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THE GANGES
BY : REJAUL HOQUE SARKAR
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INTRODUCTION
The Ganges is a trans boundary river of Asia which flows through the nations of India
and Bangladesh. The 2,525 km (1,569 mi) river rises in the western Himalayas in
the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east through the Gangetic
Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal.
It is the third largest river in the world by discharge.
The Ganges is the most
sacred river to Hindus. It is also a lifeline to millions of
Indians who live along its course and depend on it for their daily needs. It is worshipped as the goddess Ganga in Hinduism. It has also been important historically, with many former
provincial or imperial capitals (such as Pataliputra, Kannauj, Kara, Kashi, Patna, Hajipur, Munger, Bhagalpur,
Murshidabad, Baharampur, Kampilya, and Kolkata) located on its banks.
The Ganges was ranked as
the fifth most polluted river of the world in 2007. Pollution threatens not
only humans, but also more than 140 fish species, 90 amphibian species and the
endangered Ganges river dolphin. The Ganga Action Plan, an environmental
initiative to clean up the river, has been a major failure thus far, due to corruption, lack of technical expertise, poor environmental planning, and lack of support from religious authorities.
The name
"Ganges", ending in "es", came to English via Latin from
Ancient Greek sources, particularly from accounts of Alexander the Great's
wars, which entered India.
COURSE
The Ganges begins at the
confluence of the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers. The Bhagirathi is considered
to be the source in Hindu culture and mythology, although the Alaknanda is
longer. The headwaters of the Alakananda are
formed by snowmelt from such peaks as Nanda Devi, Trisul, and Kamet. The
Bhagirathi rises at the foot of Gangotri Glacier, at Gomukh, at an elevation of
3,892 m (12,769 ft), being mythologically referred to as, residing in the
matted locks of Shiva, symbolically Tapovan, being a meadow of ethereal beauty
at the feet of Mount Shivling, just 5 km away.
Although many small
streams comprise the headwaters of the Ganges, the six longest and their five
confluences are considered sacred. The six headstreams are the Alaknanda,
Dhauliganga, Nandakini, Pindar, Mandakini, and Bhagirathi rivers. The five
confluences, known as the Panch Prayag, are all along the Alaknanda. They are,
in downstream order, Vishnuprayag, where the Dhauliganga joins the Alaknanda;
Nandprayag, where the Nandakini joins; Karnaprayag, where the Pindar joins,
Rudraprayag, where the Mandakini joins; and finally, Devprayag, where the
Bhagirathi joins the Alaknanda to form the Ganges River proper.
After flowing 250
kilometres (160 mi)[12] through its narrow Himalayan valley,
the Ganges emerges from the mountains at Rishikesh, then debouches onto the
Gangetic Plain at the pilgrimage town of Haridwar. At Haridwar, a dam diverts
some of its waters into the Ganges Canal, which irrigates the Doab region
of Uttar Pradesh, whereas the river, whose course has been roughly southwest
until this point, now begins to flow southeast through the plains of northern
India.
The Ganges follows an
800kilometre (500 mi) arching course passing through the cities of Kannauj,
Farukhabad, and Kanpur. Along the way it is joined by the Ramganga, which
contributes an average annual flow of about 500 m3/s (18,000 cu ft/s).[13] The Ganges joins the Yamuna at the Triveni Sangam at
Allahabad, a holy confluence in Hinduism. At their confluence the Yamuna is
larger than the Ganges, contributing about 2,950 m3/s (104,000 cu ft/s),[13] or about 58.5% of the combined flow.
Now flowing east, the
river meets the Tamsa River (also called Tons), which flows north from
the Kaimur Range and contributes an average flow of about 190 m3/s (6,700 cu ft/s). After the Tamsa the Gomti River
joins, flowing south from the Himalayas. The Gomti contributes an average annual
flow of about 234 m3/s (8,300 cu ft/s). Then the
Ghaghara River (Karnali River), also flowing south from the Himalayas of Nepal,
joins. The Ghaghara (Karnali), with its average annual flow of about 2,990 m3/s (106,000 cu ft/s), is the largest tributary of the
Ganges. After the Ghaghara (Karnali) confluence the Ganges is joined from the
south by the Son River, contributing about 1,000 m3/s (35,000 cu ft/s). The Gandaki River, then the Kosi
River, join from the north flowing from Nepal, contributing about 1,654 m3/s (58,400 cu ft/s) and 2,166 m3/s (76,500 cu ft/s), respectively. The Kosi is the third
largest tributary of the Ganges, after the Ghaghara(Karnali) and Yamuna.
Along the way between
Allahabad and Malda, West Bengal, the Ganges passes the towns of Chunar, Mirzapur,
Varanasi, Ghazipur, Patna, Bhagalpur, Ballia, Buxar, Simaria, Sultanganj, and Saidpur.
At Bhagalpur, the river begins to flow southsoutheast and at Pakur, it begins
its attrition with the branching away of its first distributary, the BhāgirathiHooghly,
which goes on to become the Hooghly River. Just before the border with Bangladesh
the Farakka Barrage controls the flow of the Ganges, diverting some of the
water into a feeder canal linked to the Hooghly for the purpose of keeping it
relatively siltfree. The Hooghly River is formed by the confluence of the
Bhagirathi River and Jalangi River at Nabadwip, and Hooghly has a number of
tributaries of its own. The largest is the Damodar River, which is 541 km (336
mi) long, with a drainage basin of 25,820 km2 (9,970 sq mi). The Hooghly River empties into the Bay of Bengal near
Sagar Island. Between Malda and the Bay of Bengal,
the Hooghly river passes the towns and cities of Murshidabad, Nabadwip, Kolkata
and Howrah.
After entering
Bangladesh, the main branch of the Ganges is known as the Padma. The Padma is
joined by the Jamuna River, the largest distributary of the Brahmaputra.
Further downstream, the Padma joins the Meghna River, the second largest
distributary of the Brahmaputra, and takes on the Meghna's name as it enters
the Meghna Estuary, which empties into the Bay of Bengal.
The Ganges Delta, formed
mainly by the large, sediment laden flows of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers,
is the world's largest delta, at about 59,000 km2 (23,000 sq mi). It stretches 322 km (200 mi) along the Bay of Bengal.
Only the Amazon and
Congo rivers have a greater average discharge than the combined flow of the
Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the SurmaMeghna river system. In full flood only the Amazon is larger.
