Carbon Tetrachloride: Chronic exposure increases risk of liver and kidney cancer. Chlorobenzenes: Dichlorobenzenes cause depression of central nervous system, respiratory tract and eye irritation, anemia, skin lesions, vomiting, headaches, anorexia, weight loss, atrophy of the liver, blood dyscrasias, porphyria and chromosomal disorders in blood samples. Animal carcinogenicity data for hexachlorobenzene show increased incidences of liver, kidney and thyroid cancers. Chronic oral exposure in humans is linked to liver disease (porphyria cutanea tarda), skin lesions with discoloration, ulceration, photosensitivity, thyroid effects, bone effects and loss of hair. It may kill embryos and cause birth defects. Carbamate pesticides: Prolonged low-level exposure causes headaches, memory loss, muscle weakness and cramps, and anorexia. Source: CSE Study "Contamination of Soil and Water Inside and Outside the Union Carbide India Ltd, Bhopal". www.cseindia.org

In a November 2009 letter to the Government of Madhya Pradesh, Chakrabarti, acting director of NEERI, concurred. “I along with several government officials, have visited the site umpteen number of times without experiencing any health problem.”

The government presented both letters as scientific opinions to the Madhya Pradesh High Court to seek permission to open the site. And the court acquiesced.

“The two letters are totally useless,” says Dr. P.M. Bhargava, an internationally respected chemist and molecular biologist. The former vice-chairman of India's prestigious National Knowledge Commission is rueful about the quality of Indian scientists and institutions. “We know how corrupt our institutions can be. Anyone can make any statement. Where are the data? How did they test? What did they test for? All other studies indicate that the site is completely unsafe; I wouldn't put my foot on the ground,” he says. Bhargava is also a member of a Technical sub-committee of the High Court's Task Force set up to offer advice on the technicalities of site remediation. He was never consulted on the decision to throw the factory open.

Watered Down

In August 2005, Hazra Bee accompanied several women exposed to the contaminated water to Gaur's office. In a ritual that binds brothers to look out for their sisters, the women tied a Rakhi around the minister's wrist. Each Rakhi bore the message “Brother: Won't You Give Us Water?” A few months later, when the “sisters” visited Guar's home to remind him of his obligation, he had police on the scene who beat the activists. Bee and ten others were charged with armed robbery.

The government pledge to provide clean water is long standing. Nonetheless, a May 2004 Supreme Court order directing the state government to provide clean drinking water to the affected communities lies unimplemented. Eight Prime Ministers, 13 hunger strikes, 1,130 demonstrations, and a 1,500 mile-long march to Delhi later, this essential item has remained as elusive as Union Carbide itself.

“For all of the struggle and the indignities we have suffered at the hands of the government and police, we have succeeded in getting the [Union government] to allocate Rs. 14 crores ($2.8 million) for water,” says Bee. “A third of us now get clean piped water from time to time,” she adds.

“Caste and religion play a big role in explaining why [most] Bhopalis have not yet got clean water,” says Dhingra. More than 80 percent of the residents of the 14 contamination-affected areas are either indigent Muslims or Dalits belonging to the lowest rungs of India's oppressive caste hierarchy. “The state's right-wing pro-Hindu BJP is hell-bent on diverting the [Union government's] allocation to provide water [to our communities] to 22 additional areas which are predominantly upper caste Hindus,” explains Dhingra.

Dow's Double-speak

Bhopal's activists see deep irony and a not-so-hidden business agenda in Dow's recent choice of water as an area to demonstrate its corporate social responsibility (CSR). “The attention on the water crisis is gradually shifting from a local level to a global level, which means more opportunity for a global business like Dow Water & Process Solutions,” Ian Barbour, general manager of Dow's water division, told a trade publication.

In November, Dow announced that it would sponsor the Live Earth Run for Water on April 18, 2010. The worldwide event will consist of four-mile walks and runs, concerts and water education activities “aimed at igniting a tipping point to help solve the water crisis.” Proceeds from the events will go to NGOs to fund sustainable, scalable water programs.

