Karikuppam, the village beneath the power plant.
Student: Burret Schurer Date: 24 June, 2016
I dedicate this research project,
To the people of Karikuppam, who have gained a place in my heart,
To my translator Dhana, who without there would only be question marks in the following pages, And to my mother who let me leave to India.
Preface
Against common practice I would like to start with talking about myself. The thesis presented here is a product of my research, so in my opinion it is important for the reader to have some tiny idea of who this person is. My name is Burret Schurer, as you presumably already read on the title page. I have spent my whole life of 22 years growing up in the Netherlands. My white Dutch parents raised me in a little village in the North of Holland, which can be thought of as the countryside. When I was 13 my parents separated and I lived with my younger sister with our mother. She raised us, according family heritage, in the Roman Catholic tradition. After completing high school, I moved out of my mother’s home towards the ‘big’ city of Amsterdam. There I started my bachelor study which is completed by the thesis lying before you.
During my studies I had to read a lot about totally different parts of the world. But my own
experiences with ‘abroad’ were, until recently, confined by vacations within western Europe, and a solo trip to Israel. None of which has proven comparable with my stay in India. The first steps on Indian soil in Mumbai were overwhelming. So many people, the chaotic traffic and cows walking by. And the heat! I had serious doubts about my ability to do research in this kind of weather. And the Indian culture had so many things that were so unusual to me. Luckily I was not alone in this first state of shock because I had twenty fellow students who went through the same adjustment period. After the first two weeks following lectures at the Anna University in Chennai the ‘real work’ began. For my research I stayed together with my fellow student Lisanne and our translators in a little village called Karikuppam below Cuddalore. The house we stayed in was one of the village’s best. It was completely built of concrete, had multiple rooms and a roof terrace. Despite this, the level of comfort still was not quite what I am used to in the Netherlands. The house had only one running water tap, no beds, an ‘Indian style’ toilet and a large number of cockroaches and lizards. These were however not the things to which I had to get used to the most. Living in a small Indian village together with our Indian translators, Lisanne and I got a real inside look into Indian customs and habits. And these led sometimes to hilarious situations. For example, although Lisanne and I rented the house, all sorts of relatives of the house owner would just walk in and put or take something from the refrigerator, while we were typing out interviews. These different behaviors and things that were seen as normal definitely took some adjusting and getting used to from my part! Despite all these at first odd things, the house soon started to feel as ours. It was an honor and privilege to do my research in Karikuppam and I can say I had a great time living there.
Content
Dedication 2 Preface 3 Content 4 Introduction 5 Method 7 Chapter 1: Context 8Chapter 2: The arrival of the power plant 13
Chapter 3: Opinions and their underlying reasons 17
3.1 Employment 17
3.2 Quality of the environment 20
3.3 Social consequences 22
Chapter 4: Collective action and the lack thereof 24
Conclusion and Discussion 28
Introduction
The thesis lying before you is the product of a two month during research project in India. Together with two fellow students I chose the overarching thesis subject ‘Coastal land sales in Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu’. This topic is closely related to the new term of ‘coastal grabbing’, a relative from the more commonly known term ‘land grabbing’. In my view, coastal land grabbing involves the process of the (sudden) claiming of coastal land and its resources by a dominant party which (most of the time) leads to the exclusion of the ‘losing’ parties. This thesis specifically focuses on a case study of such a supposed losing party. The focus lies on a recently carried out large-scale land sale process in a coastal part of Tamil Nadu. This study centers in a local coastal community which is affected by this nearby large-scale land sale event. India’s rural communities are dependent on their direct environment to provide some essential services. For example, rural communities derive 85 percent of their drinking water from nearby groundwater wells (The World Bank, 2010). This is why land sales can have a huge impact on the life in these communities.
Although coastal (land) sales has become a more commonly known concept, there is still a gap of knowledge on this process from a local perspective. The intention of this thesis is to help bridge this gap. To be able to get sufficient data this research requires an in-depth case study research of a coastal community to discover more about the local view and where this view is grounded in. This study first consists of a descriptive part, namely a description of the specific context, community and the land sale case itself. The thesis then gives insight into the opinions of community members and tries to explain these by elaborating on the most important consequences for the community of the specific land sale case. Finally, the thesis explores the ‘lack of’ organized protest from the local community against the land sale case, and puts possible reasons forward.
The origin for this thesis began when my preliminary research led me to the study of Gill (2007). His research was about the lack of relief support that was given to coastal Dalit communities in Tamil Nadu in the period after the Tsunami of 2004. ‘Dalit’ were also known as ‘Untouchables’, which are the people who according to traditional Hindu beliefs fall outside the caste system (International Dalit Solidarity Network, 2016). The Dalit, although for the Indian constitution equal to any other person (Constitution of India, 2015, Article 15(1)), still compose in practice a very vulnerable socio-economic group (Human Rights Watch, 2014). Because the Dalit are still a low socio-economic groups they have few means to acquire essentials elsewhere, which is why they are still dependent on their direct to provide these. This is why nearby large-scale land sales can have an extra-large impact on these communities. The article of Gill (2007) triggered my interest into coastal Dalit communities and their presumed inability to acquire their much needed help in the aftermath of the Tsunami. His research led me to the questions of why they were unable to acquire this help, especially when other nearby coastal fishermen communities were relatively successful in this (Bavinck, 2008; Gill, 2007). Is this a lack of organization a feature of internal Dalit community structures? Does the Dalit community not have the desire to protest? These questions eventually combined with my interest in the process of coastal grabbing into the following thesis research question:
How can the lack of collective action by the Dalit community against the large-scale land sale
case be explained?
To answer this question, the study has four sub questions, which correlate to subsequent chapters.
1. How is the community built up? A description of general features.
2. What happened with the large-scale land sale case? The arrival of the power plant.
3. What is the opinion of community about this? Opinions, grounded in consequences. 4. How did the community react to the power plant? Initial protest, lost in the daily grind?
Collective action is understood here as acts taken together by a group of people whose goal is to achieve a common objective. This study was conducted using an inductive research method. This means that I did not research theories around this subject already before travelling to Karikuppam. Rather, I let the situation on site overwhelm me and with help from the interviews I conducted, I gained insight into the situation and came up with theoretical reasoning myself. This research was therefore not so much targeted to confirm or falsify already existing theories, but rather blossomed on itself from the conversations I had on site. It is therefore that the explorative theoretical part of this thesis comes at the end, as it is a product of the prior content. The following part contains the methods which were used to conduct this research with. Thereafter, the first chapter describes the context of this study. The second chapter explains the case of the arrival of the power plant to the area. The third chapter goes in about the opinions of the residents, and then about the consequences of the coming of the power plant, where they base their opinion on. Thereafter, the fourth chapter is about collective action and the lack thereof. Subsequently, the conclusion and discussion of this thesis follow. Finally, the literature list closes this thesis.