GEOLOGY
The Indian subcontinent
lies atop the Indian tectonic plate, a minor plate within the Indo Australian
Plate. Its defining geological processes
commenced seventy five million years ago, when, as a part of the southern
supercontinent Gondwana, it began a northeast wards drift—lasting fifty million
years—across the then unformed Indian Ocean.[20] The subcontinent's subsequent collision with the Eurasian Plate and
subduction under it, gave rise to the Himalayas, the planet's highest mountain
ranges.[20] In the former seabed immediately
south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast trough, which,
having gradually been filled with sediment borne by the Indus and its
tributaries and the Ganges and its tributaries,[21] now forms the Indo Gangetic Plain. The Indo Gangetic Plain is geologically known
as a fore deep or foreland basin.
HYDROLOGY
The hydrology of the
Ganges River is very complicated, especially in the Ganges Delta region. One
result is different ways to determine the river's length, its discharge, and
the size of its drainage basin.
The name Ganges is
used for the river between the confluence of the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda
rivers, in the Himalayas, and the India Bangladesh border, near the Farakka
Barrage and the first bifurcation of the river. The length of the Ganges is frequently
said to be slightly over 2,500 km (1,600 mi) long, about 2,505 km (1,557 mi), to 2,525 km (1,569 mi), or perhaps 2,550 km
(1,580 mi).[26] In these cases the river's source is
usually assumed to be the source of the Bhagirathi River, Gangotri Glacier at
Gomukh, and its mouth being the mouth of the Meghna River on the Bay of Bengal. Sometimes the source of the Ganges is considered to be at
Haridwar, where its Himalayan headwater streams debouch onto the Gangetic
Plain.
In some cases, the
length of the Ganges is given for its Hooghly River distributary, which is
longer than its main outlet via the Meghna River, resulting in a total length
of about 2,620 km (1,630 mi), from the source of the Bhagirathi, or 2,135 km (1,327 mi), from Haridwar to the Hooghly's
mouth. In other cases the length is said to
be about 2,240 km (1,390 mi), from the source of the Bhagirathi to the
Bangladesh border, where its name changes to Padma.
For similar reasons,
sources differ over the size of the river's drainage basin. The basin covers
parts of four countries, India, Nepal, China, and Bangladesh; eleven Indian
states, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and
the Union Territory of Delhi. The Ganges basin,
including the delta but not the Brahmaputra or Meghna basins, is about
1,080,000 km2 (420,000 sq mi), of which 861,000 km2 (332,000 sq mi) are in India (about 80%), 140,000 km2 (54,000 sq mi) in Nepal (13%), 46,000 km2 (18,000 sq mi) in Bangladesh (4%), and 33,000 km2 (13,000 sq mi) in China (3%). Sometimes the Ganges and Brahmaputra–Meghna drainage
basins are combined for a total of about 1,600,000 km2 (620,000 sq mi), or 1,621,000 km2 (626,000 sq mi). The combined Ganges Brahmaputra Meghna
basin (abbreviated GBM or GMB) drainage basin is spread across Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Nepal, and China.
The Ganges basin ranges
from the Himalaya and the Transhimalaya in the north, to the northern slopes of
the Vindhya range in the south, from the eastern slopes of the Aravalli in the
west to the Chota Nagpur plateau and the Sunderbans delta in the east. A
significant portion of the discharge from the Ganges comes from the Himalayan
mountain system. Within the Himalaya, the Ganges basin spreads almost 1,200 km
from the Yamuna Satluj divide along the Simla ridge forming the boundary with
the Indus basin in the west to the Singalila Ridge along the NepalSikkim border
forming the boundary with the Brahmaputra basin in the east. This section of
the Himalaya contains 9 of the 14 highest peaks in the world over 8,000m in
height, including Mount Everest which is the high point of the Ganges basin. The other peaks over 8,000m in the basin are
Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu, Annapurna and Shishapangma. The Himalayan portion of
the basin includes the southeastern portion of the state of Himachal Pradesh,
the entire state of Uttarakhand, the entire country of Nepal and the extreme
northwestern portion of the state of West Bengal.
The discharge of the
Ganges also differs by source. Frequently, discharge is described for the mouth
of the Meghna River, thus combining the Ganges with the Brahmaputra and Meghna.
This results in a total average annual discharge of about 38,000 m3/s (1,300,000 cu ft/s), or 42,470 m3/s (1,500,000 cu ft/s). In other cases the
average annual discharges of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna are given
separately, at about 16,650 m3/s (588,000 cu ft/s) for
the Ganges, about 19,820 m3/s (700,000 cu ft/s) for the
Brahmaputra, and about 5,100 m3/s (180,000 cu ft/s) for
the Meghna.
The maximum peak
discharge of the Ganges, as recorded at Hardinge Bridge in Bangladesh, exceeded
70,000 m3/s (2,500,000 cu ft/s). The minimum recorded at the same place was about 180 m3/s (6,400 cu ft/s), in 1997.
The hydrologic cycle in
the Ganges basin is governed by the Southwest Monsoon. About 84% of the total
rainfall occurs in the monsoon from June to September. Consequently, stream
flow in the Ganges is highly seasonal. The average dry season to monsoon
discharge ratio is about 1:6, as measured at Hardinge Bridge. This strong
seasonal variation underlies many problems of land and water resource
development in the region. The seasonality of flow is so acute it can cause
both drought and floods. Bangladesh, in particular, frequently experiences
drought during the dry season and regularly suffers extreme floods during the
monsoon.
In the Ganges Delta many
large rivers come together, both merging and bifurcating in a complicated
network of channels. The two largest rivers, the Ganges and Brahmaputra, both
split into distributary channels, the largest of which merge with other large
rivers before themselves joining. This current channel pattern was not always the
case. Over time the rivers in Ganges Delta have changed course, sometimes
altering the network of channels in significant ways.
Before the late 12th
century the Bhagirathi Hooghly distributary was the main channel of the Ganges
and the Padma was only a minor spill channel. The main flow of the river
reached the sea not via the modern Hooghly River but rather by the Adi Ganga.
Between the 12th and 16th centuries the Bhagirathi Hooghly and Padma channels
were more or less equally significant. After the 16th century the Padma grew to
become the main channel of the Ganges. It is thought that the
Bhagirathi Hooghly became increasingly choked with silt, causing the main flow
of the Ganges to shift to the southeast and the Padma River. By the end of the
18th century the Padma had become the main distributary of the
Ganges. One result of this shift to the
Padma was that the Ganges joined the Meghna and Brahmaputra rivers before
emptying into the Bay of Bengal, together instead of separately. The present
confluence of the Ganges and Meghna formed about 150 years ago.