If Dow India's water sector interventions are anything to go by, Dow's charity begins and ends at home. Take the case of two water treatment plants launched with much fanfare as part of Dow India's corporate social responsibility in the south Indian state of Andhrapradesh.

In November 2006 Dow India inaugurated a 1,000-litre per hour reverse osmosis plant in Dasaigudem village in collaboration with Byrraju Foundation to provide some 600 villagers with clean drinking water. The desalination plant uses four Dow brand FilmTec membranes, each costing $300 (Rs. 15,000). A narrow plastic pipe carries the highly saline and toxic rejects from the plant to a ditch across the road that eventually empties into Dasa Cheruvu Lake nearby.

Dow's website still mentions “India's first water purification plant in Andhrapradesh” set up by its Indian subsidiary in 2006. But the Dasaigudem effort is seriously flawed. “The membrane has to be changed every year. Now it is three years, and we don't have the money to change it,” says plant operator D. Venkannan. “People are opting out because the water is increasingly brackish.”

Less than an hour's drive from Dasaigudem is the sleepy village of Solipet. At 2 p.m., most residents are either farming or enjoying a siesta. Those who remain – shopkeepers and housewives – have never heard of Dow or the water plant it claims to have set up in October 2007. The plant, using Dow's “yet-to-be released resin technology,” was installed at a cost of $5,000 by Dow India. It hardly worked for five months. Now there is no sign of the plant. “It was only an experimental plant. People gave it up; acceptance level was low,” says K.S. Raju, proprietor of Poorvi Enterprises, which supplied plant and machinery.

For Dow, these corporate social responsibility ventures make business sense. “Dow is spending money in the relevant field. When it sets up a reverse osmosis plant, it generates a replacement market for its membranes,” Raju clarifies. “Dow's other CSR program is a collaboration with an NGO that donates artificial limbs to handicapped children. Here Dow is promoting its polyurethane as a replacement for the rubber used to make the limbs,” he adds, noting that the material is ill suited to local needs.

Hazra Bee is unimpressed with Dow's CSR. “What responsibility? Their only responsibility is to us. We need the water. Our children are being maimed because of Dow's inaction.”

Convinced of the government's insincerity, Bhopalis are geared up to fight the long fight. December is also the first anniversary of Children Against Dow-Carbide, an association of about 60 youngsters. Those who are hoping the decades-long struggle for justice will fade away after the 25th anniversary may be disappointed. According to 17-year old Safreen Khan, one of the co-founders of the youth group, “The Bhopal struggle is not 25 years old. With our entry, the struggle has just entered its youthful phase, and we'll keep the fight alive for as long as it takes.”

* Nityanand Jayaraman is an independent journalist and researcher investigating and reporting on corporate abuses of environment and human rights. He is a long-time volunteer with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

The truth about Bt brinjal

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=The%20truth%20about%20Bt%20brinjal&artid=0vE7SUApjj0=&SectionID=XVSZ2Fy6Gzo=&MainSectionID=XVSZ2Fy6Gzo=&SEO=Hillary%20Clinton,%20ICAR,%20kathirikai%20poriyal,%20baingan&SectionName=m3GntEw72ik=

