The Fate of Ganga

 

The Ganga, named the Ganges by the British, originates in the Himalayas and flows through Varanasi on its way to the Bay of Bengal. The Hindu faith reveres the river as a goddess and professes it to be charged with purifying energy.

The Ganga is also Varanasi’s main water supply. Decades of industrial effluents and population explosion have put enormous strain on the ecosystem of the Ganges Basin. Contamination of the water has caused a quietly escalating health epidemic. Millions of people swim in the river and drink from it directly.

A host of nonprofit organizations, some with better reputations than others, have confronted river pollution in Varanasi. The reality is that it will take years – decades even – for any alleviation to have an effect on the turbid waters of the Ganga.

As the following interview excerpts reveal, many residents of Varanasi remain hopeful. Others lament that if present trends continue, the Goddess may soon abandon the river and all who depend on her. Interviews translated from Hindi are marked with an asterisk in the title.

 

 

Veer Bhadra Mishra, abbot of Sankat Mochan Temple and the founder of the Swatcha Ganga Foundation, who in 1999 was named a “Hero of the Planet” by Time Magazine

 

Ganga is the focal point of all India’s diversity. In her, differences of caste, creed, gender and nationality are dissolved. She is where our culture, faith, and philosophies meet. She supports the lives of four hundred million people. Forty percent of India’s population gets its water from this river system. Every day, sixty thousand people bathe along the seven kilometer stretch between the Assi and Varuna rivers, and among these are perhaps 1000 that I count as members of an endangered species of human being. These are the people who keep our faith and culture alive with their devotion.

Even though they believe that Ganga is divine nectar, that she cannot be polluted, they will still die if there is poison in the water. Along with them, India will die. That is what we have at stake. But I remain an optimist. I believe our world has a future, that we are not just going to crash. So I dream of a pure river – maybe not in my lifetime, but some day.

The practicing Hindus of today do not have any political platform from which they can interact with the modern world. We are not able to articulate ourselves, so the modern world does not know about us. Consequently the blame for the pollution of Ganga usually falls on us. It is said that because we believe religiously that Ganga is pure, that is why we allow it to become polluted. But this conception is totally wrong. It is because of our religious belief that you and I are talking now. Otherwise the name of Ganga would have been forgotten long ago.

The fact is, people who interact with the river are not responsible for the vast majority of its pollution. All the visible sources of pollution – detergents, plastic remnants from puja [ceremony], waste from cows and buffalo, and body parts from the cremation grounds – all of these account for only five percent of the overall problem. Ninety-five percent of the pollution comes from sewage and outlying industrial sources. The country must resolve itself to completely eliminate point source pollution as well as garbage from cities like Varanasi. We must make Ganga as happy as she was a hundred years ago.

 

Mannu Kumar Sahani, local worker in his early twenties *

 

After the Arti puja [a fire ceremony], everyone leaves garbage and flowers all over the place. I sweep everything up and load it into my boat. I row into the middle of the river and dump it in the current so it gets swept away. I want Ganga to be neat and clean – who doesn’t? She’s sick from all the pollution these days. It’s true, we can’t deny it. Look at the sewage canals that pump right into her. But she won’t die. You can’t say her days are numbered. Still, if all the sewage were pumped away from the city instead of right off the ghats, we’d be in a lot better shape.

 

 

Atin Mehra, photographer and filmmaker

 

On the ghats [steps along the river] I find inspiration in what doesn’t change. Old people still take their hearth ashes to the river before dawn, and they bathe as the sky gets light. Most peoples’ lives here are changing, but whenever I go to the ghats, I feel there is something apart from time.

Sunrise is very soft here. Maybe it’s like this on many rivers in the world, but in Varanasi it’s special. The far side of the river is totally empty, so the light that comes up before you is open and fresh. It’s a kind of light that I think you can never find in another city. At dawn, on the river, you realize what Varanasi is, with the sound of bells and cows, the peace.

The River Ganga is still a Goddess, but she’s become so old. She’s losing her power, year by year. This mother, she has more than a million children beating her and throwing shit on her. If the old city along Ganga changes, we will change too. If our generation doesn’t care about the ghats, what will become of the city? It will just be a page in the history books that says: Once, there was Varanasi, a city on the Ganga.

 

Dr. Choudhari, Professor of River Engineering

 

Whatever positive energy exists innately in water, somehow it is greatly magnified by the Ganga. Once the river had such power to create and sustain life that when people drank it, they were cured of all diseases. This was due to the soul of the water, its dharmic nature. It was the largest, most powerful river in the world. Millions and millions were directly or indirectly benefited by it.

Now, since we have turned this world upside down, we see the opposite. The Ganga has become the cause of disease. It is impure, a source of death. There is no soul left. All the energy is gone. Day by day, the water is more polluted. Expensive filters have become essential to drink it. Some people can afford filters, but what are poor people to do? In the summer, a great number suffer from jaundice.

How is it possible that the richest basin of the Ganga has become the poorest? That we kill the master of all rivers, pollute the element more vital to us than food, second only to air? Ganga has been diverted and forced into dams. The flow is obstructed; the water is degraded; the river is jailed. Why do we ignore the simplest of scientific facts?

It is shocking to see local people drink directly from the river. They do so because they are habituated. They are seasoned to the various diseases, so they become immune to an extent. But after some time, all the people here will fall deathly ill. When the Ganga becomes absolutely polluted, something truly venomous will emerge in Varanasi.

 

 

Chuno-ji, social worker and local politician *

 

Time hasn’t been good to the river and the ghats. They’re suffering from neglect and decay, what with the debris, garbage heaps and homeless cows all over the place. I remember when Ganga shimmered like glass and you could see far into her depths. Now the water is black.

Despite all the pollution, those who still believe in the purity of Ganga use river water to cook. They even drink water straight from the river. As for me, I never ingest it. I’m afraid of getting sick. Still, I believe in its medicinal properties. The extracts of Himalayan herbs are mixed in with all the pollution.

 

 

Dr. Kamla Pandit, poet and Professor of Sanskrit *

 

Bathing in Ganga is the sacrament which gives the most complete purification, but now most people bathe at home. In my view, if only Ganga became clean enough that we could safely bathe in her again, it would suffice for our religious needs in this age.

It is written in the purana [ancient holy texts] that Ganga will eventually vanish from our world. She has a three-pronged route through the separate realms of existence, and one of her routes leads to the netherworld, the world of demons. That is where the river will go when the Goddess finally leaves the earth. Then Ganga will exist in this world only as a stream of knowledge. If we do not clean her, naturally the Goddess will change course from her origin and flow into Tibet, or else she will lock herself into the glaciers. Finally she will retreat underground, and we will never see her again.

For this I blame everyone in the city, not just the engineers and experts. None of us has the right to assault an aspect of nature which is innately pure. We spit on the ghats and dirty the river in all sorts of ways, when we should be trying to augment the purity of its water. This is no way to live, no way to treat what is noble and mighty. We are the ones responsible for Ganga becoming poisoned and drying out. We are proving what is written in the purana, that after five thousand years Ganga will leave the earth. By our own actions we will lose her forever.

 

 

 

 

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