Also near the end of the
18th century, the course of the lower Brahmaputra changed dramatically,
altering its relationship with the Ganges. In 1787 there was a great flood on
the Teesta River, which at the time was a tributary of the Ganges Padma River.
The flood of 1787 caused the Teesta to undergo a sudden change course (an
avulsion), shifting east to join the Brahmaputra and causing the Brahmaputra to
shift its course south, cutting a new channel. This new main channel of the
Brahmaputra is called the Jamuna River. It flows south to join the Ganges
Padma. Since ancient times the main flow of the Brahmaputra was more easterly,
passing by the city of Mymensingh and joining the Meghna River. Today this
channel is a small distributary but retains the name Brahmaputra, sometimes Old
Brahmaputra. The site of the old Brahmaputra
Meghna confluence, in the locality of Langalbandh, is still considered sacred
by Hindus. Near the confluence is a major early historic site called Wari
Bateshwar.
HYSTORY
The Late Harappan
period, about 1900–1300 BCE, saw the spread of Harappan settlement eastward
from the Indus River basin to the GangesYamuna doab, although none crossed the
Ganges to settle its eastern bank. The disintegration of the Harappan
civilisation, in the early 2nd millennium BC, mark the point when the centre of
Indian civilisation shifted from the Indus basin to the Ganges basin. There may be links between the Late Harappan settlement
of the Ganges basin and the archaeological culture known as "Cemetery
H", the IndoAryan people, and the Vedic period.
This river is the
longest in India. During the early Vedic Age of the Rigveda,
the Indus and the Sarasvati River were the major sacred rivers, not the Ganges.
But the later three Vedas give much more importance to the Ganges. The Gangetic Plain became the centre of successive
powerful states, from the Maurya Empire to the Mughal Empire.
The first European
traveller to mention the Ganges was Megasthenes (ca.350–290 BCE). He did so
several times in his work Indica: "India, again, possesses many rivers
both large and navigable, which, having their sources in the mountains which
stretch along the northern frontier, traverse the level country, and not a few
of these, after uniting with each other, fall into the river called the Ganges.
Now this river, which at its source is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to
south, and empties its waters into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of
the Gangaridai, a nation which possesses a vast force of the largestsized
elephants." (Diodorus II.37) In the rainy season of
1809, the lower channel of the Bhagirathi, leading to Kolkata, had been
entirely shut; but in the following year it opened again, and was nearly of the
same size with the upper channel; both however suffered a considerable
diminution, owing probably to the new communication opened below the Jalanggi
on the upper channel.
In 1951 a water sharing
dispute arose between India and Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), after India
declared its intention to build the Farakka Barrage. The original purpose of
the barrage, which was completed in 1975, was to divert up to 1,100 m3/s (39,000 cu ft/s) of water from the Ganges to the
Bhagirathi Hooghly distributary in order to restore navigability at the Port of
Kolkata. It was assumed that during the worst dry season the Ganges flow would
be around 1,400 to 1,600 m3/s (49,000 to 57,000 cu ft/s), thus
leaving 280 to 420 m3/s (9,900 to 14,800 cu ft/s) for the
then East Pakistan. East Pakistan objected and a
protracted dispute ensued. In 1996 a 30year treaty was signed with Bangladesh.
The terms of the agreement are complicated, but in essence they state that if
the Ganges flow at Farakka was less than 2,000 m3/s (71,000 cu ft/s) then
India and Bangladesh would each receive 50% of the water, with each receiving
at least 1,000 m3/s (35,000 cu ft/s) for alternating
tenday periods. However, within a year the flow at Farakka fell to levels far
below the historic average, making it impossible to implement the guaranteed
sharing of water. In March 1997, flow of the Ganges in Bangladesh dropped to
its lowest ever, 180 m3/s (6,400 cu ft/s). Dry season flows
returned to normal levels in the years following, but efforts were made to
address the problem. One plan is for another barrage to be built in Bangladesh
at Pangsha, west of Dhaka. This barrage would help Bangladesh better utilise
its share of the waters of the Ganges.
RELIGIOUS
AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
EMBODIMENT OF SACREDNESS
The Ganga is a sacred
river to Hindus along every fragment of its length. All along its course,
Hindus bathe in its waters, paying homage to their
ancestors and to their gods by cupping the water in their hands, lifting it and
letting it fall back into the river; they offer flowers and rose petals and
float shallow clay dishes filled with oil and lit with wicks (diyas). On the journey back home from the Ganga, they carry small
quantities of river water with them for use in rituals (ganga jal,
literally water of the Ganga). When a loved one dies,
Hindus bring the ashes of the deceased person to the Ganga River.
The Ganga is the
embodiment of all sacred waters in Hindu mythology. Local rivers are said to be like the Ganga, and
are sometimes called the local Ganga. The Kaveri river of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in Southern India is called the Ganga of the South; the Godavari, is
the Ganga that was led by the sage Gautama to flow
through Central India. The Ganga is invoked whenever water is used in Hindu ritual, and is therefore
present in all sacred waters. In spite of this, nothing is more stirring for a Hindu than a dip in the actual river, which is thought to remit
sins, especially at one of the famous tirthas such as
Gangotri, Haridwar, Prayag, or Varanasi. The symbolic and
religious importance of the Ganga is one of
the few things that Hindu India, even its sceptics, are agreed upon. Jawaharlal Nehru, a religious iconoclast himself, asked
for a handful of his ashes to be thrown into the Ganga. "The Ganga," he wrote in his will, "is the
river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her
songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India's agelong culture and civilization, ever changing, ever flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga."
AVATARANA OR DESCENT OF THE GANGA
In late May or early
June every year, Hindus celebrate the avatarana or descent of the Ganga
from heaven to earth. The day of the celebration, Ganga
Dashahara, the dashami (tenth day) of the waxing moon of the Hindu
calendar month Jyestha, brings throngs of bathers to the banks of the river. A soak in the Ganga on this day is said to rid the bather
of ten sins (dasha = Sanskrit "ten"; hara = to destroy) or alternatively,
ten lifetimes of sins. Those who cannot journey to the
river, however, can achieve the same results by bathing in any nearby body of
water, which, for the true believer, in the Hindu tradition, takes on all the
attributes of the Ganga.
The avatarana is
an old theme in Hinduism with a number of different versions of the story. In the Vedic version, Indra, the Lord of Svarga (Heaven)
slays the celestial serpent, Vritra, releasing the celestial liquid, the soma,
or the nectar of the gods which then plunges to the earth and waters it with
sustenance.