Method
This study took place during April and May 2016 in Tamil Nadu, India. During these months it was not only exceptionally hot, but it was also election time. This is an important political happening of course, but even more so in India. Someone explained to me how serious these elections are by stating “the election winners get five years to throw the losers in jail”. This had also effects on this research, as I was not able to get hold of the Panchayat president for an interview. Fortunately, my study was for the rest not obstructed by the elections.
This thesis research had a qualitative research strategy. The reason that this was chosen was because my subject requires a lot of research into the social reality of these communities, for which a
qualitative research is more suitable (Bryman, 2012). The data collection was done through
participatory observation, semi-structured interviews and secondary data collection on site and back in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately, I cannot speak Tamil, which is why during the whole research I was accompanied by my translator Dhana. During the first week, together with fellow student Lisanne and her translator, we settled in our house and got acquainted with each other, Karikuppam and the residents. Most of the times Dhana and I did semi-structured interviews in the morning, which I processed in the afternoon. Although sometimes we did also go out in the afternoon or evening, to be able to speak to the working residents also. What I had underestimated was that the normal things of life also
continued and had to be taken care of. Three times per day, at quite exact times, we had to get some food somewhere outside the village. This was because there was no restaurant in the village and we had no cooking facilities in our house. But soon we developed a rhythm, got more acquainted with each other’s accents, and eventually did 30 successful in-depth interviews in total. Of these, 27 were done with residents of Karikuppam, of these 25 were with members of the Parayan caste. Two interviews I did with members of the Vanniyar caste, this low number can be explained because my primary research population was the Dalit caste, and I discovered only in a later stage that there was also another caste in Karikuppam. We acquired the census data via a semi-legal way from the original census data book, which we acquired through a friend of a friend of someone, who urged us not to lose it while we copied it.
The interviews were semi-structured, first some standard questions about name, age, education, household, work and income were asked. Then the interviews went more in-depth about work, the power plant, social activism or caste when the conversation went in that direction. Also three
interviews with people from outside Karikuppam were conducted: one with a nearby water company owner, one visit to the primary school headmaster and one interview with staff members of the power plant funded health NGO DESH. Although actually the last one counts only half, because the intended objective (the director) refused to speak with us.
The respondents in Karikuppam were selected through snowball sampling. Their names have been reduced to a letter, as to provide anonymity. Sometimes we would ask someone if they had time and if they were too busy they pointed us to another neighbor who did have time. It was quite
problematic to be able to speak to people alone. If we had found a respondent, he or she often took us with them to their garden, but in some way people always found out that we were interviewing somewhere and joined us for a cozy conversation. This did sometimes obstruct the research, because it was very difficult for Dhana and me to get answers from only one respondent, while the rest of the family and neighbors also joined the conversation. Due to this, and the translating of the Tamil to English some reliability of the research is lost.
Chapter 1: Context
In this chapter I try to paint the context in which I conducted my research. First, a short introduction about India and the state of Tamil Nadu is given. Then a more profound introduction to the local research area is provided. The main characteristics and composition of the village will be addressed.
India
My first impression of India was of heat, lots of people and holy cows. Although these stereotypes are fitting in some way, the immense complexity of the country and culture has only now become more ‘real’ to me. Prior to the fieldwork I followed the India Lecture series course which already gave more insight into India. The country is the 7th largest country in the world, including climates from tropical monsoon to temperate (CIA Factbook, 2016). Currently it inhabits the 2nd largest population in the world, but it is projected to ‘catch up’ with China in 2022 (Davanzo, Dogo & Grammich, 2011). India is divided into 29 states and 7 so-called Union Territories. More than 22 languages are spoken, but Hindi and English are the official government languages (CIA Factbook, 2016). Since the 1990’s influential policy changes have been made which started a trend of economic liberalization and industrialization which is still proceeding (Guha, 2008).
Tamil Nadu
This research took place in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu (‘the land of Tamils’). Despite being ‘only a state’, Tamil Nadu is more than three times as large as the Netherlands. It hosts more than 77 million people and has relatively high literacy rates for men and women (Tamil Nadu Census, 2011). Historically the main production in the economy of Tamil Nadu was agriculture, and still 51.6 percent of its population lives in a rural area (Tamil Nadu Census, 2011).
Agriculture still continues to be a dominant sector and provides sustenance to nearly 45 percent of the people (TN, Twelfth five-year plan,2011). But agricultures share has declined while industry and service are becoming of increasing importance. Intertwined with the increasing living standards comes the increase in demand for energy. According to the state government (2011), Tamil Nadu has a total installed capacity of 10,237 Mega Watts from conventional sources and 6,007 MW from renewable sources. In spite of having such a large capacity, the State is facing severe power shortage of about 1,500 MW per year due to the rapid industrialization and the demand for power that is growing at the rate of 10% per annum (TN,
Twelfth five-year plan, 2011). Due to higher energy demand in the last few years the state has been facing power crises mainly because of rapid growth of industries and urbanization and uncertain supply. The lack of energy leads to shortages and blackouts which have negative impacts on the economy. The
government has therefore then decided to attract and invest more into large energy projects. One of these projects has a central place in this thesis.
The Village, Karikuppam
The fieldwork for this research took place in a village called Karikuppam. I have been told that ‘kari’ in Tamil means ‘charcoal’ and a ‘kuppam’ is a little village close to the seashore. This turns out to be quite an accurate name. The village of Karikuppam counted in the last 2011th census 851 residents (Table 1). However most of my respondents and myself currently estimate a lower number, because
In order to achieve the Government of India’s plan to give “Power for all by 2012” the state is making progress in the generation, transmission and distribution sector. Government of Tamil Nadu, 2011
due to the arrival of the power plant a part of the residents has moved away. As can be made up from the census data (table 1), the ratio of men and women is nearly even with a slight benefit for the ladies. The census data gives a rough idea of the demographic composition of the residents of Karikuppam. Secondly and perhaps more important, the data gives a first insight into how there can be a large discrepancy between the governmental ‘paper reality’ and the reality on site. As to the accuracy of this census regarding to age I have my reasoned doubts, as I discovered during my interviews that a substantial part of my respondents was unaware of their exact age and more or less gave their best guess. Also the age categories of the census are rather random chosen, which is why the class width is irregular and makes them almost incomparable.
