"Water belongs to the people." "Water is not a commodity to make profit." Banners screaming such messages dot Plachimada, in Kerala's Palakkad district, with the World Water Conference underway at the sleepy, remote village.
The Perumatty Panchayat, under which Plachimada village falls, has hosted the three-day conference which is discussing the world's dwindling water resources.
The village has been embroiled in a legal dispute with the American soft-drink giant Coca-Cola over groundwater depletion.
On Thursday, scores of activists and delegates from various foreign countries joined the farmers and tribals in a mass rally to the Coke plant at Plachimada.
Raising slogans for the villagers' right to water, the demonstrators urged that Coca-Cola wind up its operations in the village. "We want drinking water. No Coke, no Pepsi," they cried.
Farmers and tribals at Plachimada have been holding daily demonstrations outside the Hindustan Coca-Cola plant, set up in 1998, for nearly two years now. They allege that the Coke plant situated on a 16-acre plot in the lush, green village has been guzzling groundwater, causing wells and farmland to dry up all across the villages.
Activists and environmentalists from across the world who have gathered at Plachimada said that the only solution to the water problems in the villages is the closure of the Coke plant.
Says Jose Bove, leader of the Confederation Paysanne, a farmers' organisation in France, who is a leading speaker at the conference: "This struggle at Plachimada is part of the worldwide struggle against transnational companies which exploit natural resources like water. They have made water a priced commodity to make profit."
"It is better for Coca-Cola to shut down its operations in this village. We will take this issue across the globe as the finest example of over-exploitation of water resources by companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi," Bove said.
He said water belongs to all people and companies have no right to exploit it. "If you do not have water you cannot live and engage in agriculture and other activities," he said, even as hundreds of villagers and activists listened attentively.
In between, Bove goes back to the past to prove his points. India had thrown out the British through a non-violent struggle and won freedom, he said. "It is time now for Indians to launch another struggle against the multinational companies which are here to exploit water and soil," he said.
Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Canada-based Council of Canadian Public Advocacy Organizations and one of the delegates at the conference, lamented that companies like Coca-Cola are "playing with the lives of millions of people in India."
"Multinational companies are trying to control precious water because water is wealth and they know that those who control water control the world," she said.
"The struggle at Plachimada is to prove that water belongs to the people. We urge Coca-Cola to close down its operation in the village quickly," Barlow said.
Like Bove and Barlow, there are a number of leading activists and environmentalists from across the world who have landed in Plachimada to listen to the people, affected by the Coca-Cola factory's water mining of the village.
They include Hosse Bube from France, Heidi Hautala, Inger Schorling and Steve Emmott from Sweden and Ward Morehouse from the United States.
According to India's leading environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who is one of the organisers of the conference, a new hydro-piracy, led by companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, has emerged in the world.
"They are exploiting the remaining natural resources, like water and soil. Plachimada is the finest example of this piracy," Shiva said.
She said that Coca-Cola has to end the hijacking of water from Plachimada and exit from the village.
A Krishnan, the Perumatty Panchayat president, said that it is for the first time in India that a small village like Plachimada had attracted international attention because of severe water shortage.
"Villages like Plachimada in Kerala have the largest groundwater resources thanks to their proximity to a number of reservoirs and irrigation canals," he said.
But the Coke plant set up in 1998 is drawing 1.5 million litres of water everyday through dozens of bore wells. Coke's water mining has dried up the lands of over 2,000 people residing within 1.2 miles of the factory, Krishnan alleged.
When the Panchayat threatened to cancel Coke's license last year, the Coke officials petitioned the court arguing that there was no field evidence of over-exploitation of the groundwater reserves at the villages.
But last month, the Kerala high court asked Coca-Cola to stop using groundwater from the village and find alternative methods to generate water for its plant.
The court also asked the company to install water meters at the plant to measure the amount water it uses till it finds the alternative water sources.
On Friday, the conference is expected to issue a statement asking the Indian government to enact laws to protect the country's water resources.
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