By K P Prabhakaran Nair

At a biotech industry conference in the US in 1999 a representative of the leading consulting firm Arthur Anderson (now defunct) asked Monsanto, the world’s number one agribusiness giant, what their ideal future looked like in 15-20 years. Monsanto representatives present replied: A world with 100 per cent seeds genetically modified and patented. Few people know that it was the legal firm of Hillary Clinton that represented Monsanto in one of the cases involving patent rights with genetically modified seeds. “Whether we like it or not, GM crops are here to stay” said the director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in New Delhi, not long ago. Outside his office activists of Greenpeace were protesting against the controversial Bt brinjal, which the ICAR and government are supporting.The next time you savour your baingan ki bartha or kathirikai poriyal, you might be ingesting some highly toxic Bt toxin as well. Yes, I am writing about the just released Bt brinjal. October 14 will go down in the history of Indian agriculture as the day when the government-controlled Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) unrolled the red carpet for Monsanto and changed the course of Indian agriculture for all the time to come.Jairam Ramesh, forest and environment minister, had assured us earlier that “There is a distinction between Bt cotton, which is a non-edible crop and Bt brinjal, an edible crop”, and now has gone public that the question of commercial and widespread cultivation of Bt brinjal in India will be ‘thoroughly’ examined before giving Cabinet clearance to the GEAC decision. Meanwhile concerned citizen groups, knowledgeable and committed scientists in India and overseas have termed the GEAC clearance a disaster for Indian agriculture. Let us now examine the controversy.On September 22, 2006 in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) in Supreme Court against genetically modified crops, the court ordered that the question of GM crops and foods be examined by independent, knowledgeable and committed bodies/scientists. The question then before the court involved Bt brinjal, which Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company), Monsanto’s Indian arm, had brought out and submitted to the GEAC for approval for commercial cultivation.The Hyderabad-based Centre for Sustainable Agriculture set up an independent expert committee, with this author as chairman. The committee thoroughly examined the field data generated by Mahyco from all angles — from bio-safety protocol to marketing of end products — and submitted its report in late October. The committee noted the following breach of scientific protocols: The allerginicity of the protein extract from the Bt brinjal was tested on brown Norway rats and not on male rabbits as prescribed by the Department of Biotechnology; Department guidelines prescribe in vivo immunological assays for the detection of reactogenic antibodies in the test sera. This was not done; Though the Cry 1Ac gene was earlier considered innocuous, recent published scientific evidence indicates that the Cry 1 Ac protein from Bacillus thringiensis (Bt) — is a potent systemic and mucosal adjuvant, which enhances serum and intestinal lg G antibody responses. This is the most serious biochemical and bio-safety threat from Bt brinjal; The field data were not statistically analysed for precise scientific interpretations, and as such, the conclusions drawn are invalid. No cost-benefit ratio for the farmer was calculated to examine whether or not this ‘new’ technology was economically viable. For instance, the promoters say that farmers now spray the brinjal 25-60 times to control the stem borer. This would amount to spraying a crop of 120-130 days duration almost on alternate days. No sensible farmer would spend so much on insecticide.One of the most important parameters to test the safety of Bt crops is heat stability. Heat stability studies carried out on the Bt protein in Bt brinjal highlight serious lapses on the part of the GEAC, which, though a bio-safety watchdog, acts like the handmaiden of Monsanto. Heat stability tests demonstrate whether or not the Bt toxin persists after cooking. The company claims that, once cooked, the toxin is destroyed. Yet, available facts prove the contrary.Bt protein is present even in non-GM brinjal before cooking. What does it prove? Is it a serious slip of the experimental procedure, or is it because both Bt brinjal and non-Bt brinjal were grown on adjacent plots, without appropriate ‘refuge’ or safety distance (200 m) in place? This is a clear case of pollen transfer from Bt brinjal to non-Bt brinjal, which will be the prime reason for environmental contamination. Look at the other disturbing facts.Mahyco was conducting Bt brinjal field trials in West Bengal in 2007. But the matter was never communicated to the state government. The apex state agricultural university observed that it was asked to inspect Mahyco field trials on Bt rice and Bt okra at a very late stage when the crops were ready for harvest. No meaningful scientific data can be collected from such trials. Most distressingly, the farmer on whose fields the Bt rice was grown, was never told what it was. The same thing happened in Tamil Nadu, in Ramanathapuram district and Jharkhand two years ago. It is a distressing fact that it only in India do such clandestine things go on in the name of science.The Arthur Anderson strategy is clearly unfolding in India. The larger strategy of Monsanto is to control the entire seed industry in India in 10-15 years. Bt cotton was the first step. Bt brinjal is the second. Before long, it will be Bt rice (clandestine field trials were conducted in Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand two years ago), Bt maize (field trials have started in India), Bt sorghum, Bt cauliflower, Bt cabbage, and so forth. The first point is that brinjal has its origin in the Indian subcontinent. The biological rigour of a plant species is lost when it is genetically modified, more so in its place of origin. Mexico has vetoed genetic modification of maize, despite American pressure, as that is its place of origin. It is pathetic that India, with its gigantic agricultural set-up, mutely watches Monsanto bulldoze into our domain.Genetic manipulation of Bt brinjal will have far-reaching environmental and bio-safety consequences. Gene modification technology is in its infancy and totally unpredictable consequences could follow. The development of super weeds, observed recently in UK, is an example. But the most perplexing question of all is, who is behind this game to push a half-baked technology on unsuspecting millions? It does look as if India is up for sale, certainly its agriculture.

