From pollution to politics, Ganga has travelled a long way

From pollution to politics, the Ganga has travelled a long way

The river Ganga – a symbol of India's culture and civilization – descended to the earth from heaven at Gangotri. It is said that to reduce the impact of its fall, Lord Shiva allowed the river to fall through his locks.

Over the years, the river became prey to severe pollution and raised a cause of concern among the environmentalists. However, today, Ganga has rounded off into a political issue, being cashed on by politicians.

The 21st century Yoga guru Baba Ramdev volunteerd to save Ganga from pollution and is attending meetings of several organisations. He also formed a Ganga Raksha Manch. Baba Ramdev stated that all organisations working to make the river pollution free, would now make joint efforts in the direction. The Yoga guru also said that he would be pitching in his contemporaries, like, Murari Bapu and Asa Ram Bapu for the cause.

The Baba's campaign also forced the Uttarakhand Chief Minister BC Khanduri to shelve two Hydel Power Projects Pala Maneri and Bhairogahti.

Nevertheless, ironic facts emerge if one goes deep into this sudden awakening towards this Indian legacy dying a slow death.

The first one to rant about Ganga was Mayawati, the Chief Minister of India's most populous and one of the most backward, poor and illiterate state - Uttar Pradesh. Last year, Mayawati announced the construction of a 1,047 kilo metre long eight-lane expressway along the banks of Ganga from Ballia to Greater NOIDA. The aim was to join Eastern parts of the state with the nation's capital.

Thus, Ganga became cause of concern for all.
Suddenly pollution in Ganga became a major issue for the national political party Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) - "Ganga is a sacred river for Hindus and the project entailing development of industrial pockets along the river bank, will aggravate pollution in the river," BJP state president Ramapati Ram Tripathi came out with his statement. "Till now, industrial units and leather tanneries in Kanpur were dumping pollutants into the river, now industrial pockets along the expressway will result in more industrial effluents flowing freely into the Ganga," he was underlining facts that his party never touched before. What followed was similar statements by other political parties, colouring the newspapers.

Incidentally, no politician or organisation talked about the multi-crore Ganga Action Plan (GAP), an ambitious government project, which could have changed the pathetic face of river – provided it was implemented with an honest political will.

When the former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi launched the first phase of GAP at Rajendra Prasad ghat in 1985-86, the objective was to set up sewage treatment plants, electric crematoria and toilets in over two dozen cities of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

Generous grants and loans from Netherlands, World Bank and other Development banks in the US, England, France and Japan poured in - all in vain.

However, the holiest of all rivers, Ganga shrank due to rapid industrial growth, increasing human habitation and of course, religious practices, which converted the river into a drain of floating carcasses, factory effluents, sewage and plastic.

Even today, pharmaceutical units in Haridwar and tanneries in Kanpur unabatedly continue to ravage the river with the release of toxic cadmium, chromium, lead and acetone. The faecal contamination in Varanasi is so high as to register a coliform count of 80,000 per ml, whereas the safe limit for drinking water is 10 per 100 ml, a report says.

An electric crematorium at Kanpur, set-up under Phase I of GAP, never functioned due to power crisis. The GAP also envisaged cleaning the river naturally by releasing 30,000 turtles to feed on the organic waste and corpses, but the plan failed due to rampant poaching.

Many organisations spoke for the cause in the meanwhile – religious leaders like Jagadguru Swaroopanand and Chinmayanand used their positions to appeal to the public and tried disseminating importance and urgency of cleaning the river.

A professor of hydrolic engineering at the Institute of Technology of Banaras Hindu University, Veer Bhadra Mishra, who is also the Head Mahant of Sankat Mochan temple, started independent water testing in his laboratory, Swatchha Ganga Research Laboratory - set up in collaboration with a Swedish Society for Nature Protection.

Unfortunately, despite heavy investments and efforts by the government, various independent organisations and individuals, Ganga, even today, remains as polluted as ever and the cleaning of the river simply becomes a fight of words amongst the politicians.