Belching Out the Devil (27 page)

 

Mukut Yogi, squats leaning against a side wall half, he's thirty-six, with a pink shirt, a neat side parting and a moustache.

‘We were all self-sufficient in those days,' says Mukut.

And when Coke came?

‘It was only when the water level fell, that we realised what was going on.'

His younger brother Mahesh, shakes his head ruefully, ‘You could never imagine the speed at which the water level fell.'

‘Earlier,' says Mukut talking of the time before Coke, ‘there was water at a depth of thirty-five feet. Water could be pumped into the fields using a motor of three horsepower…. Now the water has to be pumped out from a depth of 125 feet. It is done with the help of a ten or fifteen horsepower motor.'

 

The farmers don't have an exact measurement for the water loss (amongst other factors the water level varies with the seasons) but they do know they have to dig their wells deeper and get stronger pumps to bring the water up. You don't need a tape measure to know the well is dry.

 

Everyone acknowledges the water situation here is bad, and it depends on who you are as to how you describe it: Coke call it ‘a highly water-stressed area', the farmers call it a crisis. Water is being drawn out of the ground at a rate that is at least 35 per cent greater than what is being recharged by rainfall.
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It's a Doomsday scenario.The impact has left farmers unable to grow their crops as they once did and leaves them fearful for their futures.

‘People are unemployed now,' says Mukut

‘Financial condition has worsened,' his brother adds.

 

Crossed-legged and leaning forward Mukut calmly explains, ‘People from this village now go to other cities in search of work. There is no water here. A person cannot do farming. He has to look after his children. What will he do? Many villagers have gone to the cities.'

 

Few would argue that Coke is solely to blame. And Coke is right when it says ‘agriculture remains the most significant use of water in the watershed'.
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But by agriculture they mean the men sitting in front of me, the small farmers and their families. Here
between 60-80 per cent of the population lives on the land, so by agriculture the Company means Indians growing food. Not surprisingly, when I put the Company's statement to them the agitators get very agitated. At the front of the group is Sudher Prahash, the thirty-year-old teacher at the school and a farmer with just under a hectare of land. Sitting on his haunches and with the eager disposition of a pupil he nearly leaves the ground in outrage at Coke's suggestion. ‘I can explain this in a minute. In every man's life, there are a few basic necessities like eating food. What will the people of this country eat? If the farmers consume water, it's for growing crops. It is for sustaining life. But what are these people doing? You will neither live nor die by drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola.'

 

Perhaps the most surprising criticism has come Coke's own report. The TERI report, published in January 2008, does something quite incredible, Coca-Cola's own report suggests that Coke should consider shutting the plant down!

 

It is not often a company like Coke hires a consultant tasked with giving them the once over and the consultant says ‘you're so shit you should think of shutting' - though the report didn't actually use these exact words.

 

The report examines the Coke plant's activities saying, ‘the water withdrawals by the HCCBPL [Coke], Kaladera, need to be viewed in the context of the already overexploited condition of the aquifer.' The impact of the Coke plant on the water is such that TERI say ‘the plant's operations in this area would continue to be one of the contributors to a worsening water situation and a source of stress to the communities around.' To this end TERI concludes:

 

‘TCCC has to evaluate its options for HCCBPL, Kaladera, such as:

Please note the whole of that statement is in quotation marks…

 

So let's look at the options. As Jaipur is a drought-prone area the chances of an nearest aquifer under no stress and with a population willing to let Coke grab is about as slim as the chances of storing enough water without rainfall. Thus eliminating the first two options. Leaving option three ‘Relocate the plant to a water-surplus area.' Or take option four, ‘shut down this facility.' The only viable options the plant has is to: shut down and move or shut down and not move. The company chose to continue its operations in Kaladera. Referring to the TERI report, Deepak Jolly the company Vice President said, ‘It doesn't blame us even once,' adding ‘It blames the farmers and agriculture.' In fact Mr Deepak Jolly goes on to say, ‘It also does not even once suggest that we should pack up and leave those areas. It says that there are four or five options for bring up the water levels and if nothing is possible then alone we should go. Anything but closure.'
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Deepak Jolly is also the holder Public Relations Council of India's 2006 award for Communicator of the Year.
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In the school that looks like a fort the farmers prepare for battle, sitting on the rug and planning how to persuade one of the biggest multinationals in the world to take option three or four. It is time for my questions to end and the
meeting to start. Speaking nineteen to the dozen in Hindi, Kuriji explains the TERI report and its significance, that Kaladera's case was so strong the report couldn't help but condemn the current running of the plant. His audience listens rapt as Kuriji sits upright on his knees, notepad in hand resting on his lap. Sudher the teacher is still at the front, keen-eyed and coiled. Mukut leans against the wall with his brother next to him.