Table 1: Population Age & Sex
Age Male Female
0 - 6 60 73 7 - 18 62 43 19 - 45 153 150 46 - 60 54 84 60 + 85 87 Total 414 437
Extracted from the Chidambaram district Census of 2011, original hardcopy gained from municipality. Karikuppam is located but 2 kilometers away from the seashore. Nearby villages are among others Pudukuppam and Puthupettai, but the most important nearby town is Parangipettai. This is quite a large town around 5 kilometers away where residents from Karikuppam go for work or come to do groceries. The most nearby larger city Chidambaram is located in the south-west about 20 kilometers away.
It would be quite an achievement to accidently discover Karikuppam. On Google Maps it is even marked as a ‘closed’ village, for a reason which remains unclear to me. It is a village which you only notice if you want to go there, and you drive through it in half a minute. Despite this, it is not hard to locate from a distance, because it is located almost directly beneath a 275 meters high chimney of the neighboring electricity plant. But the first thought when you walk through the settlement is that it is located ‘in the middle of nowhere’.
The village itself consists of only a few streets, the main road is paved with asphalt but most streets are just sand. There are about 250 households and one side of the village directly borders to the wall that is surrounding the power plant. When you walk through the streets the classical image of a small Indian village rises. Elder men sitting together, some women are busy preparing food, goats and chickens are walking through the streets and children come meet you with a big smile. What stands out is that the differences in economic welfare between the villagers most evidently come forward through their houses. Most houses do have a concrete base and walls, but the roofs are mostly made of wooden palm branch constructions. There are exceptions, such as the poorer houses which have for example no concrete base at all. The richer residents do sometimes have a whole concrete house. There are no large shops or (super)markets within the village. Two small ‘shops’ sell some vegetables, pack of biscuits and sweets. Sometimes sellers of fish or ice cream drive through the streets loudly announcing their goods, but most groceries are done in Parangipettai. Spread through the village are some 5 small ponds which are made visible on map 2.
Map 2: Self-signed map of the streets of Karikuppam, with the most important elements, including the house we lived in (colored orange).
Caste, the most dividing element
A very important element in the life of the residents of Karikuppam was something of which the importance I only realized after the first week: caste. Of course I had heard and read about caste and I selected Karikuppam also because it was a village of Dalits. But at first I was unaware that there was also a sizeable Vanniyar caste community in the village. And when I first became aware of this, I certainly did not know yet that caste was the cause for a dividing line for everything within the small village. When I walked through the streets I saw just the elements of a small village. I did not notice that one caste lives on this, and the other on the other side of the street. Nor that the colorful temple was only used by one caste. That there was a primary school, but only children of one caste are educated there. But the most astounding I found that most respondents stated that they do not have contact with the other caste.
Here it became even more evident that I was an outsider of the culture, and my eyes were untrained to notice these important cultural elements that are ‘invisible’ for the outsider. When I found out however, I noticed that a lot of real and social structures are separated along these caste lines. Two important buildings in the village are the two temples, one is Parayan and the other is an Vanniyar temple. The Parayan temple is not completed (yet) but the residents assured me that it is in its final stage. Another important building is the Parayan primary school located near our house. The school teaches only Parayan children and is not only aided by the government but also receives some support from the power plant education service. It educates from the first till the fifth standard, after which the children go for further education to Parangipettai. The Vanniyar children go to
Parangipettai for primary education. What is furthermore exceptional is the serious social segregation in the village, where houses of the same caste members are clustered together. Finally, I discovered that there are also two headmen in the village; one for both castes. Altogether, these findings changed the image that I had of the context of my research significantly (see Map 3 below).
Caste tensions
The impact caste has on living in an Indian village is still hard to comprehend for me. It is such a strange element of the Indian society, probably also because it is absent in the Western society in which I grew up. That is also why it is really hard to do research to caste because it is something that is so unknown which makes the finesses hard to grasp in such a short time. When I asked questions about caste I would mostly receive weird looks, as if I was asking dumb questions. There certainly is some taboo about caste and I noticed that my translator was also a bit shy to ask people their caste. Nevertheless, we continued asking questions.
On the final research day, we walked around the village and said goodbye to some villagers we had met before. Then a woman we had interviewed before invited us for tea and made us sit down in her garden. When we spoke to her before she was in the presence of neighbors and family, but now she was alone. While I was sipping my tea, I noticed a change in our friendly chat, because she lowered her voice and acted different. After a while Dhana translated her horrifying story to me, which is summarized in Box 1 below.
The above described the context in which the arrival of the power plant took place, this event is described in the following chapter.
Mrs. M
About 8 years ago, a Parayan boy secretly married with a girl from the Vanniyar community. They probably knew how this would be received by their castes, because they fled to the city together. However, the family of the girl reached her and convinced the girl to leave the boy and return to the village. But the family of the girl could not get to him because no one knew where he was. That’s when the first friend of the boy was found hanging with a noose around his neck on a tree branch, supposedly suicide. Not long thereafter, another friend of the boy was found dead, stabbed and naked. That’s when people became really angry and afraid, the police was called in, but could never find the killers. She says that they were bought off by the Vanniyar community. A few weeks later, another friend of the boy was found brutally murdered and dumped under the bridge. These friends had supposedly helped the boy with the secret marriage. When they went to the police, the police told them that they should not go to court, because that would only lead to more murders. Since then the relation between the castes had been tense she says, ‘anything can happen’.
Chapter 2: The case of the power plant
During the interviews I conducted in Karikuppam I spoke to people about a lot of things among which the recent history of Karikuppam. The conversations gave insight into the villagers’ life a decade ago and how the coming of the power plant has changed their way of life. This chapter tries to combine the information gained into an overarching story about life before the arrival of the power plant. The following chapter will give insight into the consequences of the power plant for the residents. This information is constructed combining the returning elements from multiple respondents. Of course, it is not a resemblance of how every resident experienced this process. Thereby some extraordinary tales and quotes are reproduced, also to give some insight into the plurality in experiences.
