By Pankaj Jain, Ph.D., Huffpost

Hinduism contains numerous references to the worship of the divine in nature in its Vedas,
Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras and its other sacred texts. Millions of Hindus recite Sanskrit mantras daily to revere their rivers, mountains, trees, animals and the earth. Although the Chipko (tree-hugging) Movement is the most widely known example of Hindu environmental leadership, there are examples of Hindu action for the environment that are centuries old.

Hinduism is a remarkably diverse religious and cultural phenomenon, with many local and
regional manifestations. Within this universe of beliefs, several important themes emerge. The diverse theologies of Hinduism suggest that:

• The earth can be seen as a manifestation of the goddess, and must be treated with respect.
• The five elements — space, air, fire, water and earth — are the foundation of an interconnected web of life.
• Dharma — often translated as “duty” — can be reinterpreted to include our responsibility to care for the earth.
• Simple living is a model for the development of sustainable economies.
• Our treatment of nature directly affects our karma.Gandhi exemplified many of these teachings, and his example continues to inspire contemporary social, religious and environmental leaders in their efforts to protect the planet.

The following are 10 important Hindu teachings on the environment:

1. Pancha Mahabhutas (The five great elements) create a web of life that is shown forth in the structure and interconnectedness of the cosmos and the human body. Hinduism teaches that the five great elements (space, air, fire, water and earth) that constitute the environment are all derived from prakriti, the primal energy. Each of these elements has its own life and form; together the elements are interconnected and interdependent. The Upanishads explains the interdependence of these elements in relation to Brahman, the supreme reality, from which they arise: “From Brahman arises space, from space arises air, from air arises fire, from fire arises water, and from water arises earth.”

Hinduism recognizes that the human body is composed of and related to these five elements,
and connects each of the elements to one of the five senses. The human nose is related to earth, tongue to water, eyes to fire, skin to air and ears to space. This bond between our senses and the elements is the foundation of our human relationship with the natural world. For Hinduism, nature and the environment are not outside us, not alien or hostile to us. They are an inseparable part of our existence, and they constitute our very bodies.

2. Ishavasyam — Divinity is omnipresent and takes infinite forms. Hindu texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita (7.19, 13.13) and the Bhagavad Purana (2.2.41, 2.2.45), contain many references to the omnipresence of the Supreme divinity, including its presence throughout and within nature. Hindus worship and accept the presence of God in nature. For example, many Hindus think of India’s mighty rivers — such as the Ganges — as goddesses. In the Mahabharata, it is noted that the universe and every object in it has been created as an abode of the Supreme God meant for the benefit of all, implying that individual species should enjoy their role within a larger system, in relationship with other species.

3. Protecting the environment is part of Dharma. Dharma, one of the most important Hindu concepts, has been translated into English as duty, virtue, cosmic order and religion. In Hinduism, protecting the environment is an important expression of dharma. In past centuries, Indian communities — like other traditional communities — did not have an understanding of “the environment” as separate from the other spheres of activity in their lives.

A number of rural Hindu communities such as the Bishnois, Bhils and Swadhyaya have
maintained strong communal practices to protect local ecosystems such as forests and water
sources. These communities carry out these conservation-oriented practices not as “environmental” acts but rather as expressions of dharma. When Bishnois are protecting animals and trees, when Swadhyayis are building Vrikshamandiras (tree temples) and Nirmal Nirs (water harvesting sites) and when Bhils are practicing their rituals in sacred groves, they are simply expressing their reverence for creation according to Hindu teachings, not “restoring the environment.” These traditional Indian groups do not see religion, ecology and ethics as separate arenas of life. Instead, they understand it to be part of their dharma to treat creation with respect.

4. Our environmental actions affect our karma. Karma, a central Hindu teaching, holds that each of our actions creates consequences — good and bad — which constitute our karma and determine our future fate, including the place we will assume when we are reincarnated in our next life. Moral behavior creates good karma, and our behavior toward the environment has karmic consequences. Because we have free choice, even though we may have harmed the environment in the past, we can choose to protect the environment in the future, replacing environmentally destructive karmic patterns with good ones.

