Ashraf, Krishna team up against mercury contamination
Activists in Chennai released Kodaikanal Still Won’t, a music video that highlights the multinational company Unilever’s double standards in cleaning up mercury contamination in their factory site in Kodaikanal.
Calling it “environmental racism,” Nityanand Jayaraman, a Chennaibased social activist, along with artiste Sofia Ashraf, who starred in the Kodaikanal Won’t video which forced Unilever CEO Paul Polman to stand up and take note, along with TM Krishna and Amrit Rao said that environmental harm is disproportionately apportioned to marginalized communities and such standards would not be accepted elsewhere.
In the initial “clean- up,” they had a guideline of 20mg per kg of soil. “In the UK, where the company is based, in residential areas, the guideline value is 1mg per kilogram of soil. In Kodai, this is not a residential area, but a watershed spot. Here, the levels must be even more stringent. Such a shoddy clean- up would never be permitted in Europe. Unilever’s refusal to apply the best standards for India reeks of environmental racism,” said Nityanand Jayaraman. The mercury levels in the area, which are rich watershed areas as well as part of a large biodiverse forest are at least 50,000 times higher than the permissible levels, he said.
Protests, though music videos, are not a first for the team as apart from the Kodaikanal Won’t they also have to their credit the Chennai Poramboke Paadal, which raised attention to the pollution at Ennore Creek due to industry effluents.
Sofia Ashraf, TM Krishna, and Amith Rao along with director Rathindran said they will travel to the Netherlands and the UK later this year, where Unilever is headquartered, and generate solidarity against the double standards. “Unilever talks big about caring for the environment. The CEO was declared Champion of the Earth by the UN in 2015. They should walk the talk,” said Krishna. The video was released by Prof Fatima Babu, a long- standing activist who led the struggle against pollution at Thoothukudi’s Sterlite Copper smelter.