Pepsi, Coke Vanish as Anti-U.S. Feeling Grows in Kerala

INDIA:
Pepsi, Coke Vanish as Anti-U.S. Feeling Grows in State

D Rajeev


THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, Apr 14 (IPS) - 'Bottled America', as represented by Pepsi and Coke, has vanished from grocery stores and outlets in India's southern Kerala state, thanks to an increasingly popular campaign to boycott goods associated with the perpetrators of the war in Iraq.

''Our aim is to make Kerala a 'Pepsi-Coke-Free Zone'' from this week onwards, said Dr B. Ekbal, distinguished medical scientist and vice chancellor of Kerala University who is one of the leaders of the national anti-war movement.

In Kerala, the Anti-War Forum led by communist leader Thomas Isaac had set Apr. 13 as the last day for retailers to be dealing with Pepsi and Coke, having allowed them to exhaust all existing stock by that date.

The 'shop-to shop' campaign received enthusiastic support from the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and the All-India Youth Federation (AIYF) wings of the communist Left Front, which is powerful in this highly literate, pro-socialist state.

According to DYFI leader Vasanthan (one name), the movement has so far been 'peaceful and voluntary', though Coke and Pepsi officials have complained about the use of coercive methods to stop retailers from selling the beverages and goods made by the Indian subsidiary of the transnational, Lever.

Vasanthan, however, warned that in the ''second phase'' of the movement, those who stock these products can expect ''direct action'', which means forcible seizures and public destruction of the drinks as well as other items bearing U.S. or British labels.

''We have not resorted to any pressure tactics. All that we have done is to carry out a shop-to-shop campaign to mobilise support for the cause,'' said, Isaac, who is credited with a successful movement to devolve power to local bodies in Kerala.

But officials at NJ Business Corp, the main distributor for Coke in Kerala, said shopkeepers were not placing fresh orders out of fear rather than any real anti-war sentiment.

Last week, activists of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Red Flag faction ransacked the main marketing centre of Coca Cola at Kozhikode in North Kerala and later symbolically dumped stocks into the sea.

In a statement, the party asked distributors not to deal in Coca-Cola and Pepsi as these ''contain the blood of innocent children of Iraq''.

An unlikely partner of the communists in the anti-war movement is the conservative Muslim Jamaath (congregation). In districts dominated by the Muslim community such as Malappuram and Kozhikode, the boycott call has registered an early and complete success. A Muslim Jamath spokesman also said that a ''sizeable section'' of the business community, mostly Muslims, had willingly given up sale of boycotted goods. ''We do not have to compel or even persuade the shopkeepers them.''

Also joining in the boycott were activists of Manushi, a women's welfare cooperative which staged several protests in front of the premises of major stories, including those where the effigies of U.S. President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were burned.

Said Jameela Mankavau, secretary of Manushi: ''If everybody pulls together we can make a dent on the multinationals and make our voices heard.''

Large stockists who were waiting to cash in on large-volume sales of softdrinks with the onset of the summer months are still hopeful that the boycott would ease off, but they are not taking any chances.

Said Raju Menon, manager of Spencers Food World in the state capital: ''We have not placed any fresh orders with the manufacturers (of Pepsi and Coke) and are waiting and watching to see how things turn out.''

But that might be a long wait given that the AIYF has announced plans to permanently shut down local bottling units of the Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages Co, and Pepsi Foods, the Indian subsidiaries of the transnationals.

''This is not only a campaign against products of British and American transnationals but against foreign capital coming here in the name of globalisation,'' Vasanthan said. Already, a Coke bottling plant in Plachimada, in the largely tribal Palghat district, has been mired in controversy with activist groups accusing it of depleting the sweet water resources and depriving local people of drinking water.

Last week, a 'panchayat' (village council) declared that it would not renew the license granted to Coke to set up and operate a bottling plant in Plachimada on the grounds of ''over-exploiting water resources''.

Coke officials were quoted in local newspapers as saying that they had not been informed of any resolution passed by the 'panchayat' against the renewal of the licence, which expired on Mar. 31.

''We applied for renewal of licence on February 26 and remitted the necessary fee by pay order which the 'panchayat' had acknowledged,'' they said.

Last year, thousands of irate protesters, consisting mostly of indigenous people and 'dalit' (oppressed castes), gathered at the gates of the Coca Cola factory at Plachimada to protest against indiscriminate mining of groundwater.

To placate the protesters, the factory had then supplied truckloads of water to two of the worst-affected villages but the protests continued until local police resorted to brutal cane-charges on complaints from the transnational.

Until the factory came up, Plachimada had ample water resources and local residents complain that what groundwater is yet available in their wells has turned brackish and become unfit for drinking, cooking and bathing because of effluents form the plant.

Now with the prospect of the plant being shut down because of the anti-war boycott, the residents of Plachimada hope that their water resources will finally be restored to them. (END/2003)

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