5. The earth — Devi — is a goddess and our mother and deserves our devotion and protection. Many Hindu rituals recognize that human beings benefit from the earth, and offer gratitude and protection in response. Many Hindus touch the floor before getting out of bed every morning and ask Devi to forgive them for trampling on her body. Millions of Hindus create kolams daily — artwork consisting of bits of rice or other food placed at their doorways in the morning. These kolams express Hindu’s desire to offer sustenance to the earth, just as the earth sustains themselves. The Chipko movement — made famous by Chipko women’s commitment to “hugging” trees in their community to protect them from clear-cutting by outside interests — represents a similar devotion to the earth.

6. Hinduism’s tantric and yogic traditions affirm the sacredness of material reality and contain teachings and practices to unite people with divine energy. Hinduism’s Tantric tradition teaches that the entire universe is the manifestation of divine energy. Yoga, derived from the Sanskrit word meaning “to yoke” or “to unite,” refers to a series of mental and physical practices designed to connect the individual with this divine energy. Both these traditions affirm that all phenomena, objects and individuals are expressions of the divine. And because these traditions both envision the earth as a goddess, contemporary Hindu teachers have used these teachings to demonstrate the wrongness of the exploitation of the environment, women and indigenous peoples.

7. Belief in reincarnation supports a sense of interconnectedness of all creation. Hindus believe in the cycle of rebirth, wherein every being travels through millions of cycles of birth and rebirth in different forms, depending on their karma from previous lives. So a person may be reincarnated as a person, animal, bird or another part of the wider community of life. Because of this, and because all people are understood to pass through many lives on their pathway to ultimate liberation, reincarnation creates a sense of solidarity between people and all living things.

Through belief in reincarnation, Hinduism teaches that all species and all parts of the earth are part of an extended network of relationships connected over the millennia, with each part of this network deserving respect and reverence.

8. Non-violence — ahimsa — is the greatest dharma. Ahimsa to the earth improves one’s karma. For observant Hindus, hurting or harming another being damages one’s karma and obstructs advancement toward moksha — liberation. To prevent the further accrual of bad karma, Hindus are instructed to avoid activities associated with violence and to follow a vegetarian diet.

Based on this doctrine of ahimsa, many observant Hindus oppose the institutionalized breeding and killing of animals, birds and fish for human consumption.

9. Sanyasa (asceticism) represents a path to liberation and is good for the earth. Hinduism teaches that asceticism — restraint in consumption and simplicity in living — represents a pathway
toward moksha (liberation), which treats the earth with respect. A well-known Hindu teaching — Tain tyakten bhunjitha — has been translated, “Take what you need for your sustenance without a sense of entitlement or ownership.”

One of the most prominent Hindu environmental leaders, Sunderlal Bahuguna, inspired
many Hindus by his ascetic lifestyle. His repeated fasts and strenuous foot marches, undertaken to support and spread the message of the Chipko, distinguished him as a notable ascetic in our own time. In his capacity for suffering and his spirit of self-sacrifice, Hindus saw a living example of the renunciation of worldly ambition exhorted by Hindu scriptures.

10. Gandhi is a role model for simple living. Gandhi’s entire life can be seen as an ecological treatise. This is one life in which every minute act, emotion or thought functioned much like an ecosystem: his small meals of nuts and fruits, his morning ablutions and everyday bodily practices, his periodic observances of silence, his morning walks, his cultivation of the small as much as of the big, his spinning wheel, his abhorrence of waste, his resorting to basic Hindu and Jain values of truth, nonviolence, celibacy and fasting. The moralists, nonviolent activists, feminists, journalists, social reformers, trade union leaders, peasants, prohibitionists, nature-cure lovers, renouncers and environmentalists all take their inspirations from Gandhi’s life and writings.

