The Coke Machine Part 9

An increasingly militant movement in both Plachimada and Mehdiganj began using more direct tactics to put pressure on c.o.ke. Word of the BBC report about c.o.ke's toxic sludge gave new fire to the community in Mehdiganj, which demanded its local pollution control board carry out tests. But Uttar Pradesh (UP), the state in which Varanasi is located, is not Kerala. Both culturally and politically, the state is strictly ordered along caste lines, with the Shudra and Dalit castes populating the rural villages strictly separated from the Brahmin and Kshatriya castes populating finance and industry. It also has a reputation for being one of the more corrupt states in the country. In 2009, a few months before the Lok Samiti graduation ceremony, police arrested the regional head of the state pollution control board in Varanasi-the person responsible for overseeing the Mehdiganj c.o.ke plant. They charged him with taking a bribe from another business in exchange for a "no objection" certificate allowing it to operate. militant movement in both Plachimada and Mehdiganj began using more direct tactics to put pressure on c.o.ke. Word of the BBC report about c.o.ke's toxic sludge gave new fire to the community in Mehdiganj, which demanded its local pollution control board carry out tests. But Uttar Pradesh (UP), the state in which Varanasi is located, is not Kerala. Both culturally and politically, the state is strictly ordered along caste lines, with the Shudra and Dalit castes populating the rural villages strictly separated from the Brahmin and Kshatriya castes populating finance and industry. It also has a reputation for being one of the more corrupt states in the country. In 2009, a few months before the Lok Samiti graduation ceremony, police arrested the regional head of the state pollution control board in Varanasi-the person responsible for overseeing the Mehdiganj c.o.ke plant. They charged him with taking a bribe from another business in exchange for a "no objection" certificate allowing it to operate.

Years earlier, however, the pollution control board not only declined to test c.o.ke's sludge, but also denied c.o.ke was even distributing it to farmers. "The pollution control board said, 'We have visited the village and they are not doing this,' " says Nandlal. " 'If you have seen this, show it to us.'" Exasperated, he and his fellow activists appeared at the board's offices one day with a sack full of sludge and dumped it on the desk of the clerk: "We kind of took him hostage." Several dozen protesters blocked the main entrance until officials agreed to investigate.

By this time, the establishments in Mehdiganj and Plachimada weren't the only bottling plants facing controversy. A study by the state pollution board in West Bengal found toxic levels of cadmium in the effluent of three plants around Kolkata. And in 2003, the Central Pollution Control Board conducted tests of sludge from sixteen c.o.ke and Pepsi plants-and found eight c.o.ke plants to have excessive levels of lead and cadmium. And it added a third toxin: chromium, a heavy metal that causes skin rashes and dermat.i.tis on contact and is a suspected carcinogen with repeated ingestion. The agency henceforth ordered Coca-Cola to treat its waste as hazardous, requiring disposal in specially lined concrete landfills.

More recently, the nonprofit Hazards Centre has continued to confirm the presence of toxic heavy metals around c.o.ke plants. Located on Delhi's southern fringes in a cramped concrete apartment building, the office is a buzzing hive of young researchers sitting around computers. In the middle sits director Dunu Roy, sporting a white ponytail and balding slightly on top.

Roy's group first did an a.s.sessment of Plachimada's groundwater back in 2006; since then it has done a.s.sessments of water conditions at five other c.o.ke plants around India, publis.h.i.+ng a report in 2010. In each location, the scientists measured the presence of lead, cadmium, and chromium in both the groundwater and the effluent coming directly out of the plant. All five plants contained chromium, some in levels of up to eleven times government limits. In addition, cadmium was found at two plants, including Mehdiganj, and lead at one. In summary, says Roy, "two things are incontrovertible." One: that the water draining directly out of the plant contains heavy metals. And two: that contamination in the groundwater decreases as one gets farther away from the plants.

So what about the wastewater treatment plant that Ranjan so proudly showed off at the Mehdiganj plant? Roy takes one look at the data showing limits on pH, dissolved solids, and oxygen demand, and immediately says that c.o.ke is tracking the wrong numbers. That data, he says, will tell you only if the water is potable, not that it is free from chemical contamination. None of the aeration or filtering that Hindustan c.o.ke does will remove heavy metals, he says, which need to be percolated out using salts. Not only is that process expensive, but then you are left with hazardous solid waste that needs to be disposed of. The bioa.s.say with the two fish, he adds, is completely laughable, completely failing the scientific protocol for such a test. "To do this bioa.s.say, you need to have six tanks with different concentrations in the water, with twenty fish in each tank," he says. "So you'd need 120 fish in all."

Increasingly armed with countrywide data, the various campaigns against Coca-Cola began coordinating their activities. Ajayan and Nandlal met for the first time in January 2004, along with Srivastava and other international activists, at the World Social Forum, an annual progressive strategy session-c.u.m-spring break for lefties that coincides with the meeting of the world's political and financial masters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Held in Mumbai, the forum featured a march of some five hundred people to protest c.o.ke, led by Indian environmentalist Medha Patkar; SINALTRAINAL president Javier Correa was marching right alongside. with countrywide data, the various campaigns against Coca-Cola began coordinating their activities. Ajayan and Nandlal met for the first time in January 2004, along with Srivastava and other international activists, at the World Social Forum, an annual progressive strategy session-c.u.m-spring break for lefties that coincides with the meeting of the world's political and financial masters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Held in Mumbai, the forum featured a march of some five hundred people to protest c.o.ke, led by Indian environmentalist Medha Patkar; SINALTRAINAL president Javier Correa was marching right alongside.

