Karma Cola

Rebirths,as Nantoo Banerjee claims in his tell-all book The Real Thing: Coke’s Bumpy Ride through India,can be difficult. But when it’s tinged with controversies,as Coca Cola’s 1991 India relaunch was,it can lead to monstrosities. “Coke is the single-largest groundwater guzzler in this country. And we are all spiraling towards a great water crisis. How then can they justify their policies?” asks Banerjee who is in the city to launch the book at an event at Oxford Bookstore last Friday. Banerjee is referring to the closure of Coca Cola’s plant in Kerala’s Palakkad district after a BBC expose that revealed that the Coke Plant has ravaged their groundwater reserve. “The company’s license was canceled in 2004 and they stopped production. But the wastes deposited by the company led to the contamination of the water supply,” says Banerjee,an eminent financial and business journalist who has lived with this project for more than a decade.

But what makes this book more important is the fact that as an employee of Coca Cola India for a few years,Banerjee was privy to some internal information. “I was,in a way,at the other side. Which is why I needed to tell this story even more urgently,” claims Banerjee. A company like Coca Cola,agrees Banerjee,cannot help being mired in controversies. “But I was surprised that no feasibility study was conducted in the Palakkad case. There is no excuse for such glaring discrepancies,” he claims.

But hasn’t the company also generated employment in the country and mobilized our economy too? “Even those who manufacture arms and weaponry generate employment,but does that make their ethical stand any less stilted?” asks Banerjee.

Did he ever feel that he was betraying the company he had worked for? “I’m a journalist at heart. My job is to recount stories accurately and truthfully. It’s true that I was offered a cushy job and a bright future by the company,but that has nothing to do with the truth. Even cabinet ministers write kiss-and-tell biographies,” he says.

However,the book is not a personal attack on the Cola giant,clarifies Banerjee. “I wanted to talk about the stilted nature of contemporary corporate ethics,” he sums up.