Save Ganga and Swami
By Deepak Parvatiyar
(Published in Indian Observor Post on 4th August 2018)
http://indianobserverpost.com/News-Detail.aspx?Article=69&WebUrl=web
Decades ago, in
1985, Bollywood’s showman late Raj Kapoor had made a Bollywood blockbuster Ram
Teri Ganga Maili. In English it means Ram your Ganga is dirty! Though
the film was about the physical exploitation of a woman throughout her journey
from the hills to the plains, the filmmaker was shrewd enough to make the woman
symbolize the Holy Ganga to make it more politically relevant at a time when
Rajiv Gandhi had just become the Prime Minister with a landslide victory and
also on an election plank of cleaning Ganga!
Today both Rajiv
and Raj are no more there and the filth has put the Ganga too on ventilator!
Today Ganga is breathing poison and this despite the crores that have been
pumped into it (at least on papers) to make her clean by removing the toxins from
her arterial route ever since Rajiv’s time! While Rajiv’s clean Ganga projects
flopped for publicly known reasons, the same land mafia-sand mafia-bureaucrat
-politician nexus today more ominously threatens to hasten the death of the
dying river.
A dying Ganga
means so far politicians have just paid lip service only to hoodwink
voters by playing with their sentiments. To name them would be a redundant
exercise for we all know who they are. But soon there won’t be any choice
either. After all, what can be more telling than the fact that Ganga’s water is
no more found fit for public consumption even at the holiest pilgrimage towns
on her banks including Kashi and Haridwar. Only recently, on July 27, the
National Green Tribunal (NGT) in one of its harshest chastisements of the
authorities, asked them to educate people by installing display boards at a gap
of 100 kilometres, indicating whether the Ganga water there was fit for
drinking and bathing – “If cigarette packets can contain a warning saying it is
‘injurious to health,’ why not the people be informed of the adverse effects
[of Ganga water].”
This public
admonishment of Ganga authorities by any court has come for the umpteenth time
but to no avail. Only a few days earlier, on July 19, the NGT had remarked that
even as the government had spent over Rs. 7,000 crore in two years
to clean the Ganga, it still remains a "serious environmental issue".
It went on to state: "Though the compliance affidavit may claim that all
the steps have been taken, the object of the directions in letter and spirit
and effect on the ground is not adequate…It is not possible to accept that the
Ganges is pollution free."
Even last year on
July 13, 2017, the NGT had rapped the government stating “It remains undisputed
before the Tribunal that no part of river Ganga and its tributaries is free of
pollution as of today…” It could be nothing short of a tragedy if a
court of law finds itself so helpless in getting its orders executed.
As it becomes
amply clear, a polluted Ganga means a money spinning racket for a select few
who are guided by their own vested interest. Just consider the remark made by
the NGT in July last year and this is quite revealing: “…violators must realize
their consistent defaults,… Deficiencies in the regulatory and supervisory
regimes are writ large from the record of the case.”
In May 2016 too,
the NGT had lamented that “The problem is that nobody wants to do anything [to
clean Ganga].”
Yet, it is not
that nobody wants to do anything to clean the Ganga. Ask millions of Ganga
devotees and they feel deceived time and again by the tall promises of the
political leaders. But they are as hapless as those who somehow ventured into
accumulating pressure on the authorities in their own humble ways. Just
consider that in 2011 34-year-old young Swami Nigmananda, who had been fasting
for almost four months since February 19, to protest illegal mining and stone
crushing along the Ganga near Haridwar had died at the Himalayan hospital in
Jollygrant in Dehradun. There was nobody to listen to his demands to save the
Ganga!
Ganga is accorded
the status of our National River but she is not just a river but a matter of
faith. For a Sadhu like Swami Nigamananda, she was much more. After all, in
Hindu mythology, she enjoys the exalted stature of a Devi (deity). She was the
mother of Bhishma. The Vedas mention her. Her water is still considered
sacrosanct by the Hindus. Her water had scientifically proven medicinal
properties which are hardly there anymore.
This time yet
another sadhu, Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, is sitting on an indefinite fast for
well over a month for the sake of the Holy Ganga. Unlike young Nigamananda, he
is 87-year-old and guided more by logic and scientific temper than mere
sentiments and faith. For him, Ganga is not a Devi but a
stream of water with healing properties. After all, Sanand aka Professor Guru
Das Agarwal, is one of the finest environmental scientists of the country too.
He had taught at one of the finest institutions of the country, the Indian
Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he had also held the position of head of the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering! In 2002, his former students at IIT-Kanpur conferred on him the
Best Teacher Award. He has guided many Masters and Doctoral students who are
now leaders in the field of environmental engineering and science.
Besides,
he was also the first Member Secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board.
He had studied civil engineering at the University of Roorkee (now IIT
Roorkee), and had obtained a Ph.D in environmental engineering from the
prestigious University of California.
A
respected scholar, he has many scientific publications too under his name and
has in the past served as member in various government committees for improving
environmental quality of the country. Although he renounced the world to become
an ascetic in 2011, his knowledge on Ganga cannot be overlooked. In fact he is
notable for his successful fast in 2009 to stop the damming of the Bhagirathi
River.
But
while in 2009 the then government had listened to him, this time the present
government has simply ignored his demand for a separate legislation for Ganga. It
was only on the 43rd day of his fast -- he is sustaining only on lime water --
that Union minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation, Uma Bharti, visited him
at his ashram in Haridwar at around midnight on 4th August with a request to
break his fast. The Swami though did not
relent. Even as Bharti assured him that the Government will bring out the
legislation in the next couple of months, the Swami told her that first he
would see that happen and then only he will end his fast. His supporters are
worried that he is left to die, which will rather be very unfortunate. They
have been making fervent appeal to the government, particularly Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, who had famously declared before contesting the Lok Sabha
elections from Varanasi that he was contesting from there at the call of “Ma
Ganga” and that he was a “son” of “Ma Ganga”.
From
August 3, his supporters have decided to go on relay fast at Jantar Mantar in
New Delhi. On July 30 too, on the completion of the 38th day
of Prof Agarwal’s fast, his supporters and Ganga activists from 11 states of
the country converged for a prayer meeting at Delhi’s Rajghat. This was
the second time in a fortnight’s time that activists gathered at Rajghat. Last
time even a prominent Congress politician Harish Rawat – a former chief
minister of Uttarakhand who was also a Union Water Resources Minister – was
present at the gathering. But his presence had made many wary of the prospects
of Prof. Agarwal’s agitation acquiring political contours and that it might
lose its sanctity. His supporters say that although they welcome support from
political parties, they want to keep the movement apolitical for the sake of
Ganga and Prof Agarwal. After all, his life as they say, is important.
Besides,
as is highlighted in above paragraphs, lack of political will alone is
apparently responsible for the decay of Ganga. It may not be an exaggeration to
conclude that the
money spent on River Ganga has actually gone down the drain. The dying Ganga
has made the day for corrupt officers, land and sand mafia, and politicians.
This unholy nexus
had made Raj Kapoor’s Ganga ( the role was played by Yasmin who was given the
screen name Mandakini by Raj Kapoor) suffer then. Had Raj been alive now, then
perhaps he might have considered a movie sequel with the title Ram Teri
Ganga Ko Humne Maar Daala (Ram we have killed your Ganga)!
Hope the selective
collusion does not kill Professor Agarwal as well as the river for real. The
NGT has rung the warning bells many times on Ganga. The Swami has just tried to
amplify these chimes by risking his life. It is now for the the Government to
save both.
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