K P Prabhakaran Nair is chairman of a committee set up by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad

Governments, Corporations and Human Rights in India: FIAN's report on the House of Tata

http://www.fian.org/resources/documents/others/governments-corporations-and-human-rights-in-india?set_language=

Responsible corporates? The crimes of the Tatas enumerated

http://sanhati.com/front-page/1000/


Introduction

The Tata Group, a family-owned Indian multinational with 2005 revenues of Rs. 76,500 crores ($17.8 billion), has an unjustifiably good reputation. The corporation’s flagship company Tata Steel made its riches through large-scale takeover of tribal lands in Jharkhand and Orissa and opportunistic business deals with the British colonial powers and the East India Company.

Until the onset of liberalisation, Tatas remained the undisputed king of the license-raj, covering its trail of human rights, labour and environmental violations with liberal philanthropic give-aways. As the realities of operating in a globalised environment began sinking in within Tatas, more and more people, including its loyal employees, are beginning to understand that talks of nation-building and corporate social responsibility aside, Tata companies have no obligation to anybody but their own shareholders.

As the rapsheet below will corroborate, the corporate house’s reputation is a result of Tata’s successful public relations strategy rather than a reflection of reality.

1. Helping Killer Carbide

In December 1984, when the Government of India arrested Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson for his role in causing the Bhopal gas disaster, Mr. J.R.D. Tata was one of the few Indians to condemn the arrest. Decisions made by Anderson to save costs by eliminating safety systems and approving untested technology at the Bhopal factory were directly responsible for the disaster. Incidentally, significant sections of the Bhopal factory’s sewage and utilities were constructed by Tata Consulting Engineers.

In November 2006, Ratan Tata offered to bail out Union Carbide, and facilitate investments by Carbide’s new owner Dow Chemical, by leading a charitable effort to clean-up the toxic wastes abandoned by Carbide in Bhopal. At a time when the Government of India has held Dow Chemical liable for the clean-up and requested Rs. 100 crores from the American MNC, Tata’s offer of charity is aimed at frustrating legal efforts to hold the company liable. Also, admittedly, the offer is motivated by a desire to facilitate Dow’s investments in India. The company has restrained itself from major investments in India out of fear that the campaign for justice by Bhopal victims will derail plans and increase risks of any Dow venture in India.

2. Bypassing Democracy

(a) Dictating Indian Policy:

In 2005, prompted by the corporate-friendly overtures of the Manmohan Singh Government and the Bush administration, business houses in the US and India set up the US-India CEO Forum comprising a select coterie of US and Indian CEOs. The forum has “a mandate to develop a road map for increased partnership and cooperation between the two countries at a business level.” Co-chaired by Ratan Tata, the Forum has made several recommendations to craft new laws, change existing laws and establish policy to make India more investor-friendly. The Forum is pushing for weaker labour laws, facilitation of Special Economic Zones, increased focus on post-graduate education, relaxing liability laws and expediting resolution of disputes especially following events such as the Bhopal disaster. The high-level consent that the Forum has from Indian and US Governments makes it a force parallel to the Indian parliament in law-making.