In the Vaishnava version
of the myth, Indra has been replaced by his former helper Vishnu. The heavenly waters are now a river called Vishnupadi (padi:
Skt. "from the foot of"). As he completes his
celebrated three strides—of earth, sky, and heaven—Vishnu as Vamana stubs his
toe on the vault of heaven, punches open a hole, and releases the Vishnupadi,
which until now had been circling around the cosmic egg within. Flowing out of the vault, she plummets down to Indra's
heaven, where she is received by Dhruva, the once steadfast worshipper of
Vishnu, now fixed in the sky as the polestar. Next, she streams across
the sky forming the Milky Way and arrives on the moon. She then flows down earthwards to Brahma's realm, a
divine lotus atop Mount Meru, whose petals form the earthly continents. There,
the divine waters break up, with one stream, the Alaknanda, flowing down one
petal into Bharatvarsha (India) as the Ganga.
It is Shiva, however,
among the major deities of the Hindu pantheon, who appears in the most widely
known version of the avatarana story. Told and retold in the
Ramayana, the Mahabharata and several Puranas, the story begins with a sage,
Kapila, whose intense meditation has been disturbed by the sixty thousand sons
of King Sagara. Livid at being disturbed, Kapila sears them with his angry
gaze, reduces them to ashes, and dispatches them to the netherworld. Only the
waters of the Ganga, then in heaven, can bring the dead sons their salvation. A
descendant of these sons, King Bhagiratha, anxious to restore his ancestors,
undertakes rigorous penance and is eventually granted the prize of Ganga's
descent from heaven. However, since her turbulent force would also shatter the
earth, Bhagiratha persuades Shiva in his abode on Mount Kailash to receive
Ganga in the coils of his tangled hair and break her fall. Ganga descends, is
tamed in Shiva's locks, and arrives in the Himalayas. She is then led by the
waiting Bhagiratha down into the plains at Haridwar, across the plains first to
the confluence with the Yamuna at Prayag and then to Varanasi, and eventually
to Ganga Sagar, where she meets the ocean, sinks to the netherworld, and saves
the sons of Sagara. In honour of Bhagirath's pivotal
role in the avatarana, the source stream of the Ganga in the Himalayas
is named Bhagirathi, (Sanskrit, "of Bhagiratha").
REDEMPTION OF THE DEAD
Since Ganga had descended from heaven to
Earth, she is also the vehicle of ascent, from Earth to heaven. As the Trilokapathagamini, (Skt. triloka=
"three worlds", patha = "road", gamini =
"one who travels") of the Hindu tradition, she flows in heaven,
earth, and the netherworld, and, consequently, is a "tirtha," or
crossing point of all beings, the living as well as the dead. It is for this reason that the story of the avatarana
is told at Shraaddha ceremonies for the deceased in Hinduism, and
Ganga water is used in Vedic rituals after death. Among all hymns devoted to the Ganga, there are none more
popular than the ones expressing the worshiper's wish to breathe his last
surrounded by her waters. The Gangashtakam
expresses this longing fervently:
O Mother! …Necklace
adorning the worlds!
Banner rising to heaven!
I ask that I may leave
of this body on your banks,
Drinking your water,
rolling in your waves,
Remembering your name,
bestowing my gaze upon you.
No place along her banks
is more longed for at the moment of death by Hindus than Varanasi, the Great
Cremation Ground, or Mahashmashana. Those who are lucky enough to die in Varanasi, are
cremated on the banks of the Ganga, and are granted instant salvation. If the death has occurred elsewhere, salvation can be
achieved by immersing the ashes in the Ganga. If the ashes have been
immersed in another body of water, a relative can still gain salvation for the
deceased by journeying to the Ganga, if possible during the lunar
"fortnight of the ancestors" in the Hindu calendar month of Ashwin
(September or October), and performing the Shraaddha rites.
Hindus also perform pinda
pradana, a rite for the dead, in which balls of rice and sesame seed are
offered to the Ganga while the names of the deceased relatives are recited. Every sesame seed in every ball thus offered, according
to one story, assures a thousand years of heavenly salvation for the each
relative. Indeed, the Ganga is so important in
the rituals after death that the Mahabharata, in one of its popular ślokas,
says, "If only (one) bone of a (deceased) person should touch the water of
the Ganga, that person shall dwell honoured in heaven." As if to illustrate this truism, the Kashi Khanda (Varanasi
Chapter) of the Skanda Purana recounts the remarkable story of Vahika, a
profligate and unrepentant sinner, who is killed by a tiger in the forest. His
soul arrives before Yama, the Lord of Death, to be judged for the hereafter.
Having no compensating virtue, Vahika's soul is at once dispatched to hell.
While this is happening, his body on earth, however, is being picked at by
vultures, one of whom flies away with a foot bone. Another bird comes after the
vulture, and in fighting him off, the vulture accidentally drops the bone into
the Ganga below. Blessed by this happenstance, Vahika, on his way to hell, is
rescued by a celestial chariot which takes him instead to heaven.
THE
PURIFYING GANGA
Hindus consider the waters of the Ganga to be
both pure and purifying. Nothing
reclaims order from disorder more than the waters of the Ganga. Moving water, as in a river, is considered purifying in
Hindu culture
because it is thought to both absorb impurities and take them away. The swiftly moving Ganga, especially in its upper
reaches, where a
bather has to grasp an anchored chain in order to not be carried away, is considered especially purifying. What the Ganga removes, however, is not necessarily physical dirt, but symbolic
dirt; it wipes away the sins of the bather, not just of the present, but of a lifetime.
A popular paean to the
Ganga is the Ganga Lahiri composed by a seventeenth century poet
Jagannatha who, legend has it, was turned out of his Hindu Brahmin caste for
carrying on an affair with a Muslim woman. Having attempted futilely to be
rehabilitated within the Hindu fold, the poet finally appeals to Ganga, the hope
of the hopeless, and the comforter of last resort. Along with his beloved,
Jagannatha sits at the top of the flight of steps leading to the water at the
famous Panchganga Ghat in Varanasi. As he recites each verse of the
poem, the water of the Ganga rises up one step, until in the end it envelops
the lovers and carry them away. "I come to you as a
child to his mother," begins the Ganga Lahiri.
I come as an orphan to
you, moist with love.
I come without refuge to
you, giver of sacred rest.
I come a fallen man to
you, up lifter of all.
I come undone by disease
to you, the perfect physician.
I come, my heart dry
with thirst, to you, ocean of sweet wine.
Do with me whatever you
will.
