Expansion of Capital as Development: Does the People's Struggle Provide an Alternative?

Abstract

The struggle against the Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada, in the Palakkad district of Kerala, India, highlighted the livelihood challenges confronted by the residents, chiefly the marginalised sections, when the Coca-Cola plant extracted and depleted the aquifer and polluted the surface water in Plachimada during 2000 – 2005, challenging the people’s right to water. This paper critiques the neoliberal developmental strategy as synonymous with capital expansion. The data gathered from the ethnographic study done during 2018-19 is used to analyse the impact of the ecological destruction and the resultant economic, social and cultural effect on the Adivasis and Dalits, dependent on common property resources. The study will be situated within the more extensive debate on development by the State and Corporations during Neoliberalism. The paper critiques the neo-liberal model of development, the impact of the mass mobilisations by the affected communities and the stance of the governments, which is the principal vehicle for implementing the neoliberal development discourse. After analysing the mass mobilisation by the people under the leadership of the Adivasis, the paper argues that the mobilisations of the people is the sole way to counter the adoption of the hegemonic model of government in neoliberal period