Ameer Shahul. The Greenpeace campaigner and writer says industrial firms, reminiscent of Unilever, could be held really accountable solely with the assistance of science and information.
| Photo Credit: Special association
In August 2015, a younger rapper, Sofia Ashraf, launched a music video on an unlikely theme: mercury poisoning within the pristine hill city of Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu. “Unilever. Clean up your mess. Unilever. Clean up your mess,” went the rap ‘Kodaikanal Won’t’, which has been considered over 4 million occasions during the last eight years, bringing to world consideration one of India’s greatest environmental disasters.
A screengrab from the ‘Kodaikanal Won’t’, a YouTube video by Sofia Ashraf.
The story begins within the Eighties, when Hindustan Lever, a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever, took over Chesebrough-Pond’s thermometer manufacturing unit within the city. With allegedly insufficient security protocols in place, scores of employees started to fall in poor health over the next years, and by some accounts, 28 folks died, after they have been uncovered to the poisonous heavy metallic, mercury. In March 2001, following an intrepid marketing campaign by the local people and Greenpeace, the manufacturing unit was shut down.
Hindustan Unilever’s scientific thermometer manufacturing unit in Kodaikanal that was shut down in 2001.
| Photo Credit:
G. Karthikeyan
But the marketing campaign couldn’t finish there: mercury — identified to trigger a spread of illnesses from neurological problems to kidney illness — had not simply impacted the well being of manufacturing unit employees and their households, it had made its method into the shola forests and aquatic ecosystems, even contaminating fish and lichen that have been consumed by folks. Activists demanded compensation. In 2016, Hindustan Unilever introduced a compensation of an undisclosed sum to 591 ex-workers.
Now, a former journalist and Greenpeace campaigner, Ameer Shahul, stitches collectively the story of mercury poisoning within the standard vacationer vacation spot in his new guide Heavy Metal: How a Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal. Excerpts from an interview:
Thermometer manufacturing unit employees staging a protest in Kodaikanal, demanding elimination of mercury waste from the manufacturing unit website, and compensation to the manufacturing unit employees.
| Photo Credit:
Special association
Why is it necessary to doc the Kodaikanal mercury poisoning incident at this time, seven years after Unilever introduced a compensation package deal for its ex-workers?
It is mistaken to presume that the issues have been solved just because a settlement with the ex-workers was achieved and there was a clean-up of the manufacturing unit website. The ex-workers fought the corporate earlier than the Madras High Court for over 10 years, and on the finish of it, the corporate determined to settle out of courtroom. There’s an ongoing remediation of the manufacturing unit land of 22 acres. Then there was the well being of the local people past the employees of the manufacturing unit: residents who lived close to its premises. Finally, there was the ecological devastation of the Pambar shola as a consequence of mercury dispersal from the manufacturing unit for over 18 years of its operations. The Kodaikanal mercury poisoning exhibits that industrial items could be ticking bombs. Erring firms, particularly those concerned in industrial manufacturing reminiscent of Unilever, could be held really accountable solely with the assistance of science and information.
Picture exhibits Hindustan Unilever’s scientific thermometer manufacturing unit in Kodaikanal, which was shut down in 2001 by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.
| Photo Credit:
G. Karthikeyan
What has been the affect of mercury in Kodaikanal’s environs?
The affect has been of catastrophic proportions. Mercury dispersed by air and floor currents. This is the way it infiltrated the atmosphere. Today, Kodaikanal stays one of Asia’s mercury hotspots, as current analysis exhibits. A examine revealed in 2020 by IIT Hyderabad discovered that mercury is prone to reside in Kodaikanal forest soil for many years to centuries and that forest soil will proceed to behave as a supply of mercury downstream. In 2021, scientists from Annamalai University, confirmed mercury ranges starting from 19 to 30 mg/kg in sediment samples collected from the Kodai lake. The pure background ranges of mercury are as much as 5 micrograms per kg of soil and subsequently the present ranges on the distant Kodai lake are at the very least six occasions or extra in comparison with the non-contaminated areas.
The Kodaikanal Lake, often known as Kodai Lake, was created in 1863.
| Photo Credit:
S.R. Raghunathan
You have likened this occasion to the Bhopal gasoline tragedy that killed 1000’s in 1984…
In phrases of compensation paid to the ex-workers, the Kodai mercury settlement was rumoured to be the second highest after the Bhopal gasoline tragedy recompense. In phrases of the extent of the tragedy, methyl isocyanate, which leaked from the Bhopal manufacturing unit remained within the air and soil for many years. Mercury evaporated from the Kodai manufacturing unit nonetheless stays in its environs. In phrases of casualties, the Indian People’s Tribunal recorded many, and the ex-workers submitted to the Madras High Court an extended listing of individuals who died of unnatural causes whereas working on the manufacturing unit or quickly after leaving it.
Vaigai, daughter of Communist chief P. Ramamurthy, talking at a seminar in Madurai.
| Photo Credit:
S. James
Tell us concerning the position of Vaigai Ramamurthy, described because the ‘Indian Erin Brockovich’ in your guide.
Vaigai Ramamurthy, a human rights lawyer, defended ex-workers on the Madras High Court. She is a selfless, fearless individual. She takes up the circumstances of unvoiced folks, and was approached to characterize the employees. She readily undertook a mammoth process to which she devoted over 10 years. If not for her work, the end result on ex-workers’ well being points wouldn’t have been what it’s at this time.
Protesters exterior Unilever House Building in Mumbai in search of rehabilitation of mercury affected ex-workers of the corporate’s thermometer manufacturing unit in Kodaikanal.
| Photo Credit:
Zeeshan Khan
You have mentioned, “The poisoning of the Kodaikanal region remains a disaster of catastrophic proportions in the absence of needful and timely intervention”. What extra must be achieved to treatment this tragedy?
Unfortunately, there is probably not a lot we will do to additional remediate the disaster. However, we will do many issues to make sure that the risks recede, and likewise put together the bigger neighborhood past Kodaikanal to face such tragedies in future. An rapid association to watch mercury ranges in Kodaikanal and surrounding areas needs to be arrange by the regulators. This will assist researchers, environmentalists and the local people to evaluate how far the mercury ranges are coming down.
Heavy Metal: How a Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal; Ameer Shahul, Pan Macmillan, ₹699.
divya.gandhi@thehindu.co.in