CONSORT,
SHAKTI AND MOTHER
Ganga is a consort to all three major male
deities of Hinduism. As
Brahma's partner she always travels with him in the form of water in his
kamandalu (waterpot). She is
also Vishnu's consort. She
emanates from his foot as Vishnupadi in the avatarana story, and
is also, with Sarasvati and Lakshmi, one of his wives. In one popular story, envious of being outdone by each
other, the wives begin to quarrel. While Lakshmi attempts to mediate the
quarrel, Ganga and Sarasvati heap misfortune on each other. They curse each
other to become rivers, and to carry within them, by washing, the sins of
their human worshippers. Soon their husband, Vishnu, arrives and
decides to calm the situation by separating the goddesses. He orders
Sarasvati to become the wife of Brahma, Ganga to become the wife of Shiva, and Lakshmi,
as the blameless conciliator, to remain as his own wife. Ganga
and Sarasvati, however, are so distraught at this dispensation, and wail
so loudly, that Vishnu is forced to take back his words. Consequently, in
their lives as rivers they are still thought to be with him.
It is Shiva's
relationship with Ganga, that is the best known in Ganga theology. Her descent, the avatarana is not a onetime event,
but a continuously occurring one in which she is forever falling from heaven
into his locks and being forever tamed. Shiva is depicted in
Hindu iconography as Gangadhara, the "Bearer of the Ganga,"
with Ganga, shown as spout of water, rising from his hair. The Shiva Ganga relationship is both perpetual and
intimate. Shiva is sometimes called Uma
Ganga Patiswara ("Husband and Lord of Uma (Parvati) and Ganga"),
and Ganga often arouses the jealousy of Shiva's better known consort Parvati.
Ganga is the shakti or
the moving, restless, rolling energy in the form of which the otherwise recluse
and unapproachable Shiva appears on earth. As water, this moving energy can be
felt, tasted, and absorbed. The wargod Skanda
addresses the sage Agastya in the Kashi Khand of the Skanda Purana
in these words:
One should not be amazed
... that this Ganga is really Power,
for is she not the
Supreme Shakti of the Eternal Shiva, taken in
the form of water?
This Ganga, filled with
the sweet wine of compassion, was
sent out for the
salvation of the world by Shiva, the Lord of the
Lords.
Good people should not
think this Triple Pathed River to be
like the thousand other
earthly rivers, filled with water.
The Ganga is also the
mother, the Ganga Mata (mata="mother") of Hindu worship
and culture, accepting all and forgiving all. Unlike other goddesses,
she has no destructive or fearsome aspect, destructive though she might be as a
river in nature. She is also a mother to other gods. She accepts Shiva's incandescent seed from the fire-god
Agni, which is too hot for this world, and cools it in her waters. This union produces Skanda, or Kartikeya, the god of war. In the Mahabharata, she is the wife of Shantanu,
and the mother of heroic warrior patriarch, Bhishma.When Bhishma is mortally
wounded in battle, Ganga comes out of the water in human form and weeps
uncontrollably over his body.
The Ganga is the
distilled lifeblood of the Hindu tradition, of its divinities, holy books, and
enlightenment.As such, her worship does not require the usual rites of
invocation (avahana) at the beginning and dismissal (visarjana)
at the end, required in the worship of other gods. Her divinity is immediate and everlasting.
GANGA
IN CLASSICAL INDIAN ICONOGRAPHY
Early in ancient Indian
culture, the river Ganga was associated with fecundity, its redeeming waters
and its rich silt providing sustenance to all who lived along its banks. A counterpoise to the dazzling heat of the Indian summer,
the Ganga came to be imbued with magical qualities and to be revered in
anthropomorphic form. By the 5th century CE, an elaborate theology surrounded
the Ganga, now a goddess in her own right, and a symbol for all rivers of
India. Hindu temples all over India had
statues and reliefs of the goddess carved at their entrances, symbolically
washing the sins of arriving worshippers and guarding the gods within. As protector of the sanctum sanctorum, the goddess soon
came to depicted with several characteristic accessories: the makara (a
crocodile like undersea monster, often shown with an elephant like trunk), the kumbha
(an overfull vase), various overhead parasol like coverings, and a
gradually increasing retinue of humans.
Central to the goddess's
visual identification is the makara, which is also her vahana, or
mount. An ancient symbol in India, it predates all appearances of the goddess
Ganga in art. The makara has a dual
symbolism. On the one hand, it represents the lifeaffirming waters and plants
of its environment; on the other, it represents fear, both fear of the unknown
it elicits by lurking in those waters and real fear it instils by appearing in
sight. The earliest extant unambiguous
pairing of the makara with Ganga is at Udayagiri Caves in Central India
(circa 400 CE). Here, in Cave V, flanking the main figure of Vishnu shown in
his boar incarnation, two river goddesses, Ganga and Yamuna appear atop their
respective mounts, makara and kurma (a turtle or tortoise).
The makara is
often accompanied by a gana, a small boy or child, near its mouth, as,
for example, shown in the Gupta period relief from Besnagar, Central India, in
the leftmost frame above. The gana represents both posterity
and development (udbhava). The pairing of the
fearsome, life destroying makara with the youthful, life affirming gana
speaks to two aspects of the Ganga herself. Although she has provided
sustenance to millions, she has also brought hardship, injury, and death by
causing major floods along her banks. The goddess Ganga is
also accompanied by a dwarf attendant, who carries a cosmetic bag, and on whom
she sometimes leans, as if for support. (See, for example,
frames 1, 2, and 4 above.)
The purna kumbha or
full pot of water is the second most discernible element of the Ganga
iconography.
Appearing first also in
the relief in Udayagiri Caves (5th century), it gradually appeared more
frequently as the theme of the goddess matured. By the seventh century
it had become an established feature, as seen, for example, the Dashavatara
temple, Deogarh, Uttar Pradesh (seventh century), the Trimurti temple, Badoli,
Chittorgarh, Rajasthan,
and at the Lakshmaneshwar temple, Kharod, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, (ninth or tenth century), and seen very clearly in frame
3 above and less clearly in the remaining frames. Worshipped even today, the
full pot is emblematic of the formless Brahman, as well as of woman, of the
womb, and of birth. Furthermore, The river goddesses Ganga and Saraswati were
both born from Brahma's pot, containing the celestial waters.
In her earliest
depictions at temple entrances, the goddess Ganga appeared standing beneath the
overhanging branch of a tree, as seen as well in the Udayagiri caves. However, soon the tree cover had evolved into a chatra
or parasol held by an attendant, for example, in the seventh century
Dasavatara temple at Deogarh.