Immediately afterward, several dozen environmental activists came to Plachimada for a somewhat grandiosely named World Water Conference, a three-day who's who of lefties, including Canadian water activists Tony Clarke and Maude Barlow, French antiglobalist farmer Jose Bove, and Bolivian peasant leader Oscar Olivera, who had organized a successful peasant movement against water privatization by Bechtel in Cochabamba. There the activists struck a militant tone, calling on c.o.ke to "Quit India"-the same slogan Gandhi used in his long fight against British occupation.

Nandlal and his fellow activists evoked Gandhi's spirit more confrontationally in Mehdiganj, where they began a hunger strike in front of the plant in January 2004. c.o.ke obtained a restraining order prohibiting protests within three hundred meters (despite the fact that some of the protesters actually lived lived within that radius), which was violated in late 2004 with a ten-day march of some one thousand villagers, some carrying "Quit India" signs in a direct evocation of Gandhi's March to the Sea. within that radius), which was violated in late 2004 with a ten-day march of some one thousand villagers, some carrying "Quit India" signs in a direct evocation of Gandhi's March to the Sea.

By the time they arrived at the plant in Mehdiganj, a cordon of police was waiting, blocking the entrance. In a group, the villagers surged past the three-hundred-meter line, as police began striking them with batons. Even as the protesters dropped to the ground in pain, heads and arms bleeding, they say, they held to a vow of nonviolence (with one well-marked apparent exception of an elderly woman who took off her slipper and began hitting a policeman with it).

In all, says Nandlal, police arrested more than 350 people, including more than forty women. He himself spent fifteen days in jail, shaken by the violence-especially seeing police beating women from his village. "It was really painful," he says. "I thought about giving up. But the community had not given up." In fact, it was the women who pushed to continue the protests. "Women are most in need of water," says Vishwakarma, "to clean, cook, bathe-their whole lives are dependent on water. Men have a limit, but when women are angry, they will never stop." A few weeks after the violence, some five hundred marchers wearing black ribbons over their mouths marched up to the three-hundred-meter line, standing silently in protest. A year later, in 2005, police stood aside as eight hundred people marched right up to the gates.

At the same time, the battle lines had been drawn more metaphorically in Kerala, now with the state's opposition political parties and the village council on one side, and the state government and Coca-Cola on the other. When the case to decide c.o.ke's fate finally went to court, Kerala's high court returned two conflicting decisions-first declaring in December 2003 that the company's groundwater extraction was "illegal" and the panchayat panchayat was justified in canceling the license; and then on appeal, saying the council had acted without sufficient information, and needed to do a groundwater study first. was justified in canceling the license; and then on appeal, saying the council had acted without sufficient information, and needed to do a groundwater study first.

In light of a crippling drought that year, however, the state's chief minister declared in February 2004 the plant would be banned from extracting groundwater until the government's study was completed. The pickets at the hut went on for another year as the two sides waited for the results, which eventually came as a victory for c.o.ke in February 2005, ruling that the company could extract up to half a million liters a day without affecting groundwater.

Asked about the ruling, the former village council president Krishnan discounts the study, contending that the company must have bribed the government officials who conducted it. "The thing is very simple, because they tried to bribe me," he says impatiently, contending that he was approached by c.o.ke officials offering money for "community or personal development." While Krishnan declines to say how much, another source says the offer was as high as $200,000-a small fortune in India.

Still defiant, the panchayat panchayat appeared to follow the court order to renew the license in June 2005-but only if the company would agree to certain conditions, among them that c.o.ke "divulge all of its ingredients." In other words, the appeared to follow the court order to renew the license in June 2005-but only if the company would agree to certain conditions, among them that c.o.ke "divulge all of its ingredients." In other words, the panchayat panchayat of a tiny village in southern India was asking c.o.ke to provide it with the vaunted secret formula that the company had guarded for decades in an Atlanta safe-deposit box-a formula that the company had refused to give up years earlier in favor of leaving the entire country. The village council must have known that c.o.ke would never comply. of a tiny village in southern India was asking c.o.ke to provide it with the vaunted secret formula that the company had guarded for decades in an Atlanta safe-deposit box-a formula that the company had refused to give up years earlier in favor of leaving the entire country. The village council must have known that c.o.ke would never comply.

Meanwhile, whatever influence Gandhi's spirit of nonviolence had on the village activists, they made it clear they would resist the reopening of the plant by any means necessary. Sure enough, in August the protest turned ugly, with police charging a line of protesters and injuring six while arresting seventy. Into the breach stepped the state pollution control board, which declared a few days later that the plant couldn't reopen because its application was incomplete. The company had not mentioned cadmium in its raw materials, it charged, despite the heavy metal's presence in the wastewater sludge-therefore it must provide a new application explaining how the chemical was used in the production process.

The announcement was essentially checkmate for the company, which declined to submit a new application. In fact, the plant hasn't extracted a single liter of water since it closed in March 2004. Even as the activists celebrated the outcome, however, the result was in some small way a victory for the company as well. Faced with the real possibility of violence-even deaths-c.o.ke had everything to lose in forcing a reopening, especially now that the eye of the world had been turned on the situation in India. Now, at least, the company saved face by arguing it was prevented from operating by a capricious state with a known communist past, with which it refused to do business.

As c.o.ke's former public relations head, Banerjee, says, c.o.ke "would at least win public sympathy from other parts of India, and Kerala would once against be d.a.m.ned as an 'investors' graveyard' by the media and the public." That refrain was taken up not only by the company, but also by the U.S. government when a new study by CSE found even more pesticides in c.o.ke and Pepsi in 2006 and the Kerala state government, now eager to align itself with the Plachimada movement, banned the sale of c.o.ke and Pepsi in the entire state. (At least six other states pushed through more limited soft-drink bans, prohibiting sales in hospitals and educational inst.i.tutions.) "This kind of action is a setback for the Indian economy," said U.S. undersecretary of international trade, Franklin Lavin, his comment reminiscent of the outcry fifty years earlier when France banned c.o.ke. "In a time when India is working hard to attract and retain foreign investment, it would be unfortunate if the discussion were dominated by those who did not want to treat foreign companies fairly." The bans were soon struck down by courts on the grounds that state government had no authority to ban imported products.