The life ‘before’
Karikuppam has always been a small hamlet with primarily Dalit residents. It is popularly known as a Dalit ‘colony’. Most people who are born here die here too. The life people led a few decades ago was not an easy life. But multiple older people told me they were content then with that kind of life. The men and women in the village used to work as so-called ‘coolie’s’ on the nearby agricultural fields. Most fields used to have casuarina, rice,
groundnuts or other crops and coolie work consisted of harvesting, weeding, planting and all the other jobs that are needed on farms. Despite all the farmer work almost none of the Parayan owned any lands. When I asked the Parayan headman how this was possible he told us the story that his grandfather used to tell to his father, it is told in Box 2 on the right.
For how far this story is based on truth is hard to say, but it does give insight into the image of Parayan of their recent history. The story combined with the conversations I had, told the history of the Parayan consisting of a tough life, but even though people managed and were content with their lives. The villagers described the area as having a lot of trees and there were a lot of (full) ponds. People from other areas used to like coming here because it was a ‘cooler’ area then it is now. One respondent described it as ‘we had a green life then’. But at some point ‘others’ came to their area and ruined this way of life by corrupting and cheating them, which led to worse living conditions for them. In a way this story has strong similarities with the recent coming of the power plant.
The Tsunami’s second wave
A returning element in the conversations I had, is something I did not immediately relate to this case study, namely the importance of the Tsunami of December 26, 2004. This tsunami had great impact along the whole coast of Tamil Nadu. As stated before, Karikuppam lays a few kilometers from the seashore, which protected it mostly from the great devastating force of the Tsunami. None of the villagers was physically hurt, but the residents of neighboring villages near the seashore were not so lucky. The villagers told me that in the aftermath of the Tsunami many NGO’s of national and
international origin visited this region to give aid to the affected villages. However, during this time these ‘rich’ people also saw that there was a lot of space in this area. Because of this, some villagers state, there is a growing interest to establish large-scale industrial projects here. Although this explanation can hold some truth, this trend can of course not be seen separately from the national
Parayan headman
“85 years ago all the factory land belonged to our community. We used to mainly farm cashew trees there. Then Muslim people started to come to these lands. They also wanted land and started to negotiate and bargain on the price of land. They also introduced liquor to this area, they made liquors from the sugar palm trees. Then people started to become alcoholics, and some started to sell their lands for only a few liters of alcohol. (‘you take this land and give me drinks’). Now there is much poverty here, no work and no income. That’s why everyone here is a coolie.”
trend of increasing industrialization. But this story is told by many villagers as an explanation why the power plant arrived here.
The report
The severe power shortages led the state of Tamil Nadu to take measures which would lead to more power generation on short notice. The company ‘Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited’ (IL&FS) therefore proposed the building of a power generating plant based on the burning of coal.
“The proposed thermal power plant will contribute towards bridging the power supply and demand gap at regional as well as national level. Thus the proposed thermal power project is fully justified for implementation at the earliest possible.” EIA, IL&FS, November 2009.
As is common in the Netherlands, before a large project can proceed an estimate and accountability for its environmental and social impact has to be subjected to the government. In India this report is called an Environmental Impact Assessment report (EIA). The quote above shows how the company IL&FS justified the coming of the power plant to the government. However, it is not my intention to analyze the whole report here, the subject came forward in my interviews for multiple times. After reading the report, it is my opinion that IL&FS did a good job hiding all kinds of important information to the government to assure them that no-one is severely harmed by the building of the plant in the area. Although in my research I was not able to conduct or verify any of the ambient air and sound level tests done by IL&FS, it struck me that none of these tests had been conducted in Karikuppam. From my interviews I learned that none of the residents of Karikuppam were previously informed by IL&FS nor asked their opinion about the coming of the factory there. People only started to suspect that something was going on when a lot of land was sold in their neighborhood. Then in 2011, workers started cutting down the cashew trees and began fencing the land. When lorries started to drive through the village with sand and materials, most people figured that some kind of factory was going to be build.
Timeline, made visible with help from Google Earth
This part of the thesis makes the development of the power plant visible by making use of satellite imagery. The program used is Google Earth in Direct X mode, which allows users to ‘travel back in time’ and can sometimes show satellite images from years ago. In this case, the satellite images date back from before the power plant was built. The images in the following two pages are taken
consecutively around 2 years apart from each other. The oldest image is from 10-8-2010, and the newest from 30-1-2016. The first image shows the situation before the factory was build, the yellow dot signifies Karikuppam. In the second image, the first outline of the factory becomes visible in the building period. The factory terrain stretches out along the north-western boundary of Karikuppam. In the third image the main parts of the factory seem to be completed, and the chimney has become visible, mainly by its shadow just below the center. The last image shows that the factory still has been expanding, mostly to the north of its terrain. Multiple times Dhana and I tried to visit the factory, but unfortunately we were denied access every time. Most of the times the guarding officers stated that the safety risk was too big or the manager in charge was in a meeting. So these satellite images are the best I have of the terrain inside factory fences.
Satellite image 1: October 8, 2010.
Satellite image 3: February 8, 2014.
Satellite image 4: January 30, 2016.
Chapter 3: Opinions and their underlying reasons
The arrival of the power plant brought significant change to the life of the villagers of Karikuppam. In this chapter, first the villagers’ current view on the coming of the power plant is explained.
Subsequently, the main consequences of the arrival of the factory on village life are discussed. This is done because these consequences are so far reaching that they are the underlying reason for the villagers’ opinions. The information that is displayed is gained from the 27 in-depth interviews I had with the villagers. In my original research proposal, I expected more difference in opinion between respondents of varying age, sex, jobs et cetera. However, during my interviews I found that there is actually a lot of similarity for different respondents in opinion about the power plant. Below, the opinions are displayed, and enforced with quotes and exceptional stories.
Opinions
The great majority of the residents has an extreme negative view about the coming of the factory to their village. Of the 27 interviews I
conducted, 22 respondents had an outspoken negative opinion about the power plant. These respondents had varying age, sex, education
levels and job situations. The large majority of the respondents which had a negative opinion mostly explained this by the negative consequences for the village life which are elaborated upon below. Of the remaining respondents, two stated to first have a really positive view, but now the plant is here they have also become very negative. Their previously positive opinion was explained by them through hopes of more development in this area, and increasing living standards. Another two
“Factory gives only hard things” Mrs. S
respondents stated to have ‘mixed’ feelings. They explained this by having a negative opinion about the impact of the factory on their environment, but they also recognized the need for more power generation in the state. One respondent stated to have no opinion. Summarizing, almost all residents have now a negative opinion about the arrival of the power plant.