(The parasol can be
clearly seen in frame 3 above; its stem can be seen in frame 4, but the rest
has broken off.) The cover undergoes another transformation in the temple at
Kharod, Bilaspur (ninth or tenth century), where the parasol is lotuss haped, and yet another at the Trimurti temple at Badoli where
the parasol has been replaced entirely by a lotus.
As the iconography
evolved, sculptors in the central India especially were producing animated
scenes of the goddess, replete with an entourage and suggestive of a queen en
route to a river to bathe. A relief similar to the depiction in
frame 4 above is described in Pal 1997, p. 43 as follows:
A typical relief of
about the ninth century that once stood at the entrance of a temple, the river
goddess Ganga is shown as a voluptuously endowed lady with a retinue. Following
the iconographic prescription, she stands gracefully on her composite makara
mount and holds a water pot. The dwarf attendant carries her cosmetic bag,
and a ... female holds the stem of a giant lotus leaf that serves as her
mistress's parasol. The fourth figure is a male guardian. Often in such reliefs
the makara's tail is extended with great flourish into a scrolling
design symbolizing both vegetation and water.
KUMBH MELA
Kumbh Mela is a mass
Hindu pilgrimage in which Hindus gather at the Ganga river. The normal Kumbh
Mela is celebrated every 3 years, the Ardh (half) Kumbh is celebrated
every six years at Haridwar and Prayag, the Purna (complete)
Kumbh takes place every twelve years at four places (Prayag
(Allahabad), Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nashik). The Maha (great) Kumbh Mela which
comes after 12 'Purna Kumbh Melas', or 144 years, is held at Prayag
(Allahabad).
The major event of the
festival is ritual bathing at the banks of the river. Other activities include
religious discussions, devotional singing, mass feeding of holy men and women
and the poor, and religious assemblies where doctrines are debated and
standardised. Kumbh Mela is the most sacred of all the pilgrimages. Thousands of holy men and women attend, and the
auspiciousness of the festival is in part attributable to this. The sadhus are
seen clad in saffron sheets with ashes and powder dabbed on their skin per the
requirements of ancient traditions. Some, called naga sanyasis,
may not wear any clothes.
IRRIGATION
The Ganga and its tributaries, especially the
Yamuna, have been used for irrigation since ancient times. Dams and canals were common in gangetic plain
by fourth century BCE. The
Ganga Brahmaputra Meghna basin
has a huge hydroelectric potential, on the order of 200,000 to 250,000
megawatts, nearly half of which could be easily harnessed. As of 1999, India tapped about
12% of the hydroelectric potential of the Ganga and just 1% of the vast potential of the
Brahmaputra.
CANALS
Megasthenes, a Greek ethnographer who visited
India during third century BCE when Mauryans ruled India described the
existence of canals in the gangetic plain. Kautilya (also known as Chanakya),
an advisor to Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of Maurya Empire, included the
destruction of dams and levees as a strategy during war. Firuz Shah Tughlaq had many canals built, the
longest of which, 240 km (150 mi), was built in 1356 on the Yamuna River. Now
known as the Western Yamuna Canal, it has fallen into disrepair and been
restored several times. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built an irrigation canal
on the Yamuna River in the early 17th century. It fell into disuse until 1830,
when it was reopened as the Eastern Yamuna Canal, under British control. The
reopened canal became a model for the Upper Ganga Canal and all following canal
projects.
The first British canal
in India—with no Indian antecedents—was the Ganga Canal built between 1842 and
1854. Contemplated first by Col. John
Russell Colvin in 1836, it did not at first elicit much enthusiasm from its
eventual architect Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, who balked at idea of cutting a
canal through extensive low lying land in order to reach the drier upland
destination. However, after the Agra famine of 1837–38, during which the East
India Company's administration spent Rs. 2,300,000 on famine relief, the idea
of a canal became more attractive to the Company's budget conscious Court of
Directors. In 1839, the Governor General of India, Lord Auckland, with the
Court's assent, granted funds to Cautley for a full survey of the swath of land
that underlay and fringed the projected course of the canal. The Court of
Directors, moreover, considerably enlarged the scope of the projected canal,
which, in consequence of the severity and geographical extent of the famine,
they now deemed to be the entire Doab region.
The enthusiasm, however,
proved to be short lived. Auckland's successor as Governor General, Lord Ellen
borough, appeared less receptive to large scale public works, and for the
duration of his tenure, withheld major funds for the project. Only in 1844,
when a new Governor General, Lord Hardinge, was appointed, did official
enthusiasm and funds return to the Ganga canal project. Although the
intervening impasse had seemingly affected Cautley's health and required him to
return to Britain in 1845 for recuperation, his European sojourn gave him an
opportunity to study contemporary hydraulic works in the United Kingdom and
Italy. By the time of his return to India even more supportive men were at the
helm, both in the North Western Provinces, with James Thomason as Lt. Governor,
and in British India with Lord Dalhousie as Governor General. Canal
construction, under Cautley's supervision, now went into full swing. A 350mile
long canal, with another 300 miles of branch lines, eventually stretched between
the headworks in Hardwar, splitting into two branches below Aligarh, and its
two confluences with the Yamuna (Jumna in map) mainstem in Etawah and the Ganga
in Kanpur (Cawnpore in map). The Ganga Canal, which required a total capital
outlay of £2.15 million, was officially opened in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie.[93] According to historian Ian Stone:
It was the largest canal
ever attempted in the world, five times greater in its length than all the main
irrigation lines of Lombardy and Egypt put together and longer by a third than
even the largest USA navigation canal, the Pennsylvania Canal.
DAMS
AND BARRAGES
A major barrage at Farakka was opened on 21
April 1975, It is
located close to the point where the main flow of the river enters Bangladesh,
and the tributary Hooghly (also known as Bhagirathi) continues in West Bengal
past Kolkata. This barrage, which feeds the Hooghly branch of the river by a
26mile (42 km) long feeder canal, and its water flow management has been a
longlingering source of dispute with Bangladesh. Indo Bangladesh Ganga Water
Treaty signed in December 1996 addressed some of the water sharing issues
between India and Bangladesh.
Tehri Dam was constructed on Bhagirathi
River, tributary of the Ganga. It is located 1.5 km downstream of Ganesh
Prayag, the place where Bhilangana meets Bhagirathi. Bhagirathi is called Ganga
after Devprayag. Construction of the dam in an earthquake prone area was controversial.