Even so, the plant closure in Plachimada continued to resonate across India-and the world-showing the power and political pressure that could be mobilized by a determined group of citizens. "Whatever the technical reasons for the closure of the plant, it was really done because of the community resistance," boasts Ajayan. And that included not only local resistance, but also the international pressure. "So far as their brand image is concerned," says Bijoy, "the campaign in India didn't seem to bother them that much. The campaign in the U.S. seemed to worry them."

Closing one plant, however, didn't necessarily make it easier to close any more. c.o.ke knew that brand image cut both ways. When Neville Isdell took charge in the summer of 2004, he moved to neutralize the Indian situation as quickly as he had moved to still the controversy around childhood obesity in the United States. Within weeks, he'd flown to India personally to a.s.sess the situation, even toying with the idea of spinning off Hindustan Coca-Cola to become a franchise bottler, providing a buffer to insulate the company from criticism. In the end, however, Coca-Cola India took a course more similar to the one taken in the United States than that taken in Colombia: remaking itself from an environmental pariah to an environmental leader.

The village of Kala Dera is located some twenty-five miles from Jaipur, the capital of the northwestern state of Rajasthan and one of India's top tourist attractions. Known as the pink city for the rose color of its ancient walls, Jaipur is chock-full of temples and maharaja palaces. The opulence quickly fades, however, on the dusty road out to Kala Dera, a screaming tumult of roadside cafes and brightly colored shops spilling sacks of grain and farming equipment. of Kala Dera is located some twenty-five miles from Jaipur, the capital of the northwestern state of Rajasthan and one of India's top tourist attractions. Known as the pink city for the rose color of its ancient walls, Jaipur is chock-full of temples and maharaja palaces. The opulence quickly fades, however, on the dusty road out to Kala Dera, a screaming tumult of roadside cafes and brightly colored shops spilling sacks of grain and farming equipment.

Past the commercial areas, green shoots sprout from earth where farmers have planted wheat in advance of the monsoon. Few people are out to tend them, however, on this mid-June day, when it's 110 degrees and there is little shade to break up the sun's heat aside from the spiky khejri trees that provide fodder for camels. This is a transitional zone; half of Rajasthan is fed by rivers, the other is arid desert completely dependent on groundwater.

Few areas are less ideal for a water-intensive industry like bottling soft drinks. Then again, the same aridity that makes the land thirsty also parches the throats of the populace. To cut transportation costs to serve the area, Hindustan Coca-Coca built a bottling plant here in 1999 in an industrial park set up by the state government. "Rajasthan is an important market," says northern India public affairs head Ranjan. "There was market potential-that is the only reason we sited it here."

Today Ranjan has brought with him a colleague, whom he identifies as a public relations consultant named Sunil Sharma, who is dressed in a dark blue long-sleeve s.h.i.+rt and is as gregarious as Ranjan is taciturn. "I have been on roads all over the world, to Holland, Belgium, Paris," he says as he pulls into honking traffic on the way from Jaipur. "And I come back to India and the air is stinky, but it's great. I breathe it in, and it's a perfect democracy, I think. Anyone can drive anywhere, anyone can do anything."

He seems to realize what he's said the moment it's out of his mouth. After all, it wasn't long before c.o.ke was accused of doing anything it wanted in Kala Dera-especially depleting the aquifer without regard to community water needs. As in Mehdiganj, Ranjan denies the charge. While here he concedes the water level is dropping, he cites studies showing that industry accounts for less than 1 percent of water use, while farmers use 85 percent. "Having said that," he adds, "we also need to look at what water users are doing to replenish the water they are taking."

That is Ranjan's goal today. Learning from the controversy elsewhere in the country, Coca-Cola India has moved aggressively in the name of corporate social responsibility to actually replace the water they have taken from the desert here. To do that, they use a process developed by local farmers for centuries in India called "rainwater harvesting," through which the company claims it has recharged seventeen times the amount of water it has extracted in Rajasthan.

Before leaving Jaipur, Ranjan and Sharma drive up to a school where Sharma points out pipes attached to the walls. They funnel rain collected on the rooftop to an open rectangular tank. At one end is a concrete circle a foot or two across filled in with sand and gravel. That's just the top of the "recharge shaft," says Sharma, a two-hundred-foot bore well that filters water directly down into the aquifer.

The system can recharge 1.3 million liters of water annually "if the rainfall is average," says Sharma, meaning 560 millimeters of rain over the four rainy months between June and September. Asked about the actual recharge of the shaft, Ranjan replies that the company hasn't yet inst.i.tuted a means for measuring that, though they are working on it. A school official leading the tour says the system has fixed previous problems with water scarcity, even though "we still have a problem in summer." Sharma immediately corrects him: "No, you have no problems." Looking a bit fl.u.s.tered, the official clarifies, "In the summer months, we had problems. Now we have no problems."

While Coca-Cola admits that rainwater harvesting in Jaipur does nothing to recharge the aquifer in Kala Dera, Ranjan says the company has installed some 150 projects within three kilometers of the plant, constructed atop other buildings or positioned in riverbeds to catch runoff. And that's not all the company has done to help local farmers. In 2005, the company upgraded Kala Dera's general hospital, its women's hospital, and even its veterinary hospital. And along the road to the village, it has partnered to create a "farm education center" to teach farmers new "drip irrigation" methods that use 70 percent less water than flood irrigation traditionally used by farmers.