Consequences
The arrival of the power plant had large consequences for the life of the residents. It is also logical to think that these consequences are the reason the villagers are so negative about the factory. It is clear that the
consequence is not only that a large part of their immediate surroundings became inaccessible due to the fenced terrain. From the interview material I divided the consequences for the villagers into three main categories: employment, quality of the environment and social consequences. These subjects are elaborated upon below in subsequent paragraphs.
3.1 Employment
One of the major consequences for the villagers is something which has now become remarkably absent in Karikuppam: employment. As mentioned, before the arrival of the power plant men and women had quite steady jobs as agricultural coolies. There were and are not many other employment providers in the village. There are no large shops, markets or
other business activities, except for the nearby power plant. The village is further surrounded by seemingly brackish, vacant lands which are said to be mostly owned by Muslim residents from Parangipettai. There is not much cultivation of crops going on anymore. Some lands are used for goats and sheep grazing, but
overall the surroundings do not deliver much employment. The arrival of the power plant brought a lot of precarious work and unemployment for many. In this way the residents of Karikuppam are indirectly affected by the factory. Their livelihood has been taken away without any notice or much replacement for other jobs. It is also the case that the previous landowners were (some say richly) compensated for selling their lands to the power plant. But their employees did not receive any compensation. This is also why I argue that these laborers were, although indirectly, hit the hardest by the buying up of the agricultural lands by the power plant.
Men and Women
Due to losing their jobs, the villagers had to find new ways of obtaining livelihoods. During the interviews I discovered that a large part of the male laborers has shifted towards the profession of painting. This includes the ‘unskilled’ painting of fences and walls, to the more skilled paint jobs of all kinds of fonts of names and advertisements. From the respondents I interviewed 11 stated that they or their male spouses now work as a painter. The job is a contract job which is acquired via a so-called ‘mastri’ or contractor. There are multiple mastri’s in the neighboring town Parangipettai. These people act as middlemen and acquire assignments from a client, which they then divide among the contract workers. The painters have to pay a commission for each assignment they receive that lies around 10% of their salary per day. They receive their salary in the Indian currency ‘Rupee’, which had an exchange rate of around 75 to 1 Euro during my time there. Most painters earn around 500 rupees per day, and have to pay the mastri around 50 rupees. Everyday a group of around 60 men goes to Parangipettai to look for a job, but only half of the group can get one. This causes that most painters
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Employment Men/Women Other jobs Environment Groundwater Air Sound Social Social Feelings Figure 1: Division Chapter 3“People are ready to do the work, but there is none.”
addition, in the rainy season there are no painting jobs for 2-3 months. It is in this period that most households cannot cope anymore and have to take loans. Other male respondents have jobs as mason, roof maker and one was an ox cart driver.
Despite this precarious work, one group of residents seems to have even more trouble getting a job: women. The majority of the women I spoke to did not have a paying job, they are housewives now. Most of these women used to have work as a coolie, but now there is no work anymore and/or their husbands do not want them to do other kind of jobs. Of the remaining women I interviewed some have a job as housekeeper for mostly Muslim families in Parangipettai. One woman I spoke to works as a housekeeper in exchange for breakfast, lunch and 1000 rupees per month. More women have a similar kind of job, but this job seems to have a negative stigma. Another woman who works as a housekeeper told me that she does not like this job because it is “a job for old ladies”. And taking such a job means that you have family troubles and that you are poor. Two other women I spoke to said to be concrete workers. These women work in Parangipettai on an assignment basis for a concrete mastri. They help the male masons with work as mixing the concrete and carrying plates with bricks to the masons. They work for 300 rupees per day from 9 to 6 if they can get a job. The male masons receive 600 rupees per day.
Government program
Besides these jobs, I also encountered people that participated in a government program which is called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005. The government of India has set up a scheme that entitles any citizen to demand work for 100 days from the
government, for which they receive 100 rupees per day. When I spoke to the elected ward member she explained to me that the work mainly consists of cleaning jobs. The people are given jobs like sweeping, collecting garbage, dredging of the ponds et cetera. This year there have been some problems however with the payment of the salaries, that’s when the residents come to her.
Jobs in power plant
During my interviews I also spoke to some men and women who have a job in the power plant. The number of residents that have a job there varies during the year. This is because the largest group works as gardeners, who have more jobs outside of the rainy season. Overall respondents estimated about 40 residents from Karikuppam have a job at
the power plant. Most people, around 35, work as gardeners, sweepers or do security work. About 5 people have a job that requires more skilled labor. One of these I interviewed on a Sunday. This young man was 26 years old and had finished his degree in Engineering at the Anna University. He has a good salary of 9000 rupees per month with also a pension fund and insurances. Even though, he says “I would be happy if the power plant was closed, even if I would lose my job”. He says this because of the pollution the power plant causes for their village. Meanwhile I have spoken to a lot of people who have applied multiple times for a job in the power plant but did not get any. One of the residents I spoke to has gone really far to get a job, this story is told below in Box 3.
19 Mr. A, Age: depends who you ask…
Before the power plant came he worked as an agricultural laborer for landowning Muslim families. There he did all kinds of agricultural related works such as harvesting and cutting weeds. When the landowners all sold their land to the power plant he didn’t have a job anymore. He applied for a job at the factory, but the factory man said that they would never give a job to him because he was too old. He says that because of the rules and regulations they don’t take people above 60. When I ask him his age he says 71. He was afraid that he wouldn’t get a job from the factory man. Therefore, he said to the factory manager that if he wouldn’t give him a job he would commit suicide by laying down in front of a fast driving factory truck. He says “I want the job
“The people of the power plant do not give us anything, but they do offer jobs to people from other states! Even to people from another country! But they don’t offer jobs to us. That’s really hurting me.”
Income
Despite the varying jobs, there was not much variation in total household income. Most households estimated their monthly income around 3000 – 5000 rupees. There were some outliers, one older widowed lady I spoke to works as a housekeeper in exchange for two meals a day and 500 rupees per month. On the other side there was a high educated young man who worked at the power plant for 9000 rupees per month. But overall I would say that the great majority has approximately the same household income. This of course, does not say that every household has the same costs. Our house owner for example had severe kidney problems. This not only led to the situation that he cannot work and provide income anymore, but also led to very high hospital bills. This of course puts a lot of pressure on the whole family income. This is an example of how precarious their livelihood is.
3.2 Quality of the environment
The arrival of the power plant to Karikuppam did also have far-reaching consequences for the direct environment of the residents of Karikuppam. During my interviews I asked the respondents if and so yes how, they had seen their environment change since the power plant came here. As came forward, the village used to have a very green surrounding (see also the satellite images, chapter 2). However, the factory meant change for this environment. The three most returning elements from my interviews: groundwater, air and sound, are discussed in the following paragraph.