(Acknowledgement: Adapted from the essays by Christopher K. Chapple, O. P. Dwivedi, K. L. Seshagiri Rao, Vinay Lal, and George A. James in Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water and Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, both published by Harvard University Press. Thanks also to the essays by Harold Coward and Rita DasGupta Sherma in Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, published by SUNY Press. I am also indebted to kind comments by Reverend Fletcher Harper and for his invitation to write this article.)

By Irena Akbar, Indian Express

As if overwhelmed by the sea of humanity and media frenzy that engulfed it during the week-long Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption agitation, Jantar Mantar, Delhi’s protest street, looks unusually calm on a Thursday. There are three protest stalls, all by Hazare wannabes clamouring for a corruption-free India, except that this time neither the media nor the public has bothered to stop by to listen. Or perhaps, it’s just that the harsh sun has got the better of protesters and their supporters.

Around noon, the silence at Jantar Mantar is disturbed by a cavalcade of 20 vehicles that includes SUVs, vans, a water tank, and a generator, all with posters that read, “Yamuna Bachao Padyatra”. Some 100-odd men and women dressed in dhotis and lehengas are part of this procession, the women dancing and singing bhajans in praise of Radha and Krishna. Kusum Sharma is part of this procession, singing into the mike and dancing, her lehenga obliging with neat twirls. The cavalcade comes to a halt. There is no podium, no stall, but this pavement abutting the Jantar Mantar has no marked out spaces, at least not on this unhurried sultry afternoon, so Sharma and the other protesters take out mats and bed sheets and spread themselves across the pavement.These are protesters who have set out from Allahabad, ascetics of Braj Mandal who have been on footsince March 1, campaigning against the defilement of “Yamuna Mata”. So while pollution in the Yamuna is the central theme of their protest, there is a generous mix of mythology and bhajans to back that message.

Sharma adjusts her mike and starts singing a devotional song. In the background are placards, neatly placed against the railings, that advocate the purification of the Yamuna river.

Sharma says she and her fellow protesters set out on March 1, when the “950-km-long padyatra” began from Allahabad, and went through Kaushambi, Fatehpur, Kanpur, Agra and Mathura, before finally reaching Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, their final stop. Sharma, a 30-year-old “Krishna devotee” from Barsana village in Mathura district, suddenly stops to ask, “Is this Jantar Mantar? All I know is that we are in Delhi.” But after the initial surprise, Sharma says she couldn’t care less. “I can even protest in hell to make the Yamuna in the land of Krishna—Mathura and Brindavan—free of the dirt and waste that comes from Delhi,” says the self-proclaimed “sadhvi”.

Sharma, who has been walking “25-35 km a day” since the protest began, says she is part of the campaign not for any personal gain. “I want to save every thing that’s holy. After I get the government to purify the Yamuna, I will campaign for cleaning up of the Ganga,” she says. Sharma, whose father is a “businessman” and whose siblings lead “married, worldly lives”, says she earlier sat on a dharna at Kama, in Rajasthan, to protest against mining in the Krishna hills.

Sharma tells us that she’s been on her feet since 3 a.m. and has been singing since 6.30 a.m. It’s 1 p.m. and she’s still singing, getting up in between to speak to us. “If I don’t sing, I’ll fall asleep,” she says, as she munches on roasted chanas, bites into a cucumber, and empties several Bisleri bottles to keep herself going.

After last week’s high-profile hunger fast, Sharma doesn’t see the need to follow in Hazare’s steps. If anything, she has a word or two of advice for him, “I think Anna Hazare should have based his movement on religion—only that can help you through anything in life.”

A member of the protest group brings out a steel bucket filled with khichdi to distribute among his fellow protesters, now famished at 3 p.m. and low on energy. But the sight of the stray camera rejuvenates them, and they leave the khichdi to the flies. The girls start singing, dancing and playing the drums, and the men wave their hands and shout slogans on cleaning up “Yamuna mayya”. Sharma, tired by now, dances with far less flourish unlike her grand, lehenga-twirling entry into the Jantar Mantar lane. She poses for the cameras for close to half-an-hour, and then finally gets up for her lunch.