Those corporate social responsibility efforts have earned the company goodwill among at least some in the village, including a farmer with scraggly salt-and-pepper hair and a long white kurta whom Ranjan introduces. The water level has stabilized at around ninety feet below the ground, says the man, who works as a building contractor in addition to growing wheat and spinach on seven acres of land. Those who have protested the plant, he continued, are outsiders from other villages jealous of the improvements c.o.ke has made there. The princ.i.p.al of another school where c.o.ke has inst.i.tuted rainwater harvesting goes further, saying that the protesters are "day laborers" from another village paid to swell the ranks at protests.

There's no question in their minds who did the hiring-Amit Srivastava and his local representative, a Jaipur-based activist named Sawai Singh. According to Sharma, Srivastava shows up a day before or a day after the protests, hiring laborers from the neighboring village of Chamu to take part in the demonstrations at 100 rupees ($2) a pop. Local organizers, he says, Srivastava hires for 2,000 rupees ($100) a month.

Srivastava himself arrives in Kala Dera's marketplace an hour later, baseball cap covering his eyes, and accompanied by several of those local organizers he's been accused of hiring for money. When told of c.o.ke's contention that he's paying off the village, he laughs. Far from orchestrating a protest movement from eight thousand miles away, Srivastava contends that it's Coca-Cola India that is manipulating public opinion in the area. "This is a big corporate scam," he says, "we'll show you all of it." arrives in Kala Dera's marketplace an hour later, baseball cap covering his eyes, and accompanied by several of those local organizers he's been accused of hiring for money. When told of c.o.ke's contention that he's paying off the village, he laughs. Far from orchestrating a protest movement from eight thousand miles away, Srivastava contends that it's Coca-Cola India that is manipulating public opinion in the area. "This is a big corporate scam," he says, "we'll show you all of it."

Together, they lead the way to a school just behind the marketplace, quite a different scene from the ones Ranjan and Sharma have shown off. Here, the pipes that run down from the roof are rusting and broken, and in at least one case taped together with packing tape. Behind the school, the concrete basin to collect the water is cracked in several places. No matter the condition of the structures, however, the local head of the resistance, Mahesh Yogi, says that it doesn't matter since they don't work without rain. And Rajasthan has experienced intense drought for the past few years, with just three or four annual days of rain at most. Yogi farms two and a half acres of land, he says, but is able to grow crops on only one acre because of a shortage of water. Since his wells dried up, he says he's had to take a loan of 150,000 rupees ($3,000) for a new 225-foot bore well, taking a second job selling cell phone minutes to support his three small children.

As in other communities, the farmers here accuse c.o.ke 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 a.s.sertion 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 sc.u.m floating on top. Pa.s.sing 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 c.o.ke." 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 a.s.sistant 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 c.o.ke 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 in Kerala and Mehdiganj, and he helped organize protests here in 2004, leading marches and rallies around the plant. "Coca-Cola is s.n.a.t.c.hing away our livelihoods," he says, shaking his head. "We invite Coca-Cola as a guest, and they pick our pockets."

When told of Sharma's contention that the group hires day laborers to swell its numbers, Kuriji's face crinkles with laughter. "Who has that kind of money?" he asks, incredulous. Ever the civil servant, he pulls out a photo alb.u.m full of pictures of protests. "Do these look like hundred-rupees-a-day day laborers?" he asks, pointing to the faces of men much like those around his home for the wedding, simply dressed but not poor. Next, he opens a ledger book in which he's written captions for each photo with name after name of partic.i.p.ants, some with signatures beside them. "This is ample proof they are not day laborers," he concludes.

Even so, the movement here has struggled to achieve the critical ma.s.s seen in Plachimada, or even Mehdiganj. The largest protest was in May 2004, when, a news report says, some two thousand people came to see Indian environmentalist Medha Patkar and local Gandhian social activist Sawai Singh. As in Kerala, Singh has helped bring a pet.i.tion against the company, arguing that local people had the right to groundwater before a multinational corporation, but it was denied by the local court. Recently, however, Rajasthan has seen a change of government from the more conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the socialist-leaning Congress party, giving the community members hope that the issue will be revisited. "We are not ready for defeat," says Kuriji. "We will carry on this agitation and c.o.ke will get tired. We will certainly shut down the plant."

Kala Dera isn't the only place where c.o.ke has pursued corporate social responsibility in India. By 2008, the company claimed to have more than three hundred rainwater-harvesting structures around the country. With the twenty-three projects around Mehdiganj, c.o.ke India says it is able to recharge 46,933 cubic meters per year, versus the plant's consumption of 38,191. In 2008, in fact, the company declared the plant to be "water neutral"-that is, it recharges more water than it extracts. According to Ranjan, the water levels in the area of the plant actually rose between 2007 and 2008, from twenty-eight feet to nineteen feet belowground. In order to make that claim, however, the company relies on the closest government monitoring site, three miles southwest of the plant. In an official doc.u.ment the company submitted to the local groundwater board, meanwhile, it admitted the level at the plant was eighty feet belowground. isn't the only place where c.o.ke has pursued corporate social responsibility in India. By 2008, the company claimed to have more than three hundred rainwater-harvesting structures around the country. With the twenty-three projects around Mehdiganj, c.o.ke India says it is able to recharge 46,933 cubic meters per year, versus the plant's consumption of 38,191. In 2008, in fact, the company declared the plant to be "water neutral"-that is, it recharges more water than it extracts. According to Ranjan, the water levels in the area of the plant actually rose between 2007 and 2008, from twenty-eight feet to nineteen feet belowground. In order to make that claim, however, the company relies on the closest government monitoring site, three miles southwest of the plant. In an official doc.u.ment the company submitted to the local groundwater board, meanwhile, it admitted the level at the plant was eighty feet belowground.