(b) Holding on to Corporatocracy:

Tatas own and operate the only private city in India. The steel city of Jamshedpur, which was founded by Jamsetji Tata in 1904, is one of few Indian cities that does not have a municipality or any local elected Government. Tata Steel-owned Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company administers the entire town with population of nearly 600,000. The 74th Amendment to the Constitution of India devolves powers to locally elected urban bodies such as municipalities, and requires that all states enact laws to hold regular elections to such local bodies. Converting the Tata-controlled town to a democratically controlled municipality met with stiff resistance from Tata Steel who seemed to suggest that a benevolent rule, such as Tata Steel, was more desirable than a democratic set-up. Defending corporate rule over democracy, Tata Steel’s managing director B. Muthuraman is reported as saying “While you have one successful model which has been there for a hundred years, would you like to bring in some other model which however lofty may not yet have been tried.”

(c) Business with Military Junta:

The Myanmar military government which is shunned by the world for its blatant human rights violations has found a friend in India. At a time when several multinationals like PepsiCo have pulled out of Myanmar in a bid to pressure the military government to give way to democratic forces, Tata Motors is striking deals to supply the oppressive regime with hardware and automobiles. The Myanmar military junta is accused of widespread rape and pillage, and the use of forced labour to construct infrastructure for the exploitation of Myanmar’s rich natural resources. For more than two decades, tribal groups have fought a hard and violent battle against the military junta for autonomy. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since 1989.

3. Desecrating Tribal Lands

(a) Parched Earth Tactics:

Tatas’ steel town came up in close proximity to thickly forested lands that had the misfortune of carrying some of the richest iron ore deposits. Tribal people then and now seldom have paper titles to their lands. The company initially acquired 3564 acres of land comprising villages at the cost of Rs. 46,332. When the lands were handed over to Tatas for mining in Noamundi and for the Jamshedpur township by the British-controlled Government of India, the tribals were evicted.

In 1907, after Tatas had taken over the Noamundi area for mining iron, local adivasis refused to work the mines. In a bid to tame them, Tatas reportedly mowed down the Kusumgaj (Kosam) trees. These trees were the lifeline for the adivasis who collected lac from the lacworms that nest on these trees. In desperation and with no other recourse for a livelihood, more and more adivasis started digging iron ore for Tatas.

In 2000, Tata Steel allegedly bulldozed a spring that was the only source of water for the indigenous people of Agaria Tola – a 22-household hamlet on the periphery of Tata’s coal mines. Besides yielding water, the spring was the centre of social interaction for the nearby villagers.

(b) Chrome Poisoning:

The Down to Earth magazine reports that the Comptroller Auditor General of the Government of India singled out the chromite mines in Sukhinda Valley as a highly polluted area. Tatas are one of the largest mining companies in the valley. The Domsala River and 30 streams that run through this valley are contaminated with dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium leaching from overburden dumps. Hexavalent chromium causes irritation of the respiratory tract, nasal septum ulcers, irritant dermatitis rhinitis, bronchospasm and pneumonia.

One study funded by the Norwegian Government under the Orissa Environment Program found that almost 25 percent of people living less than 1 km from the sites suffered pollution-induced diseases.

(c) Luxury Resort in Tiger Country:

In the mid-1990s, the Tata-owned Taj Group of Hotels leased a piece of land in the middle of the Nagarahole National Park and Tiger Reserve in Karnataka to build the Gateway Tusker Lodge. Proposed as a jungle camp, the plans for the Lodge resembled those of a 5-star resort complete with tourist facilities, diesel generators, and conference rooms. No clearance was sought from the Ministry of Environment, despite the fact that any activity inside a National Park is very stringently regulated. Massive tribal opposition to the project and a legal challenge eventually forced the Tatas to withdraw from the Tiger’s hunting grounds.

