How rap drew attention to the HUL-Kodaikanal issue

Sofia Ashraf's interpretation of Nicki Minaj's 'Anaconda' drew attention towards the much neglected plight of the former factory workers

If it wasn’t for ex-advertising professional Sofia Ashraf's rendition of 'Kodaikanal Won't', a peppy rap song, the world would have hardly known about the issue plaguing the hill station and former workers of a plant located there.

Ashraf had released her video, set to the tune of singer Nicki Minaj's hit Anaconda, on July 30 last year.   The video garnered  three million views on YouTube and trended for four consecutive days on Twitter and Facebook.

While Ashraf had attempted something similar earlier, when she rapped about US major Dow Chemicals and its shirking of responsibility for the Bhopal gas tragedy caused by the company it acquired, namely, Union Carbide, the Kodaikanal episode was different.

Ashraf's video was part of Jhatkaa’s social media campaign. Following the release, Unilever’s Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman tweeted that he did not accept different standards, treating all humans as same and that he was determined to solve the issue at the earliest.

The settlement with former workers of the Kodaikanal plant comes within eight months of this, experts said.

In a communique, Jhatkaa said, "People power works. That’s the key lesson we’re drawing from today’s big announcement. We’ll continue to lift up the hundreds of thousands of voices who have joined this campaign since last July to ensure that Unilever now cleans up its mercury mess in Kodaikanal."

HUL, on the other hand, has maintained that a detailed project report about soil remediation within the factory site has been submitted to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) in August 2015. It is awaiting consent from TNPCB on the matter.