The community also tells a different story about c.o.ke's rainwater harvesting. The figures for c.o.ke's recharge potential rely on an average rainfall of 1,000 millimeters a year, but in many of the past few years, it's been only half that. What's more, in 2008, activists say half of the rain fell on one day-overflowing the capacity of the rainwater storage tanks. As in Kala Dera, several rainwater harvesting structures are in dilapidated condition. On one, built on the rooftop of the local police station, the main pipe coming from the roof isn't even connected to the underground tank. "No one has ever come here after the management first installed it," says one police officer. "The pipes are all blocked and the water overflows."

Ranjan dismisses the activists' rainwater-harvesting tours as publicity tours. "They always take you to a place with a broken pipe," he says, insisting that the company does an annual maintenance before the monsoons. Whether or not the structures are in working order, however, there is truth to back up the activists' claims that there is simply not enough rain to make them work. Despite c.o.ke's claims that it recharged the water it took out in Kala Dera, government figures show that water levels still declined in Kala Dera by more than ten feet between 2007 and 2008. Rainfall levels for 2009, meanwhile, were only half of the prior year's total.

India has been experiencing droughts all over the country the last few years, says M. S. Rath.o.r.e, head of the Jaipur-based nonprofit Centre for Environment and Development Studies. He actually agrees with c.o.ke that farmers are responsible for most of the water depletion, overexploiting the carrying capacity of the land in an effort to grow as much as possible. That doesn't mean c.o.ke's contention that industry uses only 1 percent of the water is accurate. While that may be a statewide average, in certain districts industry uses up to 50 percent. And the same goes for the rainfall averages, which are drawn from one hundred years, despite the fact that Rajasthan, at least, gets only one year of good rain in every seven or eight years. Of the remaining years, half of them may see just two or three rainy days total.

So what about c.o.ke's claims that it is recharging seventeen times what it takes out in Kala Dera? He shakes his head immediately. "It's not possible. I don't believe them." Is it possible even to recharge half that, a quarter of that? "If they are recharging even five times, then the water level should come up-did it?" he shoots back. "No. Contrary to that, the water level is coming down in that area, it's not coming up. The calculation may be right, but what is actually happening? Did they get it?"

Ranjan repeats his a.s.sertion that c.o.ke can't accurately measure the actual recharge of its rainwater wells. While they could put in a groundwater gauge called a piezometer to measure water levels, he says, it would require sending someone manually to check it after each rainfall. "It will not work in auto-mode," he says. "There has to be someone there to take the reading."

Merely a little bit of research online, however, turns up a company called Integrated Geo Instruments and Services in Hyderabad, India, that not only produces a line of groundwater monitoring equipment, but also lists Hindustan Coca-Cola among its clients. Contacted via e-mail, a representative confirms that it offers something called an "automatic water level indicator"-a computer attached to a length of cable that registers groundwater levels in a well "continuously and without human intervention." In fact, the representative says, c.o.ke uses these very devices throughout India to monitor water levels in its bore wells. The cost: $1,800 each, meaning that c.o.ke could outfit every one of its rainwater structures with a probe for just $540,000, a fraction of the $10 million it recently bequeathed to the Coca-Cola India Foundation to spend on community CSR projects throughout the country.

Reached at the company's headquarters, the representative confirms that the logger can automatically monitor groundwater levels, and also says that Hindustan Coca-Cola has bought loggers in the past from the company to monitor its intake wells. Ranjan doesn't respond to e-mails asking if Hindustan Coca-Cola has considered using such a device to monitor rainwater harvesting.

Leaving Jaipur for the railway station, it miraculously begins to rain. Within moments, it's a hard rain, was.h.i.+ng over the pavement and soaking into the dirt on both sides of the road. It tapers off quickly, however, and in five minutes, it's all but over. Srivastava's cell phone rings, and it's Professor Rath.o.r.e, speaking excitedly on the other end. Srivastava nods and thanks him before hanging up. "He says that accounts for one rainy day."

TEN.

The Case Against "Killer c.o.ke"

Despite activists' successes holding c.o.ke accountable in India, the real fight over operations in that country-as well as in Colombia-would be fought in the United States.

A week after being wrestled to the ground and ejected from c.o.ke's 2004 annual meeting, Ray Rogers was back on the campaign trail, looking for one big campus to serve as a poster child for his campaign. In late April 2004, he stood in front of the unsubtly named Radical Student Union at the University of Ma.s.sachusetts, trying to fire up students to break their exclusive pouring-rights contract expiring in August. "The Coca-Cola Company is an enterprise rife with immorality, corruption, and complicity in gross human rights violations," he boomed. He then introduced his fellow speakers: Dan Kovalik, who talked softly but no less pa.s.sionately about the Colombia murders and the stalled ATCA case, and Amit Srivastava, who ran down the outrages of water depletion, pollution, and pesticides in India.

After first making common cause at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, the Colombia and India campaigns had joined in a kind of global version of the Teamster and Turtles alliance to tie together c.o.ke's international labor and environmental sins. In doing so, the new Campaign to Stop Killer c.o.ke became, in effect, the first truly globalized campaign since the word "globalization" was coined. Unlike previous campaigns focusing on a single issue-sweatshops (Nike) or baby formula (Nestle)-this would combine disparate offenses in an all-encompa.s.sing critique on corporate capitalism. And what better corporation to make the critique through than "the essence of capitalism," c.o.ke.