Groundwater
A large majority of the residents I spoke to informed me about the change in groundwater quantity and quality. Most villagers cannot afford to buy canned mineral water, which costs 30 rupees per can of 20 Liters. They told me that since the coming of the factory the groundwater level has been dropping. At first they had to drill around 10 feet deep (about 3 meter) and now they have to drill more than 30 feet deep (about 9 meter). That is why a lot of the hand pumps are now dry, including the one behind the house I was staying in. One woman told me she now gets really tired of pumping up
water because it takes a lot more energy to pump it up. Thereby, the quality of the groundwater has changed. During another interview the woman who I interviewed yelled something in Tamil to a little boy, and later he returned to us with a full bottle of groundwater. The water smells fine but it has a slight yellowish look. When she asks me to take I sip I first politely decline, knowing that this would not be a good idea, but she tells me to take a sip and spit it out immediately. For the sake of science, I decide to do it and taste the water. The water tasted quite normal, but had maybe a slight salty taste. At this point I run against my own limitations as it would be great to be able to take water samples. Sadly, this is not within my possibilities and research scope. This also means that I cannot say what the composition is of the groundwater and how this is affecting the villager’s health. However, I am certain that the groundwater level is dropping and that the quality of the water is probably
20 Figure 2: Amount of respondents that mentioned the element of the environment
The owner S. (32) tells me he studied engineering at the Anna University. He shows me around his water company which he started with his friend about 3 years ago. They chose this location because of the very good taste and quality of the water. In the beginning they didn’t even have
“The water is not drinkable anymore. It is not even suitable anymore for cooking rice.” Mrs. K 17
9
12 Element of the environment
Groundwater Air Sound A m o u n t o f re sp o n d en ts
deteriorating. Also because I interviewed the owner of the nearby water company Aifa (see Box 4 below).
Air
Another element of the environment that has deteriorated is the air quality. The factory generates electricity by the burning of coal. Therefore, the power plant chimney emits particles which
contaminate the surrounding area, among which the village and the nearby fields. This creates, what the residents describe as ‘a dusty look of the village’. One of my respondents took me to his garden and showed me his banana trees. On his trees, and every tree in the surrounding, a layer of dust is visible on the leaves (Picture below). He says that this was not the case before the power plant came. The dust is bad for his trees, but also for us he says. Some people suffer from nasty coughs, which they link to the dust of the power plant. Also, during the rainy season this layer of dust runs off and can thereby leach into the soil and further down to the groundwater.
Picture taken 6 May 2016, shows the dirt layer on tree leaves. Sound
Another element which was mentioned often during the interviews was sound. These remarks can be divided in two parts, the first about the enormous noise during construction phase, and secondly the subtler but still irritating high sound the factory now produces. Before the construction phase could begin, a lot of trees were cut down in order to make place. This already caused nuisance, but the noise of the construction phase was described
to me as tremendous. During this time, large machines did a lot of drilling and building which caused a lot of noise. This coincided with an increase in traffic lorries and motorcycles from and to the factory. This main building period
took around 2 years, although the plant is still expanding, but with varying intensity and sound levels. When it was build, there was a lot of noise, even inside the house. People sitting next to each other couldn’t
But also besides the building the factory produces an irritating sound. This I experienced myself during my stay in Karikuppam. When you go near the wall it becomes clearer, but it is actually always there on the background. It is the sound of a high electricity voltage. At first I did not really notice it, but once you hear it, it does not really leave. It can be compared a bit by the sounds of the electric machinery in an average Dutch household. It is when you unplug the refrigerator before going on a holiday, that you notice how much that sound was bothering you. This also applies on a larger scale to residents of Karikuppam who say that they suffer from amnesia, headaches and more stress due to this sound.
Some unclear causal relations
What is problematic with these observations I retrieved by talking to residents, is that there is an unclear direct casual relation between their problems and the power plant. For example, it could be that the factory is (partly) using groundwater as cooling water. Which could be the cause for the lowering level of groundwater. On the other hand, the groundwater depletion could be caused by increased extraction throughout the whole water basin. This could be done by separate households, farms, factories et cetera which could accumulate to a non-sustainable amounts extraction. Or by a combination of both factors. Also, if the factory is not using groundwater, it could still be a source of contamination by leakage of contaminated cooling water. Or it could be that the smoke of the factory, that is deposited on the land, leaks into the groundwater with heavy rainfall during the monsoon. And (or), due to climate change, the replenishing of the groundwater could have become less than zero, which leads the groundwater to become more depleted and concentrated. Due to depletion of groundwater there could also be seepage of seawater into the freshwater basin.
Whichever causal relation applies here remains unclear and should be part of further research. The same thing applies here that this research cannot solidly state that the power plant is the (only) cause for this declining air quality. However, it seems logical to assume that the factory has a major part in this. It is without a doubt that the plant is causing the sound disturbance. What is however important to remember, is that for the residents of Karikuppam it is without a doubt that the arrival of the power plant caused all the effects previously described in this chapter.
3.3 Social consequences
Besides its influence on employment and the quality of the environment, the coming of the factory has also social consequences.
One respondent explained to me how the coolie work used to not only provide them with a steady income, but it also strengthened the social ties within the village. This is because a large part of the Vanniyar community also used to work as an agricultural laborer and some of them were even land owners. Because they worked together and had to cooperate, their relationships used to be good. During the harvest time they used to talk a lot during their work about their families and other stuff. They even invited each other to their functions (weddings, funerals). This all changed when they lost their jobs as agriculture coolies, due to the buying of the agricultural land by IL&FS. Since then, the relationship with the Vanniyar caste has
watered and worsened. This is also because the previously landowning Vanniyar members now do not need to
“If employers would treat us badly, we would all go to another employer. That is why our employers used to treat us well, they knew they needed us. Now this is not possible anymore.” Mrs. U
be kind to the Parayan caste anymore, because they are not dependent anymore on them as laborers.
Another returning element of the conversations I had is corruption. One respondent in particular told me a lot about the corruption in India and also how this corruption method was used to divide the villagers. A woman who I met is also a sweeper in the factory. She tells us she got this job only because someone she knew told her that there was a job available and this person had already spoken for her to the factory people. She did not really enjoy talking about this, because this is a sensitive subject because a lot of people have applied multiple times for a job in the power plant but did not get any.
