Publication

Abstract : Expropriations of the Common Property Resources by certain interest groups and consequential protests by the public, essentially for subsistence rights have been topical in recent years. The present study examines the issues that led to protests against a multinational soft drink giant and the eventual closure of its unit. We adopted literature surveys, inductive qualitative content analysis, and interactions with activists, stakeholder representatives, and experts. Thus this paper deliberates upon the commons’ subtle privatisation, depriving the locals’ rights, and analyses how public institutions in the contemporary governance setup helped subdue local environmental security and citizen rights. We examine the instance of how some MNCs usurp the rights of the local inhabitants over the common environmental assets and insidiously damage the ecosystem in the pursuit of profit maximisation. The consistent grassroots-level protest at Plachimada, Kerala, is an example that reflects the civic power, chiefly by the women from the marginalised communities, the severity of the perceptible impacts on the local community and their tenacity to safeguard subsistence natural resources. Thus, the study contributes to environmental justice scholarship by discussing how the appropriation of common natural resources is enabled by governance structures, and how sustained, resistance from marginalised communities can effectively contest such dispossession, offering insights into the realpolitik of the commons in contemporary India. Hence, the study’s practical implication lies in revealing the need for embedding community rights and environmental justice principles further firmly within institutional and policy frameworks.