Bansagar Dam was built on the Son River, a
tributary of the Ganga, for both irrigation and hydroelectric power generation.
ECONOMY
The Ganges Basin with its fertile soil is
instrumental to the agricultural economies of India and Bangladesh. The Ganges
and its tributaries provide a perennial source of irrigation to a large area.
Chief crops cultivated in the area include rice, sugarcane, lentils, oil seeds,
potatoes, and wheat. Along the banks of the river, the presence of swamps and
lakes provide a rich growing area for crops such as legumes, chillies, mustard,
sesame, sugarcane, and jute. There are also many fishing opportunities along
the river, though it remains highly polluted. Also the major industrial towns
of Unnao, Kanpur, situated on the banks of the river with the predominance of
tanning industries add to the pollution.
TOURISM
Tourism is another related activity. Three
towns holy to Hinduism – Haridwar, Prayag (Allahabad), and Varanasi – attract
thousands of pilgrims to its waters to take a dip in the Ganges, which is
believed to cleanse oneself of sins and help attain salvation. The rapids of
the Ganges also are popular for river rafting, attracting adventure seekers in
the summer months. Also, several cities such as Kanpur, Kolkata and Patna have
developed riverfront walkways along the banks to attract tourists.
ECOLOGY
AND ENVIRONMENT
Human development, mostly agriculture, has
replaced nearly all of the original natural vegetation of the Ganga basin. More
than 95% of the upper Gangetic Plain has been degraded or converted to
agriculture or urban areas. Only one large block of relatively intact habitat
remains, running along the Himalayan foothills and including Rajaji National
Park, Jim Corbett National Park, and Dudhwa National Park. As recently as the 16th and 17th centuries
the upper Gangetic Plain harboured impressive populations of wild Asian
elephants (Elephas maximus), tigers (Panthera tigris),
Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), gaurs (Bos gaurus),
barasinghas (Rucervus duvaucelii), sloth bears (Melursus ursinus)
and Indian lions. In the
21st century there are few large wild animals, mostly deer, boars, wildcats,
and small numbers of wolves, jackals, and foxes. Bengal tigers survive only in
the Sundarbans area of the Ganga Delta. Crocodiles and barasingha are also
found in the Sundarbans. The
Sundarbands freshwater swamp ecoregion, however, is nearly extinct. Threatened mammals in the upper Gangetic
Plain include the tiger, elephant, sloth bear, and chousingha (Tetracerus
quadricornis).
Fish are found in all
the major rivers of the Ganga basin, and are a vital food source for many
people. In the Bengal area common fish include featherbacks (Notopteridae
family), barbs (Cyprinidae), walking catfish (Clarias batrachus),
gouramis (Anabantidae), and milkfish (Chanos chanos). The critically endangered Ganga shark (Glyphis
gangeticus) is also found in the river and other places in Indian
subcontinent.
Many types of birds are
found throughout the basin, such as myna, parrots, crows, kites, partridges,
and fowls. Ducks and snipes migrate across the Himalayas during the winter,
attracted in large numbers to wetland areas. There are no endemic birds in the
upper Gangetic Plain. The great Indian bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) and
lesser florican (Sypheotides indicus) are considered globally
threatened.
The natural forest of
the upper Gangetic Plain has been so thoroughly eliminated it is difficult to
assign a natural vegetation type with certainty. There are a few small patches
of forest left, and they suggest that much of the upper plains may have
supported a tropical moist deciduous forest with sal (Shorea robusta) as
a climax species.
The Ganga River itself
supports the mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) and the gharial (Gavialis
gangeticus). The river's most famed fauna is the freshwater dolphin Platanista
gangetica gangetica, the Ganga river dolphin, recently declared
India's national aquatic animal.
A similar situation is
found in the lower Gangetic Plain, which includes the lower Brahmaputra River.
The lower plains contain more open forests, which tend to be dominated by Bombax
ceiba in association with Albizzia procera, Duabanga
grandiflora, and Sterculia vilosa. There are early seral forest
communities that would eventually become dominated by the climax species sal (Shorea
robusta), if forest succession was allowed to proceed. In most places
forests fail to reach climax conditions due to human causes. The forests of the lower Gangetic Plain, despite
thousands of years of human settlement, remained largely intact until the early
20th century. Today only about 3% of the ecoregion is under natural forest and
only one large block, south of Varanasi, remains. There are over forty
protected areas in the ecoregion, but over half of these are less than 100
square kilometres (39 sq mi). The fauna of the lower
Gangetic Plain is similar to the upper plains, with the addition of a number of
other species such as the smooth coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata)
and the large Indian civet (Viverra zibetha).
GANGA
RIVER DOLPHIN
The Ganga river dolphin, which used to exist
in large schools near to urban centres in both the Ganga and Brahmaputra
rivers, is now seriously threatened by pollution and dam construction. Their
numbers have now dwindled to a quarter of their numbers of fifteen years
before, and they have become extinct in the Ganga's main tributaries. A recent survey by the World Wildlife Fund
found only 3,000 left in the water catchment of both river systems.
The Ganga river dolphin
is one of only five freshwater dolphins in the world. The other four are the
baiji (Lipotes vexillifer) of the Yangtze River in China, now likely
extinct; the bhulan of the Indus River in Pakistan; the boto of the Amazon
River in Brazil; and the Araguaian river dolphin (not considered a separate
species until (2014) of the Araguaia–Tocantins basin in Brazil. There are
several marine dolphins whose ranges include some freshwater habitats, but
these five are the only dolphins who live only in freshwater rivers and lakes.
EFFECTS
OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The Tibetan Plateau contains the world's
third largest store of ice. Qin Dahe, the former head of the China
Meteorological Administration, said that the
recent fast pace of melting and warmer temperatures will be
good for agriculture and tourism in the short
term; but issued a strong warning:
Temperatures are rising
four times faster than elsewhere in China, and the Tibetan glaciers are
retreating at a higher speed than in any other part of the world.... In the
short term, this will cause lakes to expand and bring floods and mudflows... In
the long run, the glaciers are vital lifelines for Asian rivers, including the
Indus and the Ganges. Once they vanish, water supplies in those regions will be
in peril.
In 2007, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fourth Report, stated
that the Himalayan glaciers which feed the river, were at risk of melting by
2035. The IPCC has now withdrawn that
prediction, as the original source admitted that it was speculative and the
cited source was not a peer reviewed finding. In its statement, the
IPCC stands by its general findings relating to the Himalayan glaciers being at
risk from global warming (with consequent risks to water flow into the Gangetic
basin).