Rogers and Srivastava began gathering other stories of the company's alleged misdeeds, from child labor in sugarcane plantations in El Salvador to strike-busting in Russia and the Philippines. Colombia and India, however, would be the focus. By now, more than one hundred schools had campaigns to cut their contracts with c.o.ke based on allegations in the two countries, and the Coca-Cola Company was beginning to respond to prevent it from s...o...b..lling any further. After the shareholder meeting, c.o.ke bought the domain killerc.o.ke.com (as opposed to Rogers's (as opposed to Rogers's killerc.o.ke.org) and pointed it back to a new website, c.o.kefacts.org, in an effort to set the story straight.7 Despite the allegations from the student campaigns, it a.s.sured visitors, c.o.ke had nothing to do with the murders in Colombia, for which it had been cleared in court cases in both the United States and Colombia. And it added new proof of its support of union rights, including the fact that 31 percent of c.o.ke workers in Colombia were unionized, versus a national rate of 4 percent. It failed to note, however, that that rate applied only to official employees-not the increasing number of contract workers in the bottling plants, a fact the Killer c.o.ke campaign soon pointed out. Despite the allegations from the student campaigns, it a.s.sured visitors, c.o.ke had nothing to do with the murders in Colombia, for which it had been cleared in court cases in both the United States and Colombia. And it added new proof of its support of union rights, including the fact that 31 percent of c.o.ke workers in Colombia were unionized, versus a national rate of 4 percent. It failed to note, however, that that rate applied only to official employees-not the increasing number of contract workers in the bottling plants, a fact the Killer c.o.ke campaign soon pointed out.

The feeble PR push did little to blunt the student campaign, which came roaring back to campus in the fall with the help of a new ally: the group that led the last great student activist campaign against Nike, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). Together Killer c.o.ke and USAS would mount a challenge to c.o.ke's brand on international issues every bit as dangerous as the childhood obesity campaign on the domestic scene, and almost at the exact same time. To counter them, c.o.ke would have to move strategically to take the fight from the courtroom and campuses to the back rooms where it could sap the energy of the campaign and exploit philosophical differences among the activists themselves to prevent it from going mainstream.

The rally against c.o.ke fit well into USAS's goals. Even after the Nike campaign had ended with the apparel makers' announcement of new factory policies through the Clinton-backed Fair Labor a.s.sociation, USAS had not given up their fight against what they saw as global abuses by corporations overseas. Dismissing the Clinton standards as mere "corporate cover-up," the students had created their own group, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), signing up some two hundred member colleges from Harvard to the University of California who agreed to adhere to binding decisions on what companies they could do business with based on their labor policies. against c.o.ke fit well into USAS's goals. Even after the Nike campaign had ended with the apparel makers' announcement of new factory policies through the Clinton-backed Fair Labor a.s.sociation, USAS had not given up their fight against what they saw as global abuses by corporations overseas. Dismissing the Clinton standards as mere "corporate cover-up," the students had created their own group, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), signing up some two hundred member colleges from Harvard to the University of California who agreed to adhere to binding decisions on what companies they could do business with based on their labor policies.

By the fall of 2004, it was looking for new ways to broaden focus beyond just sweatshops-and it found one with the help of a Colombian-American student activist at UC Berkeley named Camilo Romero. Born in the United States, Romero had always acutely felt the discrepancy in privileges between himself and his Colombia-born family members. When one of the leaders of SINALTRAINAL came to Berkeley to talk about the c.o.ke boycott, he saw a chance to directly affect a situation in his family's country by advocating for it in his own.

Joining with two Latin American friends, Romero sought to use c.o.ke as a way to show U.S. businesses exploited workers in Latin American countries. Soon after forming a group to advocate cutting Berkeley's contract, he was approached by an organizer from USAS to take the campaign national.

He accepted-with some reservations. Looking around at the student group's members.h.i.+p, he saw a lot of well-meaning but "privileged white kids." From the beginning, he vowed the campaign would draw in students from a more diverse range of backgrounds, to present a more nuanced critique of the situation in Latin America. As part of a new generation of activists, he didn't necessarily agree with Saul Alinsky's tactics of "polarizing" a target no matter what the cost. As he began reaching out to campuses farther east, however, he quickly found out about Rogers's campaign-which was making headway at some of the largest and most influential campuses in the country, though with a very different message.

Rogers was still on the hunt for one big campus where he could fire a meaningful shot across c.o.ke's bow. After UMa.s.s renewed its contract over the summer, he moved on to a new target: Rutgers University in New Jersey, vowing the same thing wouldn't happen here. It was the perfect place to set an example. Not only was the campus big-with 50,000 students-and close to Rogers's headquarters in New York, but the contract was also particularly egregious. In exchange for $10 million over the course of ten years, the school agreed to c.o.ke advertising all over campus, to the point of sanctioning the cheer "Always Rutgers, Always Coca-Cola" over the loudspeaker during athletic events. still on the hunt for one big campus where he could fire a meaningful shot across c.o.ke's bow. After UMa.s.s renewed its contract over the summer, he moved on to a new target: Rutgers University in New Jersey, vowing the same thing wouldn't happen here. It was the perfect place to set an example. Not only was the campus big-with 50,000 students-and close to Rogers's headquarters in New York, but the contract was also particularly egregious. In exchange for $10 million over the course of ten years, the school agreed to c.o.ke advertising all over campus, to the point of sanctioning the cheer "Always Rutgers, Always Coca-Cola" over the loudspeaker during athletic events.

With the help of a labor studies professor, Rogers plastered the campus with Killer c.o.ke posters and organized students to demand the administration go with a different vendor. To his surprise, the university agreed to delay its decision until May 2005 to solicit bids. That spring, Rogers and Srivastava appeared together on campus with a giant inflatable c.o.ke bottle on the steps of the student center with the logo "College Control," while the campus USAS chapter supplied shock troops behind the scenes.

