India’s Toxic Trail of Tears

So Much To Do

Their work is endless. A succession of natural, man-influenced, and manmade disasters has battered the state over the last two years. A flood drowned most of Chennai in 2015, causing chemical and sewage waste lagoons to overflow into streets, streams, and the Bay of Bengal. A cyclone and the deepest drought in over a century struck in 2016, causing more damage to streams and forests and more disruption in freshwater supplies. Then in January 2017, two tanker ships collided in a channel north of Chennai, uncorking a huge spill of heavy oil that spread in thick mats on Bay of Bengal beaches and damaged nearshore fisheries. Residents accused the Indian Coast Guard of being too slow to react.

Jayaraman was already involved in the region north of Chennai where the oil spill occurred. He and several young activists work with fishing communities block and reverse the degradation of Ennore Creek – a wetland surrounded by coal-fired power stations, and petrochemical plants.

He’s also been active with groups at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu, where the 2,000-megawatt Kudankulam power plant, India’s largest nuclear generating station, has attracted some of the country’s biggest environmental demonstrations prompted by concerns about reactor safety and discharges of heated water into fishing grounds.

In central Tamil Nadu, in the Cauvery Delta farm district of Neduvasal, an active opposition campaign has erupted over the national government’s approval of a private energy company’s plan to develop oil and natural gas. Supported by local young people, thousands of farmers have demonstrated since mid-February, protesting the development. Water pollution in this water-scarce region, and air contamination, are central concerns.

Just as in the Kodaikanal mercury campaign, Jayaraman has his hand in these and many of Tamil Nadu’s other visible environmental clashes. His carefully reported and detailed article on hydrocarbon development in The Wire in February 2017 filled in needed details for local government officials and protesters in Neduvasal.

More recently, Jayaraman and his allies have relied on graphic designers, Web entrepreneurs, young artists, videographers, and photographers to disseminate details and messages in new ways. The protests at Kudankulam gained credibility and energy from striking black and white photographs taken on the front lines by Amirtharaj Stephen and widely displayed on the streets of the state’s southern cities.

New Organizing Tools

The Ennore protesters have been aided by a music video conceived by Jayaraman, “Chennai Poromboke Paadal,” that features T.M. Krishna, one of India’s most acclaimed singers. The video laments the damage caused by development and industrial pollution on Ennore Creek and the estuary.

Like a flood gathering speed and power, the convergence of music, video, and social media is producing indisputable evidence that the new tools work. Frustrated by Unilever’s 14-year strategy of denying responsibility for injuries and damages to land and water, Jayaraman asked Chennai rapper Sofia Ashraf for help. The hip hop artist wrote a rap song critical of Unilever, and put it to the music of Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda.” With Jayaraman’s help, Ashraf shot a three-minute video, “Kodaikanal Won’t,” and posted it to YouTube in July 2015.

The video went viral after Minaj saw it and tweeted her appreciation to nearly 20 million fans. “Kodaikanal Won’t” also received international press attention. Unilever scrambled into action, assuring its investors of the company’s commitment to socially responsible business practices. It also convened talks with injured workers and the families of deceased workers. The out-of court settlement was reached the following March.

Jayaraman is convinced that influential citizen movements, like the one that disclosed the Kodaikanal contamination, are steadily pushing Tamil Nadu industries to be more mindful of their operating practices. Government, he said, also needs to more eagerly embrace its responsibilities to regulate companies and enforce the law.

Jayaraman is not convinced that influential citizen movements, like the one that disclosed the Kodaikanal contamination, are pushing Tamil Nadu industries to be more mindful of their operating practices. “Corporate behavior will not change unless companies see a credible deterrent in the form of stringent enforcement of liability for environmental violations,” he said. Government, he said, also needs to more eagerly embrace its responsibilities to regulate companies and enforce the law.

Government responses to focused activism are reluctantly changing, though. “There have been some changes at the policy level,” said Jayaraman. “The Central Pollution Control Board has issued guidelines for affixing liability for remediation of contaminated sites. The National Program for Remediation of Polluted Sites has taken on the remediation of eight contaminated sites nationally as a priority. The Central Pollution Control Board has identified 33 sites, including Kodaikanal, in its list of contaminated sites awaiting cleanup.”

While he and other leaders have been successful in organizing big demonstrations, the 16-year struggle with Unilever is a clear example that progress is grudging. With so many instances of serious pollution, it is natural to ask whether Tamil residents will throw up their hands.

“It is not the case that Tamil residents have grown weary,” said Jayaraman. “Some communities may have lapsed into silence. But there are many others that are still fighting to change the system, and that is evident now more than before.”