4. Violence and Massacres

(a) Gua Massacre:

State violence against tribal people is commonplace, particularly in the mining districts of Eastern India. According to an eyewitness, on 7 September, 1980, villagers whose lands were taken over to accommodate a Tata aerodrome in Noamundi went to the aerodrome to confront then Tata Steel chairman Russi Mody and present him a memo. On seeing the crowd, Mody’s aircraft returned to Jamshedpur without landing. All this happened at a time when long-oppressed tribals were asserting their rights, and the struggle for a tribal state was at its peak in the Jharkhand region of Bihar. Tatas and other vested interests are said to have pressed the State Government to take stringent action against tribal activists. The 8 September firing against innocent tribals in the Gua marketsquare, and the subsequent killing of 8 unarmed tribals inside a hospital was the “strict action” that was taken to quell tribal discontent.

(b) Kalinganagar Massacre:

On January 2, 2006, a police battalion armed to the teeth opened fire into a crowd of tribal villagers in Kalinganagar, Orissa. The tribal people were protesting the illegal construction of a compound wall by Tata Steel on lands historically owned by them. The local people had made it clear that Tata Steel was not welcome. Just days before the massacre, Tata Steel had three meetings with the chief minister of Orissa. Five corpses returned after post-mortem were mutilated; one dead woman’s breast was ripped off, and a young boy (also killed in the firing) had his genitals mutilated. All had their palms chopped off. Tata has said the incident was unfortunate, and that it will continue with plans to set up a steel plant at the location despite the opposition.

(c) Singur Oppression:

In 2006, Tatas obtained a bonanza. More than 900 acres of fertile agricultural lands in Singur, near Kolkata, was handed over to Tata Motors by the West Bengal Government for a project that will churn out Rs. 100,000 ($2000) cars. Farmers, many of whose lands were forcibly acquired, opposed the handover of their lands to Tata. Goaded by Tatas, the West Bengal Government has come down heavily on the Singur farmers and their supporters, converting this once-peaceful village into a war-zone with round-the-clock presence of armed police providing protection to Tata Motors site and workers.

5. Toxic Dumping

(a) Saline wastes:

In September 2003, an effluent spill from Tata Chemicals’ soda ash factory in Mithapur, Gujarat, spread over more than 150 acres of the sea in the Gulf of Kutch Marine National Park. The National Park covers one of the most biodiverse regions – mangroves, corals, mudskippers, whale sharks — in the coast of India. About 10 km_ of the marine protected area has been considerably degraded due to the settlement of solids associated with the effluent of the industry, according to the National Institute of Oceanography. The salt pans in the Mithapur area are also named as the cause for the rapid salinity ingress into the groundwater. Several villages have lost their farmlands to accommodate open unlined dumps for Tata’s saline effluent.

(b) Hell on Earth:

Patancheru, a chemical industrial estate near Hyderabad, is referred to as Hell on Earth owing to the unlivable environmental conditions in that area because of industrial pollution. Rallis India, a Tata subsidiary manufacturing pesticides here, was singled out by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Wastes which identified the company’s toxic waste dump to be a toxic contamination source of concern. The company’s wastes are stored in massive solar evaporation ponds that stinks up the air with poisonous chemicals, villagers say.

(c) Mountains of Waste, Jugsalai:

Thousands of tonnes of boiler ash generated from Tata Steel units are dumped in the open in the middle of Jugsalai town near Jamshedpur. During the dry months, the heavy metal laced dust from the mountain of ash flies in the air causing visibility problems and breathing distress. Groundwater in the area is polluted, as per Tata Steel’s own admission, and contains higher than permissible levels of hardness and dissolved solids.