Does she plan to tour Delhi? “I don’t like it here. I like protesting in the hills and forests. This is too crowded,” she says. “But I do believe, that here, our demand will be met,” she says. Time for a siesta.

Article from The Times of India

Hundreds of ‘sadhus’ from Braj Mandal, `bhakts’ of Lord Krishna, farmers, environmentalists and residents of Etawah participated in a `padyatra’ to save the Yamuna from pollution.

The march which started from Allahabad on March 3, covered Kaushambi, Fatehpur, Kanpur and Auraiyya to reached Etawah on Tuesday.

A dharna will be held at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on April 15 to highlight the issue.

Holding placards and banners, the `patyatris’ assembled on the banks of Yamuna in Etawah and sang `bhajans’ and `kirtans’ in order to gather support for the cause.

“Yamuna, considered as a pious in mythology, is now counted among the most polluted rivers in India,” said Bhanu Pratap Singh, president Bhartiya Kisan Union, Mathura. Delhi alone contributes around 3,296 mld (million litres per day) of sewage in the form of drains which fall into the river. Lakhs of people are living in the slums on the banks of Yamuna river, he said. Shortage of sewage treatment plants and lack of sanitation facilities in Delhi are responsible for polluting the Yamuna. The problem is further compounded by lack of minimum perennial fresh water flow in the river along the stretch starting from Wazirabad, Singh added.

A movement launched by the ascetics and Sri Krishna devotees of the Braj Mandal to save the Yamuna river from pollution is now gaining momentum. Hundreds of ascetics and activists have reached Sangam (confluence) at Allahabad from where a long march to New Delhi is to start Wednesday. Chief organisers Radha Krishan Shastri and Jai Krishan Das told IANS the march will reach the capital around April 15.

They said they will not withdraw till their demands are met and will talk only with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Pratibha Patil or UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

For the next 45 days, river Yamuna will remain in the focus as the march moves towards New Delhi via smaller towns and villages. By the time it reaches Agra, the organisers hope it will gain sufficient momentum. This is the first time that the alarming pollution in the Yamuna has attracted so many people who look determined to set things right, said eco-activist Ravi Singh in Agra. The Supreme Court, meanwhile has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to submit within three weeks reports of samples collected from the river, close to the drains, to get a clearer picture of the quality of water in the river.

“This could have serious repercussions and even put the Delhi government in the dock for failing to effectively tap the drains and discharge of industrial effluents in the river,” D.K. Joshi, a member of the Supreme Court monitoring committee in Agra told IANS.

Water samples analysed by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) researcher Swabha Takshak in Agra paint an extremely dismal picture.

“All the parameters, including turbidity and hardness are wrong,” she said.

The results of samples she tested over a 30-day period pointed to an alarming level of pollutants.

Swabha Takshak, who carried out the study in May 2010, said: “The river is dead for all practical purposes. It is extremely polluted with every kind of pollutant imaginable, including toxins and carcinogens.”

In an unprecedented display of solidarity with the movement, temples in Gokul were closed for two hours to protest pollution of the river Yamuna on Monday.

In the evening, thousands of locals, high priests of the Sri Krishna, Baldeo (elder brother of Krishna) and Nand Baba (father of Sri Krishna) temples joined a footmarch along the bank of Yamuna with thousands of followers. Markets too remained closed.

“This surely ranks as the most impressive people’s protest against pollution of rivers,” said Acharya Gopi Ballabh. For hours, people kept raising slogans “Yamuna Bachao, Pollution Bhagao” (Save Yamuna, Do away with pollution).

Residents of Gokul are particularly angry as a barrage constructed on Yamuna has distanced the historical banks of Gokul from the river.

“This is clearly a stupid example of engineering design. The river used to flow along the ghats (banks) but now the water has moved a kilometre away and pilgrims are being inconvenienced,” said Vrindavan’s Acharya Jaimini.

