The Coke Machine - Michael Blanding [130]
As in other communities, the farmers here accuse Coke of polluting the land as well; since the factory is set within a dense industrial park, however, it’s impossible to prove it. In the industrial park on the edge of town, a haze of foul-smelling smoke hangs over the cluster of factories, while behind them, burning piles of white slag fill a wide trench with a stream running down the middle. “This is not all Coca-Cola,” says Srivastava, “but this is the kind of enforcement you see. This is the unfortunate story of the Third World.” (Ranjan repeats the assertion from Mehdiganj that all solid waste is disposed of at a government-registered facility.) Downstream from the plant, the water itself is obviously polluted, with a green scum floating on top. Passing farmers repeat the same story—if cattle stand in it too long, they get rashes on their legs, and some have even died from drinking it. Whether it’s justified or not, there’s no question whom villagers blame for all of these problems: Coca-Cola. In fact, in direct contradiction of Ranjan and Sharma’s contention that the protesters are hired from outside, a random cross-section of farmers milling around the marketplace mention the company when asked about the water shortages and pollution.
Typical is a farmer named Lakshmi Narayan, who grows groundnut, wheat, and mustard on seven acres of land—but is now able to farm only less than an acre. “Coca-Cola,” he answers simply when asked why he thinks the water level has gone down. “Other factories do use water, but it’s far less than Coke.” As a crowd gathers around him, several other farmers all agree that Coca-Cola is to blame for their distress. Asked how many of them have taken part in protests against the company, every one of them raises a hand.
The extent to which the company is downplaying opposition becomes even clearer after driving a few miles out of town to the home of Rameshwar Prasad Kuri, a prosperous farmer everyone calls by the honorific “Kuriji.” Today happens to be the day before the wedding of one of his sons, and his well-kept house is full of men and small children running underfoot. Kuriji’s family has owned this farm for five generations; when he was a young man, however, he left to enter the civil service, eventually becoming assistant director of the state agricultural department.
With a civil servant’s meticulous love for detail, he has kept track of the water level in his well, which he says was twenty-five to thirty feet below the surface when he retired in 2002. After Coke opened its bottling plant three kilometers away, however, he says the water level has gone down eight to ten feet a year. As in the other villages, Kuriji’s open well is dry, and he has had to buy a more powerful motor to get any water out of his bore well. As a result, he is able to irrigate only half of his seventeen acres. The loss of income has forced his family to take their children out of private school and put off buying a car to make the seven-kilometer trip to market. “The only positive effect is that I don’t smoke anymore,” he laughs. “I don’t even drink tea because we can’t afford it.”
Kuriji’s face is a relief map as expressive as any desert landscape, set with small watchful eyes. He sits cross-legged on a cot wearing a white kurta and gray slacks, periodically letting forth unself-conscious burps that perfume the air slightly with curry. One of the first farmers in the area to organize against the company, Kuriji took the lead from the successful protests