Lastly, the power plant has also caused some people to feel hopeless and scared. Most residents see no future for their children anymore in Karikuppam, as the water is contaminated and the factory is only growing. Some state they
would like to move to other locations, but they do not have the resources. Others want to stay till they are chased away. A lot of elders long back for the life they used to live before. One elder woman tells me it hurts her to look at the power plant. The villagers are also scared about the health
consequences. More people are having problems with their kidneys because of the polluted drinking water. Others say they are suffering from coughs or itching skin. A story about a stillborn, deformed child also goes around which causes fear among the residents.
Summarizing
A large majority of the residents of Karikuppam has a negative opinion about the arrival of the power plant to their area. Indirectly, the power plant has caused a lot of unemployment by buying up a lot of surrounding agricultural land, where the residents used to work as agricultural laborers. Directly, the factory does not provide the villagers with employment to the same quantity and quality as they had before. Thereby, the quality of their direct environment is deteriorating since the coming of the factory. The groundwater level is dropping and its quality is declining, although this study was not able to determine a direct causal relationship between these effects and the power plant. Also, the quality of the air, and the noise nuisance are consequences which concern the residents. Lastly, the power plant brought along significant social consequences, primarily because the loss of joint
agricultural employment weakened the social ties between the two castes in the village. Thereby, the factory is cause for stress and it causes fear for the possible health problems it brings along.
“Wherever I look I see loss of work, loss of life. I get tensions wherever I go, the noise is horrible, sometimes it is really bad. When I have to get water my shoulders hurt because the pump is so dry. With the farmer land it was peaceful, now the land is making smoke. I don’t know what
Chapter 4: Collective Action, and the lack thereof
When reading the above it is probable that, among others, one big question arises: Why is the whole village not constantly protesting against this power plant? This question was also an important explorative part of this study. In the following, the protest that has been is described using the data collected in the interviews. Subsequently, reasons for the current absence of protest are put forward, some are directly extracted from the interviews, others are put forward from my own understanding. These reasons might be tested in follow-up studies.
Protest that has been
From my interviews with the residents of Karikuppam I learned that there has actually been collective protest against the power plant. When it became evident to most residents that there would come a power plant, leaders of the village called everyone together and the whole village protested near the main gate (the fencing was already in place). These leaders were mostly the Parayan headman and another active member of the community. Also, what is remarkable that the other caste joined them in the protest against the coming of the factory. They demanded together that the power plant would ‘go away’, that it should not be build. This first reaction could be thought of as the community response that any community would have, as it is probable that not one village likes the thought of a large-scale factory bordering their gardens. In this sense this case could also partly be seen as a ‘Not In My BackYard’ case, also known as the ‘NIMBY’ phenomenon in environmental sciences. This means that people like the benefits of services, such as electricity, but do not want the nuisance of the creation of these nearby their homes. However, it is clear that this community was not able to prevent the power plant for being build, nor did they receive any compensation or were they so much as asked their opinion about it. I would think that it is correctly to assume that this would not be possible in the Netherlands, as the rights of civilians are much better protected here by law and the executors of this law. And although this protest is even said to have reached the news, there was no reaction from the power plant but to call the police who broke up the protest.
After this, a small group of residents deepened research into the coming of the power plant, but discovered that the Ministry of Environment and Forests had already given its approval (May 2010) and the environmental assessment had also already been approved. Nevertheless, together with four more educated residents, they managed to get
a stay order from the court. However, after two months this stay order was nullified with a Rapid Cumulative Environmental Impact Assessment Report from the Pollution Control board. The residents say that this board has been bought off by IL&FS.
After the stay order was nullified, there was another large-scale protest near the main gate. But, the demand of the protest had changed to employment, namely at least one job per family at the factory. This decision for change in demand was made by the headman, and already caused discontent among some of the villagers, who still thought that the power plant should move. During this protest, representatives of the plant showed up and promised the people jobs in the power plant. This led the people to return to their homes. During the construction phase quite a lot of people had work on the terrain, however not many jobs remained for them after completing the factory.
“We only found out about the power plant when the paperwork was already for 90% done, and the power plant already started building.” Mr. K
Finally, there has been one more collective protest which took place in the days after cyclone Thane hit the area in the first days of 2012. This cyclone caused a lot of flooding in the area, and the power plant had to take care of residents in the area. But they only provided the residents with 5 kg of rice and one bedsheet per family. This outraged the residents which lead to a new collective protest at the main gate. During that time the villagers also wrote a letter and some brought it to the office of the collector (the administrator of the districts). In the letter it was explained what was going on in Karikuppam during the floods. That the people had no good housing, no water and they did not receive any benefit from the government. But, a resident told me, the Collector said “I don’t know where Karikuppam is, please go away”. Further collective action remains absent for about 4 years already.
Collective action theory
There is an ongoing scientific debate around collective action and ways to predict it. Most research revolves around the question: What is it that mobilizes people to participate in social protest?
(Zomeren, Postmes & Spears, 2008). Klandermans (2015) divides collective action into four elements which, when present, can lead an individual of a community to participate in collective action. These four elements are: Instrumentality, Identity, Ideology and Anger. He explainsInstrumentality the objective to influence your social and political situation.Identity is about participating in collective action to expression your identification with a group.The Ideology element is seen as participating to be able to express your own views about the matter. Finally, Anger amplifies and accelerates an individual’s motive to participate, and makes motivation turn into action.
From the interview data appears that all these four elements are more or less in place for individual residents of Karikuppam. This creates the potential for collective action. However, it does not automatically mean that it really leads to action. As can be seen in the three protests, there was sudden change in the process, which lead to collective action. When the residents first found out there was a protest, when the stay order was nullified there was a protest, and after Cyclone Thane there was a protest. There were sudden changes, which lead to a collective outburst of anger from the villagers who are already frustrated about the course of events. These sudden changes led to anger, which led to the transformation from the potential to actual collective action. Even though, why does this potential for collective action not lead to more actual action? Are the residents ‘not angry enough’ to make their motivation turn into action?
The article of Zomeren, Postmes & Spears (2008) integrates all previous scientific literature on collective action into an overarching Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA). The authors propose Social Identity as the central element which leads to collective action because it directly motivates collective action. They understand Social Identity as peoples’ subjective sense of
identification with a group (Zomeren, Postmes & Spears, 2008). Social Identity refers to the socially shared understandings of what it means to be a group member (Ibid.). From this it follows that the lack of collective action by the residents of Karikuppam can mostly be explained by a lack of identification of the residents with each other. There is a lack of identification among the villagers with each other which leads to a too ‘weak’ Social Identity which hinders collective action. Only when there were sudden changes in the process of the power plant, which caused a lot of anger, the differences and disagreements within the community were overcome and collective action appeared. This lack of identification can be explained by the interview data I collected, from which appeared that the community is internally divided. Of course, this cannot be the only reason for the lack of collective action, which is why the following also puts forward further explanations.