Tensions were rising, however, between the tactics of Rogers and the USAS students. Romero especially took issue with the gory posters like the Colombian c.o.ke Float that sensationalized the issue with the bodies floating in the c.o.ke gla.s.s. "It certainly catches your eye," says Romero. "But people don't necessarily feel welcome to it. It's this particular kind of activism-the chest-pounding, look at me, this corporation is the devil." Romero felt the macabre imagery trivialized the complexity of the situation in Colombia. Worse, he thought they risked the message being dismissed as the ravings of a "crazy, loudmouth guy"-Rogers.

Rogers would have none of it. When he caught wind of the criticism of the way he ran the campaign, he took Romero aside to address it. "Maybe you don't like it, but boy, is it having an impact," he argued, reminding him he'd knocked off four colleges before USAS had even joined. The Colombian c.o.ke Float and the other lurid posters, he announced, would stay.

By May, the fight for Rutgers was over. The school announced that it would sign a ten-year, $17 million contract with Pepsi, effective immediately. Even though the school insisted it went with the company that offered the better proposal financially, Rogers declared victory, counting the decision a "big blow to the company." If there was any question about why Rutgers dumped c.o.ke, the campaign sought to remove it with more direct appeals at two other universities: the University of Michigan and New York University (NYU).

The country's largest private university with 50,000 students, NYU didn't have an exclusive contract with c.o.ke, but it did have about a hundred vending machines and retail operations in dozens of campus stores. This time, USAS led the way, demanding c.o.ke submit to an independent investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) if it wanted to stay on campus. Students wrapped vending machines in crime-scene tape and staged a "die-in" on the steps of the library with the names of the slain Colombian workers. Their campaigning paid off when, in November 2004, the student senate voted sixteen to four to ban c.o.ke from campus if the company didn't agree to an investigation by the WRC. The resolution was weakened by the all-university senate to demand only that c.o.ke partic.i.p.ate in a university-sponsored forum with the WRC. Even so, c.o.ke apparently decided that giving any legitimacy to the organization with a binding power to censure sales was too much, refusing to partic.i.p.ate. The issue was tabled, to be taken up in the fall.

Meanwhile, activists at the 40,000-student University of Michigan demanded that the school reconsider c.o.ke's nine contracts-worth a collective $1.3 million a year-on the grounds that they violated the university's new vendor "code of conduct." In a pet.i.tion to the school's "dispute review board," students demanded the company agree to an independent investigation not only in Colombia but in India as well. After a hearing in March 2005, the board ruled in the students' favor, requiring investigations by the end of the year. "If they don't step up and partic.i.p.ate in corrective actions . . . in a big way," said the board chair, "it would be cause to terminate the contract."

New c.o.ke CEO Neville Isdell watched the spread of the Killer c.o.ke campaign on campus with mounting anxiety. Going into the annual shareholder meeting in April 2005, he was already several months into his eighteen-month plan to turn around the company. He'd reversed c.o.ke's slide in profits, begun to get a handle on the childhood obesity situation, and set in motion c.o.ke's new environmental thrust in India. And almost as soon as he took control, he hired Ed Potter to defuse the Colombia situation and protect the company from future problems with the overseas labor force. c.o.ke CEO Neville Isdell watched the spread of the Killer c.o.ke campaign on campus with mounting anxiety. Going into the annual shareholder meeting in April 2005, he was already several months into his eighteen-month plan to turn around the company. He'd reversed c.o.ke's slide in profits, begun to get a handle on the childhood obesity situation, and set in motion c.o.ke's new environmental thrust in India. And almost as soon as he took control, he hired Ed Potter to defuse the Colombia situation and protect the company from future problems with the overseas labor force.

Ed Potter had represented companies as an international labor lawyer in D.C. for more than two decades, even serving as the employer representative to the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO). Recently, he'd helped c.o.ke put into place a Workplace Rights Policy, which went even further in spelling out the protections for workers. Soon after, Isdell hired him on staff as the company's new director of global relations. Quickly, he moved to get in front of the "Killer c.o.ke" situation by declaring a new corporate code of conduct on labor and environmental issues. Like previous codes, however, it applied only to direct employees of the Coca-Cola Company and subsidiaries in which c.o.ke owned at least a 50 percent interest. As for bottlers, c.o.ke was "committed to working with and encouraging" them "to uphold the values and practices that our Policy encompa.s.ses."

At the same time, Isdell attempted to take away one of the campaign's main issues by commissioning an investigation into Colombian working conditions by a supposedly independent group, the Cal Safety Compliance Corporation. Standing up at the 2005 annual meeting, Isdell was able to report the study's conclusions: that workers were allowed collective bargaining rights free of intimidation.

He continued with a page out of the obesity playbook, simultaneously denying responsibility for the violence in Colombia and positioning the company as part of the solution with the announcement of a new $10 million foundation to aid victims in the country. Likewise for India, he denied the company was responsible for water shortages, at the same time touting the company's rainwater-harvesting initiative. All in all, it was an impressive presentation, countering the main allegations against the company head-on with a mix of defiance and compa.s.sion.

Opening the floor to questions, Isdell never knew what hit him. Immediately, activists jumped up to form two long lines. Rogers was first to speak, of course, dismissing Cal Safety as nothing but the "fox guarding the henhouse," since the group had interviewed workers handpicked by management and didn't even investigate links to paramilitaries. That was just the beginning of a ninety-minute slugfest the Financial Times Financial Times later said "felt more like a student protest rally" than a stockholder meeting as Srivastava, CAI's Gigi Kellett, a nun, a Teamster, and several students all piled on the criticism. later said "felt more like a student protest rally" than a stockholder meeting as Srivastava, CAI's Gigi Kellett, a nun, a Teamster, and several students all piled on the criticism.

