National Alliance of People’s Movements

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Response to questions raised in the ‘open letter’ of Coca Cola published in newspapers regarding Nov 15-24 Ballia-Varanasi padyatra (foot march) against Coca Cola – Pepsi Cola

(this response was given by NAPM leader Sandeep Pandey at the public meeting attended by media fraternity too on Nov 14, 2004 at Gandhi Swa-adhyaya Kaksha, Gandhi Bhawan, Lucknow. This response was further supported by noted activists like Alok Agarwal and Arundhati Dhuru (Narmada Bachao Andolan), Jim Fassett Carman (Corporate Accountability International – a boston based group), Mahesh).

Coca Cola had published few advertisements in the newspapers and raised questions for the organizers of the march (padyatra) from November 15-24, 2004 – starting from the Coca Cola Bottling plant in Singhachavar, Ballia and ending with direct action for closure at Coca Cola Bottling plant in Mehndiganj Varanasi. The below mentioned response to these questions was given by the activists involved with this march:

Q1. Why is this movement against one specific international soft drink brand? If the basic debate is Foreign Vs Domestic products then why other multinational brands haven’t been included in this campaign?

A. This movement is to turn out both: Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. Since the new economic policy came into effect in India, Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola symbolically represent the most bizarre change, because not only their products are not healthy for our health, but these corporations also loot away natural resources including disproportionately huge quantities of water to make their products and sell at absolutely unreasonable prices to our own people, this is outrageous and goes against the best interests of our own people and country. Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are not manufacturing anything which is essential for human beings rather they are here in India to reap as huge a profit as they can by all means. We are against any such corporation – domestic or foreign, which loots away natural resources of our people and works against the best interests of our own people.

Q2. By demanding closure of these bottling plants, do the organizers of this march have any plans in place to rehabilitate thousands of labourers and their dependent family members who will be unemployed in case these plants are shut down?

A. Mehndiganj, Varanasi Coca Cola bottling plant employs about 500 people, most of which are daily wage labourers. This plant takes out more than 25 lakh litres of water every day (which supports 500 people). When Coca Cola Pepsi Cola weren’t here in Indian market, then people were drinking other indigenous drinks like Neembu paani, lassi, aam ka pana, bel ka sharbat, sattu ki lassi, or fruit juices. If one self-employed vendor of these indigenous drinks can sell, say 100 litres per day for a living, then 25 lakh litres of water will give employment to 25,000 such self-employed people. Before Coca Cola Pepsi Cola came into Indian market, people were indeed drinking our own drinks like Neembu paani, lassi, aam ka pana, bel ka sharbat, sattu ki lassi, or fruit juices. So this means that Coca Cola Pepsi Cola has taken away employment from 25,000 self-employed people and given daily wage employment to only 500 at just one of it’s bottling plants. This indeed sounds ridiculous when Coca Cola itself talks of rehabilitation of labourers!

Q3. It is not possible to shut down corporations duly established under law and regulations of the country by taking out marches on the road. Is it not a wastage to misuse public strength in such futile endeavours?

A. Mehndiganj Coca-Cola plant in Varanasi has till date occupied 33 dismil area of land illegally, which actually and lawfully belongs to the gram sabha. A former City Magistrate had ordered razing down of unauthorized construction of Coca Cola done on the land illegally occupied by Coca Cola and which actually belongs to gram sabha but due to company’s pressure tactics, no administrative official was willing to carry out the order. Coca Cola has always resorted to unethical and immoral means to influence those who come for enquiries or to implement the order, which includes the three occasions when Nayab Tehsildaar went to conduct the enquiry and was given a bribe of Rs.10,000 every time, bribing the police officials at Mirza Murad police station, and other such immoral and unfair means to nullify those who come to put Coca Cola to task. When Coca Cola had purchased this land to set up the Mehndiganj Varanasi bottling plant, it had used unfair means to show a lower price for that land, and illegally avoided paying Rupees One Crore and 75 Lakhs worth of excise duty. Later on a local court had caught Coca Cola’s misdemeanor in stealing the due excise duty and fined the same amount of penalty (Rupees One Crore 75 lakhs) and ordered Coca Cola to pay Rupees Three Crores 50 Lakhs instead. Coca Cola hasn’t paid even half this amount till date and no recovery action has been taken by the Government so far. Why has this company which itself is tainted with illegal, unauthorized, irregular and immoral practices, suddenly started talking about lawful practices?

            If Coca Cola didn’t had an intent to manipulate our legal system, navigate through various law and order issues and circumvent public interest prohibitions, why has it invited former Chief Justice of Supreme Court BN Kirpal, former Indian Army Chief VP Malik, former Cabinet Secretary and senior Congress politician Jairam Ramesh on it’s Board of Advisors?

Q4. If this movement is based on the key issue of taking out ground water and the resulting fall in water table in the region, then why has this campaign not included other soft drink bottling plants, bottled water companies, alcohol breweries, marble cutting units, printing and colouring cloth units, water parks, swimming pools etc?

A. Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola holds 90% of the soft drink market in India. We oppose all soft drink companies which take out unregulated and undue amounts of water from under the ground. Drinking water shouldn’t be sold in bottles rather be available clean and free to all, so do we believe. Therefore we are also against bottled water companies. Being influenced by Gandhian Ideology, there is no question of us justifying alcohol breweries. Printing and colouring cloth units and marble cutting units can be accepted to an extent because these are associated with basic needs of a human being (food, shelter and clothes). We do believe that water parks and swimming pools are sheer wastage of water resource. Despite of all this, never in the history of human kind, a corporation has taken out such huge quantities of water from under the ground for mass scale commercial use, therefore we target these companies before we expand this movement further to other such targets mentioned above. 80% of water required by us for daily use comes from under the ground. Thus if we want to save our own underground water reserve, we need to close down companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola.

Nandlal Master, Sandeep Pandey, Arundhati Dhuru, Mahesh, Dwijendra Vishwatma, Sanjay Singh, Arvind Kumar, Keshav Chand, Suresh, Jagrupani Devi, Mahendra, Jayashankar, Rekha Chauhan, Chitranjan Singh, Balram, Raghu Thakur, Father Anand, Chanchal Mukherjee, Lenin, Bobby Ramakant

Phones: 9839073355 (Bobby Ramakant), 94150 22772 (Arundhati Dhuru), 9415790126 (Jim Fassett Carman), 9838546900 (Mahesh)

Fax: +91 (522) 2353020, email: bobbyramakant@..., ashaashram@...