Possible reasons for lack of transformation potential to actual collective action
From the interview data, literature and my own acquired insights, I derive the following explanations why the potential for collective action is not more reached.
- Internal division of the community
The most important explanation for the lack of collective action is that the residents of Karikuppam are internally divided. Of course, there are the two separate castes in the village between which there are almost no ties. Thereby there is also a division within the Parayan community itself. There are people who still demand that the power plant should move away, and there are people who demand for jobs. Some of the residents already have a job within the power plant which is unpopular with strong opponents from the factory. The opponents state that this is a sneaky way of the factory to internally divide the community. Thereby there are also some residents who are unhappy with the headman’s leadership. Some younger men said that he is becoming old and does not have the spirit to fight the power plant. Besides this the community is also divided by unrelated, long-time family quarrels. During my interview I spoke to several people who did not speak to certain parts of their family anymore. This makes the village of course all the smaller, which is related to the following point.
- Small community size
The community of Karikuppam is quite small with about 700 residents in total. This also includes the elderly and young children who are of course not likely to go for fervent action. This makes the pool of residents ‘suitable’ for collective action only smaller.
- Poverty leads to other priorities
There is poverty in the village which is why most residents have an attitude of ‘first food than protest’. People simply cannot afford to become long-time protesters since they have to look for a job every day, and activism takes a lot of time. Or they or their family member have a job by the power plant, which people do not want to risk by protesting. This also connects to the next point.
- Feeling of disempowerment against the power plant
There is a large feeling of disempowerment against the power plant. Most residents feel like there is no value in protesting because they are not heard or the people who are important do not listen to them anyway. One resident stated “It is impossible to stop them, they are a big power plant and we are only a small village. We can’t do anything.”
- Absence of political tradition or social networks for action
The village has no long-term social organization or political tradition which would have made it more easy to set of collective protests, or an organized campaign for example with the media. Mainly fisher communities are quite successful in setting up these kind of campaigns. This is mostly due to their already good organized communities (Bavinck, 2008; Gill, 2007). They are, through their work as fishermen, already part of a complex organized structure. This is absent and even contrary in Karikuppam.
- Internal community competition instead of cooperation
During the interviews I discovered that most of the men are competing for work instead of working together. Most men work as contract painters and leave every day to a mastri. However, only about half of the men get chosen for the job, and the other half returns home. There is thus competition
and not cooperation, which leads to no existing social structures to collectively decide to strike and protest for example. There is no structure in place to prevent free riders, who still go working when others protests, which makes it less likely people will protest.
- Culture leads to excluding women from initiating protest
Although for the constitution equals (Constitution of India, 2015, Article 15), the women in Indian culture are still seen by most as subordinate to men. This leads to the exclusion of half the residents of Karikuppam as initiators of collective action, as the opinion of women are not listened to or taken serious by most men. Collective action therefore has to come from the men, and when the husband goes the women are likely to follow.
- Relatively low education level
The average education level in Karikuppam lies between the 5th and 10th standards, with exceptions to both sides. This is quite a low education level because most people are not able to easily read or write in Tamil. This limits the ability of these residents severely, as they are not able to read themselves about the progress of for example court cases, or write to government departments.
- Promises from power plant as sops
When the people of Karikuppam did unite and protested, they received assurances from the power plant representatives about jobs. These sops, although according to some recorded on paper, are not complied with. This led them to initially lay down protest, but who knows when this will come back in the future.
Summarizing,the above explains that there has been collective action against the power plant. This mostly took place when there was an important change in the whole process. After this initial fierce protesting, the protesting fades due to possible reasons which are described above. Overall, the protesting has not been successful in that the demands of the residents are not met by the power plant.
Conclusion and discussion
This thesis revolved around the small village of Karikuppam in Tamil Nadu, India. The villagers have experienced substantial change in their way of life since the arrival of the power plant in 2011 to their area. This study’s objective was to gain insight into the answer(s) on the following question: How can the lack of collective action by the Dalit community against the large-scale land sale case be
explained?
The 30 interviews that were conducted revealed that a large majority of the residents has a negative opinion on the coming of the power plant to Karikuppam. This negative opinion is caused by the negative consequences the power plant has on employment, the environment and the social life of the villagers. The employment quantity and quality has declined compared to the situation before. Thereby, the quality of their direct environment is deteriorating. The groundwater level is dropping and its quality is probably declining. Although this study was not able to determine a direct causal relationship between these effects and the power plant. Also, the quality of the air, and the noise nuisance are consequences which lead the residents to have a negative opinion about the power plant. In addition, the power plant brought along significant social consequences, primarily because the loss of joint agricultural employment weakened the social ties between the two castes in the village. Lastly, the factory is cause for stress and causes fear for the possible health problems it brings along.
Subsequently, the interview data displayed that there has been collective action against the power plant on three separate occasions. In addition, the potential for more collective action is present (Klandermans, 2015), but this potential is but seldom ‘triggered’ toward actual collective action. From the elements which were elaborated in the previous chapter I found that there is a multitude of possible reasons which can be put forward as reasons for the ‘lack of’ collective action in the Dalit community against the power plant. The most important reason is that there is a lack of Social Identity (Zomeren, Postmes & Spears, 2008) among the residents of Karikuppam. This is caused by a lack of identification of the residents with each other. Which is there because of internal division of the community. Other possible reasons that are put forward are the small size of the village, which leads to a small number of people who are ‘suitable’ for (initiating) collective protest. Also, prevailing poverty leads most residents to prioritize other things above protesting. Overall there was a feeling of disempowerment against the power plant, caused partly by the unsuccessful earlier protests. Also, there was an absence of political tradition or social networks for action, which made hijacking of these for action against the power plant impossible. Primarily within the male employment sector there was case of internal community competition instead of cooperation, which does not ease the path for collective action. Thereby, the broader Indian culture still leads to the reality that excludes most women of initiating protest. Average education levels in the village were quite low, which makes it hard or impossible for residents to participate in the debate about the power plant in a non-direct verbal manner. Finally, representatives of the power plant made promises during the protests which eventually are not held up, it appeased protests at that time, although this can be a cause for another protest in the future.
