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INDIA: Pepsi, Coke Vanish as Anti-U.S. Feeling Grows in State <br>D Rajeev <br><br>IPS - April 14, 2003<br><br><br>THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, Apr 14 (IPS) - 'Bottled America', as<br>represented by Pepsi and Coke, has vanished from grocery stores and<br>outlets in India's southern Kerala state, thanks to an increasingly<br>popular campaign to boycott goods associated with the perpetrators of the<br>war in Iraq. <br><br>''Our aim is to make Kerala a 'Pepsi-Coke-Free Zone'' from this week<br>onwards, said Dr B. Ekbal, distinguished medical scientist and vice<br>chancellor of Kerala University who is one of the leaders of the national<br>anti-war movement. <br><br>In Kerala, the Anti-War Forum led by communist leader Thomas Isaac had<br>set Apr. 13 as the last day for retailers to be dealing with Pepsi and<br>Coke, having allowed them to exhaust all existing stock by that date. <br><br>The 'shop-to shop' campaign received enthusiastic support from the<br>Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and the All-India Youth<br>Federation (AIYF) wings of the communist Left Front, which is powerful in<br>this highly literate, pro-socialist state. <br><br>According to DYFI leader Vasanthan (one name), the movement has so far<br>been 'peaceful and voluntary', though Coke and Pepsi officials have<br>complained about the use of coercive methods to stop retailers from<br>selling the beverages and goods made by the Indian subsidiary of the<br>transnational, Lever. <br><br>Vasanthan, however, warned that in the ''second phase'' of the movement,<br>those who stock these products can expect ''direct action'', which means<br>forcible seizures and public destruction of the drinks as well as other<br>items bearing U.S. or British labels. <br><br>''We have not resorted to any pressure tactics. All that we have done is<br>to carry out a shop-to-shop campaign to mobilise support for the cause,''<br>said, Isaac, who is credited with a successful movement to devolve power<br>to local bodies in Kerala. <br><br>But officials at NJ Business Corp, the main distributor for Coke in<br>Kerala, said shopkeepers were not placing fresh orders out of fear rather<br>than any real anti-war sentiment. <br><br>Last week, activists of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Red Flag faction<br>ransacked the main marketing centre of Coca Cola at Kozhikode in North<br>Kerala and later symbolically dumped stocks into the sea. <br><br>In a statement, the party asked distributors not to deal in Coca-Cola and<br>Pepsi as these ''contain the blood of innocent children of Iraq''. <br><br>An unlikely partner of the communists in the anti-war movement is the<br>conservative Muslim Jamaath (congregation). In districts dominated by the<br>Muslim community such as Malappuram and Kozhikode, the boycott call has<br>registered an early and complete success. A Muslim Jamath spokesman also<br>said that a ''sizeable section'' of the business community, mostly<br>Muslims, had willingly given up sale of boycotted goods. ''We do not have<br>to compel or even persuade the shopkeepers them.'' <br><br>Also joining in the boycott were activists of Manushi, a women's welfare<br>cooperative which staged several protests in front of the premises of<br>major stories, including those where the effigies of U.S. President<br>George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were burned. <br><br>Said Jameela Mankavau, secretary of Manushi: ''If everybody pulls<br>together we can make a dent on the multinationals and make our voices<br>heard.'' <br><br>Large stockists who were waiting to cash in on large-volume sales of<br>softdrinks with the onset of the summer months are still hopeful that the<br>boycott would ease off, but they are not taking any chances. <br><br>Said Raju Menon, manager of Spencers Food World in the state capital:<br>''We have not placed any fresh orders with the manufacturers (of Pepsi<br>and Coke) and are waiting and watching to see how things turn out.'' <br><br>But that might be a long wait given that the AIYF has announced plans to<br>permanently shut down local bottling units of the Hindustan Coca Cola<br>Beverages Co, and Pepsi Foods, the Indian subsidiaries of the<br>transnationals. <br><br>''This is not only a campaign against products of British and American<br>transnationals but against foreign capital coming here in the name of<br>globalisation,'' Vasanthan said. Already, a Coke bottling plant in<br>Plachimada, in the largely tribal Palghat district, has been mired in<br>controversy with activist groups accusing it of depleting the sweet water<br>resources and depriving local people of drinking water. <br><br>Last week, a 'panchayat' (village council) declared that it would not<br>renew the license granted to Coke to set up and operate a bottling plant<br>in Plachimada on the grounds of ''over-exploiting water resources''. <br><br>Coke officials were quoted in local newspapers as saying that they had<br>not been informed of any resolution passed by the 'panchayat' against the<br>renewal of the licence, which expired on Mar. 31. <br><br>''We applied for renewal of licence on February 26 and remitted the<br>necessary fee by pay order which the 'panchayat' had acknowledged,'' they<br>said. <br><br>Last year, thousands of irate protesters, consisting mostly of indigenous<br>people and 'dalit' (oppressed castes), gathered at the gates of the Coca<br>Cola factory at Plachimada to protest against indiscriminate mining of<br>groundwater. <br><br>To placate the protesters, the factory had then supplied truckloads of<br>water to two of the worst-affected villages but the protests continued<br>until local police resorted to brutal cane-charges on complaints from the<br>transnational. <br><br>Until the factory came up, Plachimada had ample water resources and local<br>residents complain that what groundwater is yet available in their wells<br>has turned brackish and become unfit for drinking, cooking and bathing<br>because of effluents form the plant. <br><br>Now with the prospect of the plant being shut down because of the<br>anti-war boycott, the residents of Plachimada hope that their water<br>resources will finally be restored to them. (END/2003)<br><br>http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=17535<br>--- <b on></b>
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