(d) Joda Mines:

Begun in the 1950s, the mining boomtown that houses Tata, Birla and Jindal iron ore mines, has fuelled the riches of several corporates but has gained nothing in the process. Joda town and the road to it, according to one journalist, is one big pothole. The constantly plying ore trucks, and the round-the-clock mining has meant that local residents, workers and commuters have no fresh air to breathe. It is a wonder that these dustiest of dusty mines are located at the edge of the Sidhamatha Reserve Forests, home to the elephant and tiger.

(e) Coal Slurry Dumping:

Tata Steel’s collieries in West Bokaro and its coal washeries in Bokaro have been discharging a coal-dust-rich slurry into the Bokaro River, effectively killing the river by smothering the river bed. The process also uses large quantities of freshwater and discharges it along with the coal-dust as effluents.

6. Hazardous Incidents

(a) Founder’s Day Fire:

On March 3, 1989, a fire broke out in the VIP gallery during the Founder’s Day celebrations. Sixty children were killed and 111 injured in the fire that was caused by negligence and poor planning that prevented fire tenders from arriving at the scene of the accident in time. The problem was further exacerbated when Tatas refused to move the injured and dying to a burns speciality hospital in a bid to cover up the event. A Factories Inspectorate report lays the blame squarely on Tata Steel. More than 10 years after the tragic event, Tatas had still not paid compensation to the legal heirs of the deceased or to the injured. Even the Supreme Court alluded to pay-offs by TISCO, asking TISCO how much it was paying the Court-appointed arbitrator.

7. Strong Anti-Labour Policies

In the 1920s and 1930s, when it was still called Tata Iron and Steel Company, TISCO’s largely tribal workers fought pitched battles with the European and Parsi management. Work conditions and the right to organise were important rallying issues, and over the years, the company developed a reputation for union-busting often by violent means.

(a) Worker Suicides:

After Ratan Tata took over in 1991, the Tata Group companies have witnessed aggressive streamlining and down-sizing. In 2003, two contract workers who were part of the Tata Hydrocompanies Employees Union doused themselves with kerosene and set themselves on fire outside the Tata headquarters. Along with 68 other workers from the Tata Power Company, the two suicidal workers were protesting the illegal termination of their contract in 1997 by Tata.

As land prices skyrocketed in Mumbai in the 1980s, textile mills sitting on prime real estate in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) began starving as mill managements failed to invest in modernisation and upkeep. Mill-owners preferred to run their establishment into the ground in the hopes that lucrative land deals would allow them to shut down the mills and make money in the process. Tatas, which ran Svadeshi Mills — one of the oldest textile mills in Mumbai – had earlier obtained permission to sell a fourth of its landholding, and hand-over half the land for a recreation ground, a public housing scheme and a public sector factory to employ retrenched labourers from the textile mill. While a fourth of the land was sold, the latter did not happen. Workers allege that whatever was sold was undervalued to allow the company to siphon funds meant for mill revival or rehabilitation of workers to other group businesses. Driven to desperation, at least one Svadeshi mill worker committed suicide after the August 2000 closure of the mill forced 2800 factory-floor workers into destitution.

(b) Sub-contracting and Fostering Insecurity:

According to highly placed sources within the Tata company, Tatas have resorted to large-scale deployment of contract labour in a bid to cut costs. In contravention of the Contract Labour and Regulation Act, contract workers are engaged in prohibited activities, including those that can only be performed by trained permanent staff, and works of perennial nature. Workers allege that the company discriminates between its employees and contract workers. At Tata Steel in Jamshedpur, for instance, company employees eat better food in superior ambience than contract workers. Wage differences are also wide although the nature of work performed by contract workers is no different from that of company employees. Contract workers also work longer hours on harder jobs. Lack of skill and work pressure has meant that contract employees meet with more accidents.

