Rajat Banerji | September, 2002

The hand that feeds also punishes. A rayon grade pulp plant in the Chaliyar Basin provided employment and also revenues to the state. Then it was accused of despoiling the environment. Yet its closure proved to be no real solution.

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Advertisements refer to it as God's Own Country. Kerala is blessed with nature's bounty and inhabited by one of the most industrious peoples in India.

Thus when local rumblings about pollution in the Chaliyar Basin grew, painters and artists, journalists and assorted intelligentsia were unabashed in their support. The battle cry: make the polluter pay.

But the alleged polluter didn't pay. They just closed down. Ironically, those who depended on the factory are being punished for the mess by being idled.

Good place to retire
For centuries, wealthy traders of northern Kerala found the Chaliyar Basin much to their liking. The 169 km river emerges from the Nilamboor ranges of India's Western Ghats (hill ranges) and enters the Arabian Sea in the Beypore estuary.

The largest town in the basin is Calicut (called Kozhikode in the present day and age), which drew water from the Chaliyar for its sustenance. The weather was moderate and the river water super-clean. All in all, a good place to retire.

The banks of Chaliyar

Matters took the turn for the inevitable in 1958, when the state government rolled out the red carpet for Gwalior Rayon (later called Grasim) to set up a 100-tonne a day rayon grade pulp plant at Mavoor village. This idyllic village is set on the banks of the Chaliyar.

The spot was chosen with care: it was a few kilometers downstream from Calicut's water intake point. The effluents from this factory would not contaminate municipal water supplies. A sand bund (breaker) was constructed across the river in the summer months to prevent backflow.

Growing unrest
"While the factory began production in 1963, it had to take notice of growing unrest against the pollution caused in 1966," says C. Surendranath, of the Chaliyar Struggle Coordination Committee. "In 1968, the state government set up an expert committee to look into the effects of pollution on the river quality."

This committee took four years to emerge with recommendations. All the while, local opinion against the industry - possibly instigated by those, not employed by it - grew steadily. A second committee was formed a year later to implement the recommendations of the first committee.

"As far back as 1974-75, the fish in Chaliyar displayed high levels of mercury," states a retired biology professor from Calicut University, K.T. Vijaymadhavan. He was completing his doctoral studies at Kyoto University, when the Minamata incident was rocking the world. Grasim responded that since mercury was not used in their production processes they were not the polluter.

When 18 local panchayats (governing body of a village) agitated against the pollution in 1974, the factory agreed to set up a 7-kilometer long effluent discharge pipe. This was finally commissioned six years later!

In the intervening years, local people demolished the sand bund: this would ensure that the effluents moved upstream (during the tide) and in to the factory's water intake point. Their logic - we have to use polluted water. Its time you did so, too!

Tragedy
Following labor unrest in 1985, the management downed shutters for almost two years. More than a dozen workers committed suicide: while 3,000 workers are directly employed at the factory, another 7000 are indirectly benefited.

A point was made: if the factory closes, tragedy would follow.

There was a lull after this storm and only in the mid 90's, did matters move to confrontation. Reports of a high number of cancer deaths in the villages nearby set off a spate of demonstrations against the factory.

The state pollution control board did initiate action against the factory and the inevitable committee followed. Its recommendations, too, didn't materialise within the stipulated period. To add fuel to fire, one of the leaders of the protesting villagers, K.A. Rahman, died of lung cancer in 1999. That he was a smoker didn't matter to protesters.

Downed shutters again
Around the same time, there emerged a problem between the factory and the government. It was the state government's responsibility to provide raw materials to Grasim. The state found this more and more difficult. This may be attributed to decreasing forest cover and a corresponding increase in environmental awareness.

With both parties in a stalemate over raw materials, Grasim downed its shutters again in 2001. "It was a trick played by Grasim and the government, on the workers," maintains M.K. Prasad, member of the Kerala Sashtriya Sahitya Parishad (KSSP), a Kerala-based think tank.

This story could have ended in a better way. Society after all, needs industry, which can provide much needed employment at the local level, and revenues at the state level. Even so, Kerala poetess Sugatha Kumari believes it is good that the factory had to close. "Grasim must pay compensation to the workers," she says.

Rajat Banerji is the Managing Editor of cleanganga.com

For more information, visit the following sites:
Chaliyar River: http://education.vsnl.com/chaliyar/pollution.html
Kerala: http://www.kerala.com/
Grasim Industries: http://www.adityabirla.com/grasim/
Sugatha Kumari: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/Sugatha_Kumari.html