 

In the Land of Ignorance my knowledge of Hindi is infinite, in reality it is nil, all I know is that Kuriji has lowered his voice in dramatic significance when my mobile phone rings. My body assumes the ‘oops' position as I reach hurriedly for it. With my hand cupped over the mouthpiece I whisper ‘Hello?'

 

A friend from home wants to know if I can come to a party.

‘I'm in India,' I hiss.

‘Oh sorry, is it Coca-Cola?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh, you poor thing it must be horrible for you.'

 

Speaking as a person who has said so many stupid and inept things in my life that I stand a good chance of being elected Mayor of London, I like to think my friend said that out of surprise and shock. But instead of uttering the hissed mantra of the inappropriate phone interruption, ‘Call you back later, bye', I impulsively reply, ‘I am in the middle of a meeting of farmers who are plotting how to take on one of the biggest multinationals in the world - it's not horrid at all, it's brilliant. Call you back later, bye.'
^a

 

Guiltily I lift my head, pocketing the offending technology. No one has noticed my blathering, they are listening as Kuriji
finishes with a flourish. They nod emphatically and murmuring breaks out. I edge over and ask one of the crowd, ‘What did he just say?'

‘He said “Are you ready to agitate?”'

Kuriji's son Mahendra jumps from his cot where a second before he had lain unaware of the impending visitors. Patting down his hair he hurries into the house and emerges moments later with a jug of water and a low bow. The first thing a farmer does when guests arrive is offer water - the second thing he does is show them the well. Groups gather around it, peer into darkness, point to old tidemarks on the wall and tut. In good years a farmer might have shown a guest his cattle or full crops, but these are dry years, so everyone comes to the well with a quiet lamentation, to plead, curse, and sigh. Farmers show their wells like bruises, as evidence of injury.

 

‘Here,' says Kuriji gesticulating with an outstretched arm. Mere metres from of his home lies the dry and dead well. The top courses its brickwork have been exposed to the elements and are blown and puffy with erosion. ‘Initially it was thirty feet deep. So where the pigeons are sitting, that was the depth of the well.'

 

Leaning precariously, holding the top of a metal ladder that descends into the well, I can see a circular shelf of concrete that is home to the birds; four nesting pigeons who inhabit the ledge, cooing in the shade amidst the caked bird crap and feathers.

 

‘That was the depth of the well, dug in 1990,' says Kuriji enunciating the numbers so there is no confusion. From where
the pigeons sit another smaller hole drops into total darkness, this was the second well, that went down to 80 feet.

‘Dried. Dried.' he says, with a tilt of his head. ‘I have this tube well after this,' he points to a couple of pipes that run across his yard to a metal cylinder which houses the pump. This tube well was dug in 2002 and goes down to 205 feet. That is the depth he brings the water up from.

‘It cost me 1 lakh rupees.' Which is about £1,200. And as if this were not indignity enough, he can use the pump for only a few hours a day. The state decided to allow farmers four hours of electricity every twenty-four hours thus limiting the amount of water they can bring up. A decision that has caused considerable bitterness as the bottlers are not subject to the same measures. Coke can pull up water when it likes.

 

We walk along the side of a barley field that is home to a small temple, a stone affair with a peaked roof barely a metre in height. This is a temple to Hanuman, the monkey god who owns and protects the well. Not a task the primate god has excelled at in this instance. Before us is a large field that remains unplanted, the promised empty field. It is stark in its absence of plant life, it is a large patch of tilled earth. Where the blackish trunks of the trees are set out against the insipid brown of the earth. Kuriji speaking in English explains slowly, ‘Out of seven hectares two fallow.'

‘Why is this left fallow?'

‘Due to lack of water, sufficient water is not available for us, that's why.'

 

We turn back to face the planted land, opposite the barley is the small family vegetable patch where white bulbs of garlic flowers sit on thin green stalks and coriander bunches grow close to the ground.

‘Usually we cultivate all the land, it's all irrigated but now because of the scarcity of the water…two hectares are left.'

‘So nearly one third of the farm is gone?'

 

And with that we walk back to the home away from the barren dirt in silence.