(c) Lay-offs:

Contrary to Tata’s much-touted credentials of providing employment security, the corporate house’s massive downsizing at its flagship Tata Steel provides a case in point. Tata’s workforce stood at 78,000 in 1994. By 1997, it was down to 65,000. By 2002, another 15,000 jobs were eliminated, and the total workforce in 2006 stands at 38,000, slightly more than half of what it started out with at the onset of liberalisation. Of this, more than 25,000 people received voluntary retirement benefits. However, many allege that the scheme was not all that voluntary. Able-bodied workers were rendered jobless as they succumbed to intense emotional pressure. Reports allege that teachers were asked to sweep roads if they did not take up “voluntary retirement.”

(d) Union busting:

In 1989, workers belonging to the trade union Telco Kamgar Sanghatana at Telco’s plant in Pune struck work demanding wage hikes. Tata management attempted to break the strike by offering a wage hike to rival unions and warning every employee of dire consequences if labour unrest continued. In September 1989, about 3000 workers went on an indefinite hunger strike. As the strike progressed with workers fainting and no signs of a rapprochement, the State Government came under intense pressure from Tatas and other capitalists. On September 29, under cover of darkness the State Reserve & Pune City Police launched Operation Crackdown. 80 buses were deployed to round up and take fasting workers to jail. Tata had managed to break the strike with the help of the police.

(e) Killings:

In the past, at least two prominent Tata trade unionists – Abdul Bari and V.G. Gopal – were gunned down by rival unionists as they were setting off for negotiations with the management. In both instances, Tata workers and independent observers allege the behind-the-scenes involvement of Tata management.

8. A Historical Record as Collaborators of British Imperialism

(a) Drug Running:

Tata archives that talk in glowing terms about Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata fail to record the family’s involvement in shipping opium to China in the mid- to late 1800s. The opium was grown in India and shipped to China by agents such as Tata for the British.

(b) Empress Mills:

Tata’s first industrial venture, a textile mill in Central India’s cotton-growing region, was opened on 1 January, 1877 – the day Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. The event was commemorated by naming the company Empress Mills.

(c) Fueling British Expansionism:

Commissioned in 1908, the Tata Iron and Steel Company in Jamshedpur cut its teeth supplying the British empire with steel rails that were crucial in Britain’s war effort in Northern and East Africa during the 1st World War. When the war was over, Viceroy Lord Chelmsford said: “I can hardly imagine what we should have done if the Tata Company had not been able to give us steel rails which have provided not only for Mesopotamia, but for Egypt, Palestine and East Africa.”

(d) Supplying the British Army:

The American civil war ended in 1865, re-opening raw cotton supplies from the Southern states of the US for England’s textile mills. That sent India’s cotton suppliers on a tailspin. Many didn’t recover, but the Tata family managed to stay afloat by securing a lucrative contract to supply food and clothing to the British Army’s Magdala campaign in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1868.

Courtesy - International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal

Tatas opposed by the people

Tata’s unpopularity is evident from the fact that local people in various places around India have successfully thwarted the company’s attempts to set up businesses on their lands. The ongoing struggle in Singur, the stand-off in Kalinganagar are merely the most recent and prominent.

About a decade ago, protests by tribal residents in Orissa forced Tatas to pull out of a venture to mine bauxite from the sacred Baphlimali hills in Rayagada district. In 2000, three tribal youth were shot dead by the police during a peaceful demonstration near the proposed mine site.

In 2000, Tatas were forced to abandon a proposal to set up a steel plant in Gopalpur-on-Sea, a coastal town in Orissa following massive protests from the more than 20,000 people that were to be evicted to make way for the plant. This project too ended only after blood was shed. In August 1997, the police opened fire at a protest rally in Sindhigaon, where two women were crushed to death in the ensuing pandemonium.

In the late 1990s, Tatas shelved a proposal to convert large portions of Lake Chilika – a massive brackish water lake of international prominence – into an aquaculture farm after protests by the 120,000-strong fishing community that depended on the lake for a livelihood.