Cleansing Mother Ganges

"Man becomes pure by the touch of the water, or by consuming it, or by expressing its name":  Lord Vishnu (describing Ma Ganga, the divine goddess) in the Sanscrit poem Ramayana.     

There is something tragic that the River Ganges should be seen as both divine and pure while, down the ages and along its 1,550 miles, it has killed millions of people. Another name for the  Ganges River is Light Among The Darkness!  What a name: when the opposite is true!   Hindu holy men (CBN News Feb 6 2007) wonder how people can do this to their esteemed river, which is a living goddess to them.   "How can the Ganges be dirty?" asks a worshipper at Varanasi, as he throws the putrid soup over his body,  "Ma Ganga's waters can wash away sin. We drink it in, we worship its waters."  Sadly, worshippers down the ages believe this. But Ma Ganga has let them down.

Ma Ganga kills - slowly:      While respecting the sensitivities of Hindus, we need a way of shouting out loudly and clearly:  "The waters along this river are bad for your health and may even kill you".  Maybe we should add: "It has already killed 30,000 people this year". This might shock a reader or two.  But something dramatic needs to be done, since the Indian government keep silent. The amount of sewage dumped in the river has doubled since the 1990s.   Yet Singh's government plays down this damage. It refuses to publish the figures on the toxic state of these waters. Someone needs to put up a sign along the river banks at 100 feet intervals:  "Today, we have emptied 80 million more tons of fresh, stinking sewage in these waters - have a nice day". And the industry bosses along the banks, who shove out millions of tons of lethal waste, needs to join the chorus:  We've added our dyes, our chemicals and our sewage:  we've done it for years;  sorry!"

The World Health Organisation says the coliform bacteria count in the Ganges is 3,000 times higher they it considers safe.  The  40,000 people who engage in ritualistic bathing at Varanasi  are likely to pick up serious diseases.  "Polluted river water is the biggest cause of skin problems, disabilities and high infant mortality rates," says Suresh Babu, deputy coordinator of the River Pollution Campaign at the Center for Science and the Environmet (CSE), a watchdog group in New Delhi (see their video:  Faecal Attraction). World Watch Institute, Washington, says that eight out of ten Indians already suffer from major stomach complaints.  Some people claim that half those who bathe in the Ganges regularly suffer from skin or stomach complaints.  It happens day in, day out.

The problem is real. This toxic soup destroys the lives of the 350 million people who live along its banks.  NowPublic's Parthab says: "I am a Hindu myself but I frankly admit the Hindu religion is very very dirty. You visit any goddamn Hindu religious place on the map and you reach a polluted heaven. The basic nature of all these places is that they will attract an enormous number of pilgrims all round the year and all the puja and parab and bathing in the sacred river and stuff pollutes the 'sacred' Ganges river. Right from Haridwar and Varanasi down to the burning ghats of Kolkata". (NowPublic, August 17, 2008).  Sunita Narain (CSE) coined the phrase:  "Incredible India, drowning in its excreta!"  (Well said, Sunita!).  And yet still people come in their millions to the festivals each year;  many probably return to their homes sick!  The Hindu adoration of Ma Ganga can itself contribute to the problem. It presents a romantic view of Ma Ganga that conflicts with the grim realities. If worshippers insist that Ma Ganga brings health and purity, how can the authorities stop pilgrims and the relatives of the dying polluting her waters?

Sick from shouting:  Of course, people do complain about the River.  Over the last thirty years or so, huge numbers have done so.  NowPublic's own Amyjudd wrote on Aug 15 2008 about Ganga Raksha, a group of celebrity holy men, led by Baba Ramdev.  They have issued an ultimatum to the government:  clean up of face protests. Then there is Swatcha Ganges Abhiyaan, (Campaign for a Clean Ganges), has been fighting fiercely for change since 1982.    As Amyjudd reported,  some of the holy men went on hunger strikes to get something done.And they have been successful.  Up to a point...... Also, various international experts come and go, drawing up plans from time to time.  The Japanese arrived with big ideas.  Then the Australians came.... But, in development jargon, the local stakeholders didn't 'own' the plans.  No one in authority really 'took the bull by the horns' to do something effective.

Ganges Action Plan Fiasco:   Then, in 1986, the late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, went to Banaras.  He launched a new Ganges Action Plan, to much applause.  It would clean the waterway in 29 cities.  This would at last clear up the nastiness of Ma Ganga, restoring her to her rightful place in bringing light once again to the darkness.  In 2008, The Economist (17 July) pointed out that:    "In Varanasi, the state government of Uttar Pradesh (UP) has built three treatment plants with a total capacity of around 100m litres of sewage a day. But Varanasi produced 150m litres when they were built, and may now produce twice this amount. Moreover, the plants rarely operate at full capacity. During frequent power cuts, the sewage flows untreated into the Ganges. During rainy seasons—around five months of each year—the river floods the plants’ sump wells, with the same effect". This is the kind of result achieved by the plan so far.