POLLUTION
AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
The Ganga suffers from extreme pollution
levels, which affect the 400 million people who live close to the river. Sewage from many cities along the river's
course, industrial waste and religious offering swrapped in nondegradable
plastics add large amounts of pollutants to the river as it flows through
densely populated areas. The
problem is exacerbated by the fact that many poorer people rely on the river on
a daily basis for bathing, washing, and cooking. The World Bank estimates that the health costs of water
pollution in India equal three percent of India's GDP. It has also been suggested that eighty
percent of all illnesses in India and one third of deaths can be attributed to
waterborne diseases.
Varanasi, a city of one
million people that many pilgrims visit to take a "holy dip" in the
Ganga, releases around 200 million litres of untreated human sewage into the
river each day, leading to large concentrations of faecal coliform bacteria. According to official standards, water safe for bathing
should not contain more than 500 faecal coliforms per 100ml, yet upstream of
Varanasi's ghats the river water already contains 120 times as much, 60,000
faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml.
After the cremation of
the deceased at Varanasi's ghats the bones and ashes are thrown into the Ganga.
However, in the past thousands of uncremated bodies were thrown into the Ganga
during cholera epidemics, spreading the disease. Even today, holy men, pregnant
women, people with leprosy/chicken pox, people who had been bitten by snakes,
people who had committed suicide, the poor, and children under 5 are not
cremated at the ghats but are floated free to decompose in the waters. In
addition, those who cannot afford the large amount of wood needed to incinerate
the entire body, leave behind a lot of half burned body parts.
After passing through
Varanasi, and receiving 32 streams of raw sewage from the city, the
concentration of
fecal coliforms in the
river's waters rises from 60,000 to 1.5 million, with observed peak
values of 100 million per 100 ml. Drinking and bathing in
its waters therefore carries a high risk of infection.
Between 1985 and 2000,
Rs. 10 billion, around US$226 million, or less than 4 cents per person per
year) were spent on the Ganga Action Plan, an environmental
initiative that was "the largest single attempt to clean up a polluted
river anywhere in the world." The Ganga Action Plan
has been described variously as a "failure," a "major failure".
According to one study,
The Ganga Action Plan,
which was taken on priority and with much enthusiasm, was delayed for two
years. The expenditure was almost doubled. But the result was not very
appreciable. Much expenditure was done over the political propaganda. The
concerning governments and the related agencies were not very prompt to make it
a success. The public of the areas was not taken into consideration. The
releasing of urban and industrial wastes in the river was not controlled fully.
The flowing of dirty water through drains and sewers were not adequately
diverted. The continuing customs of burning dead bodies, throwing carcasses,
washing of dirty clothes by washermen, and immersion of idols and cattle
wallowing were not checked. Very little provision of public latrines was made
and the open defecation of lakhs of people continued along the riverside. All
these made the Action Plan a failure.
The failure of the Ganga
Action Plan, has also been variously attributed to "environmental planning
without proper understanding of the human–environment interactions," Indian "traditions and beliefs,"
"corruption and a lack of technical knowledge" and "lack of support from religious
authorities."
In December 2009 the
World Bank agreed to loan India US$1 billion over the next five years to help
save the river. According to 2010 Planning
Commission estimates, an investment of almost Rs. 70 billion (Rs. 70 billion,
approximately US$1.5 billion) is needed to clean up the river.
In November 2008, the
Ganga, alone among India's rivers, was declared a "National River",
facilitating the formation of a National Ganga River Basin Authority that would
have greater powers to plan, implement and monitor measures aimed at protecting
the river.
In July 2014, the
Government of India announced an integrated Ganga development project titled Namami
Ganga and allocated Rs.2,037 crore for this purpose.
The incidence of
waterborne and enteric diseases – such as gastrointestinal disease, cholera,
dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid – among people who use the river's waters
for bathing, washing dishes and brushing teeth is high, at an estimated 66% per
year.
Recent studies by Indian
Council of Medical Research (ICMR) say that the river is so full of killer
pollutants that those living along its banks in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal
are more prone to cancer than anywhere else in the country. Conducted by the
National Cancer Registry Programme under the ICMR, the study throws up shocking
findings indicating that the river is thick with heavy metals and lethal
chemicals that cause cancer. According to Deputy Director General of NCRP A.
Nandkumar, the incidence of cancer was highest in the country in areas drained
by the Ganga and stated that the problem would be studied deeply and with the
findings presented in a report to the health ministry.
WATER SHORTAGES
Along with ever increasing pollution, water
shortages are getting noticeably worse. Some sections of the river are already
completely dry. Around Varanasi the river once had an average depth of 60 metres
(200 ft), but in some places it is now only 10 metres (33 ft).
To cope with its chronic
water shortages, India employs electric groundwater pumps, diesel powered
tankers and coalfed power plants. If the country increasingly relies on these
energy intensive short term fixes, the whole planet's climate will bear the
consequences. India is under enormous pressure to develop its economic
potential while also protecting its environment— something few, if any,
countries have accomplished. What India does with its water will be a test of
whether that combination is possible.
MINING
Illegal mining in the Ganga river bed for
stones and sand for construction work has been a long problem in Haridwar
district, Uttarakhand, where it touches the plains for the first time. This is
despite the fact that quarrying has been banned in Kumbh Mela area zone
covering 140 km2 areas
in Haridwar. On 14
June 2011, Swami Nigamanada, a 34 year old monk who was fasting since 19
February that year against illegal mining and stone crushing along the Ganga
near Haridwar, died at the Himalayan Hospital in Jolly grant in Dehradun, after
prolonged coma in the hospital's intensive care unit. His death put a spotlight on the activity and
resulted in the intervention of the Union Environment minister.
REFERENCES
1.
Jain, Agarwal & Singh 2007.
2.
Suvedī 2005.
3.
Kumar, Singh & Sharma 2005.
4. Krishna Murti 1991, p. 19.
5. Jain, Agarwal & Singh 2007, p. 341.
6. Gupta 2007, p. 347.
7. Dhungel & Pun 2009, p. 215.
8. Chakrabarti 2001, pp. 126–127.
9. Parua 2009.
10. Arnold 2000.
11. Elhance 1999, pp. 156–158.
12. Ali & Aitchison 2005.
13. Dikshit & Schwartzberg 2007, p. 7.
14. Prakash, B.; Sudhir Kumar; M. Someshwar Rao; S. C.
Giri (2000). "Holocene tectonic movements and stress field in the western
Gangetic plains" (PDF). Current Science. 79 (4): 438–449
SOURCE
1. Internet
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