Amid uproarious scenes, Karnataka Assembly today passed the controversial cow slaughter ban Bill, which provides for stringent punishment for violaters and makes the offence cognisable and non-bailable.

After more than a four-hour debate, the Bill was passed by voice-vote as the entire opposition — Congress and JDS — trooped into the well of the House and shouted anti-government slogans, branding the BJP government “communal”.

Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah, who termed the legislation “draconian”, “anti-secular” and “unconstitutional” tore a copy of the the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill, 2010 — and threw it in the air.

Earlier, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa defended the Bill, saying it was aimed at protecting cows and preserve cattle in Karnataka. A number of states, including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Jammu and Kashmir, already had similar legislation, he added.

Cow slaughter ban is in force in Cuba and Iran, Yeddyurappa said, and highlighted the medicinal benefits of cow urine which have been proved by research.The bill prohibits slaughter of cattle, sale, usage and possession of beef, puts restriction on transport of cattle and also prohibits sale, purchase or disposal of cattle for slaughter.

The offence is punishable with imprisonment not less than one year which may extend up to seven years or fined between Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000 or both; second and subsequent offence would attract a fine of not less than Rs 50,000 up to Rs one lakh along with imprisonment penalty.

The bill was intended to replace the Karnataka Prevention of Cow Slaughter and Cattle Preservation Act, 1964, to prohibit the slaughter of cows and calves of she-buffaloes, bull, buffalo male or female.It is also aimed at preservation and improvement of the breeds of cattle and to endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry in terms of Article 48 of the Constitution.

The bill provides for stringent punishment for violation of the act, and also provides for powers to search and seizure of any premises including vessel or vehicle. Home Minister V S Acharya said the bill was “in tune with the sentiments of the majority community”, as per the election manifesto of the BJP, and the judgements of Supreme Court and High Court.

Siddaramaiah said such a bill can be enacted only in “Hitler’s regime” and not in democracy. “Is yours a Hitler’s regime ?” he asked.

The BJP Government, he charged, was thrusting “vegetarian culture” on the people, adding, if the bill was passed, the price of mutton per kg would shoot up to Rs 1,000 from the present Rs 260 or so.

By this act, those dependent on the products such as shoes, leather, belts, nail polish, films, buttons and other beef products would lose their jobs. “You are making their life miserable”, he said.As several opposition members flayed the bill in the debate that saw sparks fly, Siddaramaiah cautioned it would create “disturbance” in society and have an adverse impact on harmony.

Defending the bill, C T Ravi (BJP) said there would be severe shortage of milk in Karnataka in future if the current rate of cow slaughter continued in the State.

JDS leader H D Revanna said the BJP brought the bill keeping in view its “vote bank”.
Roshan Baig (Congress) expressed shock over the provision for a seven-year imprisonment in the act. “Don’t try to implement hidden agenda”, he told the BJP government, adding, the 1964 act was good enough.

Qamarul Islam (Congress) said the bill would create “hatred” among different communities, leading to “law and order problems”. Several opposition members argued it poor eat beef as this meat is affordable and inexpensive at around Rs 60 per kg, compared to chicken and mutton. The choice should be left to the people, they said.

In the context of environmental Audit, the Ministry of Environment and Forests is engaged with looking at innovation in governance since the past few months. Two very important initiatives are ongoing, namely the National Green Tribunal (NGT) with a network of specialized Environment Courts and National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA). Delivering a key note address at the two day conference on a ‘Environment Audit – Concerns about Water Pollution in India’ organized by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India here today, Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Environment and Forests (I/C) said the NGT will give the Indian citizen first time judicial remedy as far as environmental damages are concerned. India would be the first country in the world to have such an extensive network of specialized environment courts. Shri Jairam expressed the view that environment is still seen not as an essential function such as economic activity, but as an additional cost that has to be borne. Unless and until, we internalize issues relating to environment as part of normal process of economic decision making, we will not get the kind of seriousness on matters relating to environments.

