Cleaning Up The Ganges

I'm off for Niigata this weekend, but a story on the Ganges caught my eye. I have written about Japan's rivers previously, but none are "holy" in the sense that India has historically revered what is actually the largest river and river delta on earth. Japan seems to have had more spiritual feelings for its numerous mountains, including Mt. Fuji.

In India, the problem is that since the 1970s, the Ganges is increasingly polluted. A campaign, “Awiral Ganga, Nirmal Ganga: From Gangotri to Ganga Sagar”, aims to clean up the holy river right from its source in the Himalayas to where it drains into the Bay of Bengal at Ganga Sagar in West Bengal. They want to reduce pollution and demand national heritage status for the river.

Not a minute too late. At stake are deeply held spiritual values, notes The Times:

A coalition of gurus has issued an ultimatum to India’s fragile Government: purify the chronically polluted Ganges, the river revered by Hindus, or face protests and political ruin.

Ganga Raksha Manch, a newly formed alliance of celebrity holy men, is demanding urgent action to cleanse the holy waterway, which has become a noxious cocktail of human and industrial waste, before a general election that must be held before May.

The movement, which holds sway over countless devotees’ votes, is being led by Baba Ramdev, a yoga teacher and spiritual leader who has won tens of millions of followers through his combination of anti-Western diatribe and a cable television show.

If the Government did not pay heed to the call for saving the Ganges, the agitation would take “a fierce turn”, he said.

Is the Ganges just a river? The story of the descent of Ganga: Ganga, a heavenly river was brought down to the earth through the efforts of the ruler Bhagiratha.

The tide of change that has engulfed humanity in the last two centuries - through the industrial revolution and beyond has inevitably left its mark on the Ganges. Industries upstream discharge their effluents into this river, once known for its purity, rendering the waters unsafe for consumption. While it used to be considered meritorious to die and be cremated in Benares, the very belief causes further pollution of the river - given the un-sustainable rate at which partially cremated cadavers are dumped into the river.

The dawn of the information revolution and the internet has brought thoughts from around the world in close contact as never before. As a newly generated affluence generated by the boom in the information industry spreads across the world, life styles across the Indian subcontinent are undergoing a sea change. It is only a matter of time, before a semi-urban style of life will establish itself in hitherto remote areas.

In spite of these waves of change, the core of the Indian belief in the interconnectedness of life remains unchanged. The simple act of thanksgiving - through the offering of a clay lamp, on a leaf with a few petals of fresh flowers to the life sustaining waters of the Ganges, at the culmination of the Ganga Aarti - carried out even today - night after night at Haridwar where the Ganga enters the plains is a standing testimony to this immutable undercurrent of Indian thought.

From The Ganga: Then and Now

Art of Living Japan

The Times (UK): Polluted Ganges must be cleaned, gurus demand


The Times of India: 250 religious heads flag off save Ganga campaign in Delhi