According to CBN News Feb 6th 2007, over $300 million was spent.  The Ethical Record (June 2005) reckons the Plan now employs a bureaucracy of 27,000 people.  It's possible, knowing something of the power of India's civil service, although I personally doubt it.  The minister responsible admitted little has been achieved and said a further $1.5 billion was required. Some people say that the holy men  have too close ties with corrupt politicians. Swatcha Abhiyaan's Dr Mishran told CBN News:  "These officials must be humiliated! They must be embarassed that they are allowing the Ganges to be dirtied".  Cleaning up Mother Ganga was, of course, a massive undertaking.  In all, 103 cities lie in the Ganges Basin. The Auditor General now says that the Plan 'was formulated without proper assessment of actual ground realities'.  It makes you wonder what all those bureaucrats were actually doing apart from drawing their salaries!

More of the same:   The government wants to build even more treatment plants like those in Varanasi: expensive and unsuccessful ones, says Mian Ridge (Christian Science Monitor, July 22, 2008).  In 1991, five years after the plan began,  Swatcha Abhiyaan's Dr Mishra announced:  "The Plan quite simply failed".  It was sloppily put together with no real consensus or commitment between the authorities involved. OK; some sewage plants were built along the river.  But many of the towns and cities involved did not have enough energy to keep these sewage plants working; or they could not afford to pay the power bills!  When the plants stopped because of power failures, it took a long time to get them restarted.  Nevertheless, the Plan did help to some extent.  Some experts say the system set up did remove solid waste but not micro-organisms (the source of infections). Swatcha Abhiyaan's Dr Mishra, with support from the municipal government, wants a cheaper sort, the 'advanced integrated wastewater pond system' (says Mian Ridge), designed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.  This relies on gravity and naturally occurring bacteria and uses almost no power.  So far, a pilot plant plant has been built.  If that is succesful, there could be more of them.  In London, we still have this system (it works well). The sewage is filtered to remove large stuff, then mixed with bacteria that eats up organic matter, and allowed to settle. The liquid (free of micro-organisms) gets discharged into the Thames while the solid stuff is left to dry into a sludge.  Some of it gets burnts: the rest is sold as cheap fertiliser.  Here, surely is a wonderful opportunity for India to pioneer a new industry to sell to all the world's shanty town communities!  (India's bloated civil service could do with a dollop of lateral thinkers like me!). Thames Water copes with the sewage from 14 million people:  it is talking about converting the sludge into energy.  Civil servants:  are you listening?

Ganges River Authority:  On February 17, this year, after announcing that the River Ganges was to be recognised as a 'national river' (what's a national river?), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up the Ganga River Basin Authority (GRBA).  This will take responsibility for managing the basin properly (so everyone hopes).  The chief secretaries of the Ganga Basin states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal presumably agree fully with this (some. like Bihar, are dirt poor!). The GRBA will be chaired by Mr Singh, along with the chief ministers of the Ganga basin states and the appropriate federal ministers. We wish them all luck.  Organising such crafty politicians across five states will be enormously difficult, given India's propensity to create political squabbles left, right and centre.  And it will take huge organisational skills to get agreement on specific time defined goals.  And to achieve them.

India's impotence:    As The Economist article points out, India has many first rate environmental laws. And it has lots of money. Since the 1985 Action Plan, India put by $1.2 billion for cleaning its rivers. The Ganges and the tributary, Yamuna, were allotted half the money. Less than half has been spent so far.  The magazine points out that "rare campaign victories by dogged activists, backed by the courts, are rightfully celebrated in India". They rarely occur. The CSE 2001 campaign to convert Delhi’s buses and taxis from diesel to gas, to reduce air pollution, was one example. "But these are exceptional cases amid a pervasive institutional weakness. Clueless local governments; corrupt state governments; feuding, overburdened central government: all three have played a part in the Ganges foul-up. To achieve relatively clean economic growth India will have to overcome these frailties, even as its capacity to pollute soars". But there's more to cleaning Ma Ganga than tackling the sewage and industrial waste.  Someone will need to stop the 3,000 bodies a year floating down Ma Ganga. Someone, too, will need to tell relatives of the dead that Ma Ganga no longer wishes them to build funeral pyres along her banks.

Note: The video, Faecal Attraction, is supplied by the Centre for Science and the Environment, New Delhi, not me.  The CSE is one of the many groups campaigning over the River Ganges.  They have produced five of these videos, although for some reason NowPublic wouldn't copy the others.  Is this blatant censorship, I ask myself! I call on all right  (left ones as well) minded brothers and sisters in the NowPublic fraternity (as well as sourority) to join me in a massive, worldwide strike as the clock strikes twelve Midnight tonight.  Dont Forget!