Welcoming CAG’s move, Shri Jairam said, “It is an encouraging move of CAG from credit transaction audit to a performance audit. CAG is looking at performance audit not just from the point of view of expenditure, but also trying to rope in non-governmental organisations to provide a larger perspective on issue of social audit.”

Regarding NEPA he said, “We are taking steps to establish a National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA). NEPA’s core mandate will be to ensure that the standards and stipulation under which environmental approvals are granted are actually adhered to. CPCB and SPCBs will work under one umbrella of NEPA. Soon all the licensing functions of the Ministry will be transferred to NEPA. So MOEF becomes a policy making body, and the actual approvals or rejections, even of clearances, would be the responsibility of this independent professional organization. It will have powers to ensure compliance. It will also have the mechanism for monitoring compliance. The NEPA will work on the ‘polluter-pays’ and ‘precautionary’ principles on all matters related to environment in India, essentially project clearances and enforcement of environment laws. The Central Pollution Control Board and the state regulators will report to the authority. While NEPA will carry out monitoring and compliance, the NGT will settle disputes.

Giving details of river cleaning programmes of the Ministry, Shri Jairam said, “We have water pollution control programmes, Cess laws are in existence for over 30 years and we have taken River cleaning programme. CAG has done the expenditure Audit of the First and Second Ganga Action Plan (GAP-I and GAP-II) audits in the mid 1980s.Despite this, we see a patch between Kannauj to Varanasi in the river Ganga which is very dirty. Now we have established National Ganga River Basin Authority. This is a structure to ensure cleaning river Ganga. Considering three points, population pressure, experience of GAP I and GAP II and usage of water for irrigation and hydel power projects, we will be able to ensure implementation of cleaning programmes effectively with aviral and nirmal dhara.

Inviting CAG to carry out performance audit of major programmes of the Ministry like water management programmes, river conservation programme, the Minister said, “We need concurrent audit. Audit should go along the processes of implementation so that there is real chance to redesign programmes at appropriate time and their implementation can be made very effective. The utility will certainly be enhanced by this step. The performance audit is much more complicated than just looking at project milestones, original project approach and what is being actual achievement. You are getting into certain basic issues how you value environmental costs and environmental benefit. This is relatively new field, in India. We need to pay greater attention to than we paid in the past.” This will be a very innovative exercise on opening up of the audit process.

Earlier Shri Vinod Rai, C&AG of India said, “The world today faces diverse challenges to environment. In India particularly, the concerns fan across our natural resources. Major portion of India’s surface water and groundwater reserves are contaminated thus impinging on our water security. Violation of National Ambient Air Quality Standards is a concern with high levels of concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane in the air. Our rich bio-diversity is being threatened as 44 plant species and 18 animal species stand critically endangered. These statistics serve as a wake-up call to us. Our ways and patterns of living are degrading the environment with serious long term consequences. It is time that we collectively took action to address this concern and move towards patterns of consumption which are more environmentally responsible. We feel that governmental interventions can slow or even reverse these ominous trends. I recognise the fact that we as public auditors have to also play an important role not only with timely, relevant and evidenced reporting but also with constructive suggestions which enable public administration.”

“The Lord reciprocated the feelings of the inhabitants of the forest of Vrindavana. When there was rainfall, the Lord took shelter at the feet of the trees or in the caves and enjoyed the taste of different fruits with his eternal associates the cowherd boys. He played with them, sat with them, and ate fruits with them.”

-Light of the Bhagavata, Verse 24

(c) The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.

By Krishna Pokharel, The Wall Street Journal

VARANASI, India—More than a million devout Hindus bathed in the Ganges River Friday, braving the risk of terrorist attack, stampede and petty crime for the chance to wash away the sins of a lifetime and open the gateway to heaven after death.

But perhaps the greatest threat to the devotees who flocked to Haridwar, India, on one of the most auspicious days of the triennial Kumbh Mela festival, was the water itself.

The river is intensely polluted with sewage and industrial waste. Water-treatment facilities have been unable to keep up with India’s rapid growth, often held back by a shortage of funds and other resources.