Despite the finely orchestrated display, the real negotiations began after the meeting, when Potter requested to meet with college administrators to see if they might come to an agreement. USAS's Romero was tentatively hopeful when Potter suggested a commission with students and administrators that would set the ground rules for a new, truly independent investigation. Whatever good faith Potter may have had going into the negotiations, however, c.o.ke was soon setting its own rules, insisting nothing in the investigation could look back more than five years (falling short of both the Gil case and the detentions in Bucaramanga), and nothing could be admissible in court. The students dismissed those demands out of hand; by October, five out of six of them had dropped out of negotiations.

By that time, the day of reckoning was approaching at both NYU and the University of Michigan. As NYU's senate reconvened to consider the vending machine ban, c.o.ke continued in its refusal to meet with the WRC. The university issued an ultimatum-either c.o.ke agree by December, or the c.o.ke machines would go. When the deadline pa.s.sed, NYU announced it would begin removing c.o.ke from campus, effective immediately. But that wasn't all. When the University of Michigan's December 31 deadline pa.s.sed three weeks later, it, too, declared it would be severing its ties with c.o.ke. This decision was even more significant, since unlike both NYU and Rutgers, the university was breaking an exclusive contract and it was doing so specifically because of the company's human rights violations-and not only in Colombia but in India as well. Whatever Potter and Isdell were doing, it clearly wasn't working-at least not yet. By this time, the Killer c.o.ke campaign could claim about two dozen universities around the world that had dumped c.o.ke. Even the student newspaper at Emory-the university started with money from Asa Candler himself and known as "Coca-Cola University"-had written editorials supporting the campaign. "Certainly if there was any wrongdoing in the past," Emory's president announced approvingly, "c.o.ke needs to be held responsible for it."

Around the same time c.o.ke was suffering these defeats, allegations of anti-union violence emerged in a new country: Turkey. In April 2005, a group of drivers who transported c.o.ke for a contractor were fired after they tried to unionize. When, along with family members, they occupied the local Coca-Cola headquarters in a nonviolent protest, members of Turkey's secret police attacked them with tear gas and clubs, sending dozens to the hospital. The union accused the company-which owns 40 percent of the bottler-of instigating the violence by calling in the police. After hearing about the Colombia situation, union members contacted Terry Collingsworth, who filed an ATCA case in New York, arguing that the police violence amounted to torture under international law. c.o.ke was suffering these defeats, allegations of anti-union violence emerged in a new country: Turkey. In April 2005, a group of drivers who transported c.o.ke for a contractor were fired after they tried to unionize. When, along with family members, they occupied the local Coca-Cola headquarters in a nonviolent protest, members of Turkey's secret police attacked them with tear gas and clubs, sending dozens to the hospital. The union accused the company-which owns 40 percent of the bottler-of instigating the violence by calling in the police. After hearing about the Colombia situation, union members contacted Terry Collingsworth, who filed an ATCA case in New York, arguing that the police violence amounted to torture under international law.

While c.o.ke didn't deny that protesters were attacked, the company claimed that police acted of their own accord, despite requests from c.o.ke to hold off attacking. Even so, the company insisted, the dispute was between the union and the contractor; c.o.ke had nothing to do with it. c.o.ke spokesperson Kari Bjorhus brushed off such attacks as "the flipside of being a big brand," as she told Brandweek Brandweek in December 2005. "You become a focal point for many issues because of the visibility of your trademark." (The case was eventually dismissed upon a finding that the union hadn't first exhausted its remedies in Turkey; it was promptly appealed.) in December 2005. "You become a focal point for many issues because of the visibility of your trademark." (The case was eventually dismissed upon a finding that the union hadn't first exhausted its remedies in Turkey; it was promptly appealed.) Behind the scenes, however, the Coca-Cola Company was still maneuvering to stop the Campaign Against Killer c.o.ke before it sp.a.w.ned opportunistic attacks from any other countries. Just as it rolled out increasingly stringent policies on soda in schools until it found one the public would accept, c.o.ke now announced a new independent investigation to take the place of the discredited Cal Safety report. This time, it called upon one of the most respected brands in the world: the United Nations. In advance of the 2006 shareholder meeting, the company announced that the International Union of Food and Allied Workers (IUF) had asked the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO) to "investigate and evaluate past and present labor relations and workers' right practices of the Coca-Cola bottling operations in Colombia," as Coca-Cola North America president Don Knauss wrote in a letter to the University of Michigan.8 The anti-c.o.ke campaign immediately cried foul, pointing out that Ed Potter had been the U.S. employer representative to the ILO for the past fifteen years. "There are 640 people who have a final vote in the ILO conference's legislative process," responded Potter. "To suggest there is any undue influence is preposterous." He had less of an explanation for why the company was willing to admit the results of this investigation in court, when that was such a nonstarter in a student-led commission.

Rogers thought that he saw one: Despite c.o.ke's a.s.surances that the UN agency would investigate "past and present" practices, an ILO official told him on the phone that the agency would be doing only an "a.s.sessment of current working conditions." At the 2006 meeting, Rogers decried the ILO investigation as just "a new scam" that would do nothing to explore bottling plant managers' ties to paramilitary violence. "I can't think that engaging the ILO is a publicity stunt," replied Isdell coolly. "We have a doc.u.ment. We have an agreement, and they are going to investigate past and prior practices."

That wasn't the only investigation the company would be allowing, Isdell told the crowd. The Energy and Resources Inst.i.tute (TERI), a respected NGO based in New Delhi, would also be conducting an audit of the company's water use. "My message to you today is that the transition is complete," said Isdell. "We are well on our way to becoming the company you expect us to be." As with the ILO, activists raised red flags against TERI-with Srivastava pointing out that the organization listed Coca-Cola as a sponsor on its website, had been paid by c.o.ke to do environmental a.s.sessments in the past, and had publicly declared c.o.ke one of the most responsible companies in India, and thus was hopelessly biased.