A dip in the Ganges River in India is believed by devotees to wash away all sins. But increasingly it has become heavily polluted with sewage and industrial waste. Now, a $4 billion government program aims to clean the river.

Now, the spiritually cleansing waters of the Ganges are about to get some cleaning of their own. The Indian government has embarked on a $4 billion campaign to ensure that by 2020 no untreated municipal sewage or industrial runoff enters the 1,560-mile river.

Only 31% of municipal sewage in India undergoes treatment, according to the Central Pollution Control Board, a government agency in New Delhi, while the rest gets discharged into the country’s rivers, ponds, land and seas, contaminating underground and surface waters. More than 500,000 of the 10.3 million deaths in India in 2004 resulted from waterborne diseases, according to the most recent comprehensive mortality data from the World Health Organization.

The filth in the Ganges holds special resonance for this majority-Hindu nation. The Ganges basin supports more than 400 million of India’s 1.1 billion people, the majority of whom are Hindus, who revere the river as “mother” and “goddess.”
Cleaning the Holy Ganges

The cleanup initiative, which is supported by the World Bank, includes the expansion of traditional treatment facilities and, for the first time in India, the introduction of innovative river-cleaning methods.

Veer Bhadra Mishra, a 70-year-old priest and hydraulics engineer in Varanasi, the holy city downstream from Haridwar, has been a prominent advocate of treatment methods used abroad but not yet in India. His plan: to introduce a system to divert sewage and effluents, before they enter the river, to a series of specially designed ponds, for treatment and ultimately to be used use in irrigation or directed back into the river.

His efforts were mired in court and by opposition from local bureaucrats. The bureaucrats had a “difference of opinion” with Mr. Mishra about the best way to clean the river, says Ramesh Singh, general manager of Ganga Pollution Control Unit, the local government body charged with running government treatment facilities in Varanasi.

Mr. Singh says the technologies already in use were time-tested and reliable, but suffered from a lack of trained manpower and proper infrastructure, and a shortage of funds for equipment maintenance.

Last summer, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh identified cleaning up the river as a national priority, the government in New Delhi increased funding to operate and maintain conventional treatment facilities, and also approved Mr. Mishra’s plan—giving $184,000 to his organization, the Sankat Mochan Foundation, for the design of a new sewage treatment plant.

The foundation is working with GO2 Water Inc., a Berkeley, Calif., wastewater-technology company. In the plan, 10.5 million gallons of sewage a day—13% of the daily output from Varanasi’s 1.5 million people—will be intercepted daily at the riverbank, and diverted. In a nearby village, water will pass through a series of ponds, where sunlight, gravity, bacteria and microalgae will clean the water. A larger pond system is planned, to process 33% more of the city’s sewage.

The treatment system “will be the best solution for dealing with huge amount of domestic sewage being discharged into Gangaji and other rivers in India,” Mr. Mishra said, using the honorific “ji” with the river’s local name, Ganga.

In Haridwar, the National Botanical Research Institute is developing a wetland with local species of reeds to absorb the polluting elements from the wastewater, according to U.N. Rai, a scientist heading the project. Other wetlands will be developed in other areas “to ease the current pollution load in the river,” Mr. Rai says.

The load is heavy. On a recent winter morning in Varanasi, lab technician Gopal Pandey descended the stone stairs of Tulsi Ghat, one of the holy city’s 84 bathing platforms, to fetch some Ganges water for testing at the Sankat Mochan Foundation, an organization run by Mr. Mishra.

In the laboratory, Mr. Pandey found that each 100 milliliters of the river’s waters were laden with 29,000 fecal coliform bacteria, which potentially cause disease. India says a maximum of 500 per 100 milliliters is safe for bathing in the river. Another sample from downstream, after the Ganges meets a tributary carrying a black mass of thick industrial effluents, showed 10 million bacteria—mostly E-coli—in the same amount of river water. Mr. Pandey’s verdict: “The pollution is at very, very dangerous level.”