Sacred Rivers: Religion and Development in Northern India

Sacred Rivers

Religion and Development in Northern India

By Anika Bajpai

Every 12 years, for the festival Kumbh Mela, millions of pilgrims descend upon the Indian city of Allahabad at the confluence of two holy entities: the Ganga and the Yamuna. These two are goddesses, revered by Hindus all over India, as well as rivers that flow down from the Himalayas over the Indo-Gangetic Plain. For thousands of years, these rivers, like so many across the subcontinent, have supported the rise of kingdoms, the flourishing of trade, and the cultivation of agriculture, a generosity that people have returned with worship and respect.

However, over the past century, the traditions and customs that had preserved this equilibrium have been disrupted. India’s sacred rivers are now considered some of the most polluted in the world, with the steady addition of pesticides, heavy metals, and human waste to the water making it dangerous for people to even wade in.[i] With the encouragement of the West, India has been swept into an age of industrialization, secularism, and urbanization, a strain that has degraded its once pristine, but still holy, rivers. India’s massive societal shift in the 20th century has changed the way people have used its resources, but not the way that many view its sacred rivers.

Historical Treatment of the Rivers

It is a widely accepted principle that where there is water, there is life, and in Northern India, the Ganga and Yamuna are no exception. Pre-colonial communities along both rivers used their waters for agriculture, transportation, and nourishment. While these communities engineered mechanisms to manipulate the river for their benefit— most notably, irrigation canals that diverted water in the Mughal period— the natural state of the rivers remained intact.[ii] In fact, the majority Hindu population viewed these rivers as indestructible Goddesses and Mothers. The Ganga, according to many, originally flowed through the heavens as the Milky Way, or the Cosmic Ganga, and came down to Earth at the request of Brahma, the creator, to wash away the sins of humanity.[iii] People traveled from far and wide to bathe in its holy waters and spread the ashes of their loved ones, absolving them of karmic wrongdoings and bringing luck in their next lives. The importance that people placed on these rivers also protected them, as communities respected the water’s natural patterns and accordingly shaped their lives around its ebbs and flows.

However, in the 19th century, this equilibrium began to crumble under the influence of the British. In Hindustan, as in many countries during this period, colonial powers began to exploit their new territories’ people and natural resources. Many Indian farmers were forced to switch from traditional forms of subsistence agriculture to the large-scale production of inedible cash crops such as opium and cotton.[iv] To aid the production process, the British began to change the way people used water, diverting rivers to promote irrigation for crops, and constructing complex railway systems that reduced demand for river transportation while allowing crops to be taken to urban hubs efficiently.[v] With the introduction of such practices and projects, the British shifted the nature of the local relationship with the river to be one of utility, launching India into a new era by planting the seeds of industrialization, urbanization, and secularism that would remain long after independence.

The Consequences of Development

In 1950, with the ratification of a new constitution that followed a decades-long independence movement, foreign rule was officially abolished in the subcontinent. In its place, a new sovereign and democratic government was established, led by and for the people of India. These new leaders created a socialist government that supervised the redistribution of land, the establishment of higher education institutions, and the creation of a self-sufficient agricultural sector to feed the country’s rapidly growing population.[vi] In order to meet these challenges and continue to develop the country, the government took advantage of the resources it had at its disposal. Both the Ganga and Yamuna were prime candidates for this kind of venture, as their course through many of India’s most populous areas lent itself to a variety of projects. To provide electricity, the government built dams, aptly called the “Temples of Modern India”, that limited the headwaters of both rivers.[vii] Downstream, water was diverted from the rivers for complex irrigation schemes, further curbing the strength and size of the river. The resulting runoff water from these fields was tainted with chemicals from pesticides and fertilizers that were used in a national effort to boost crop production. [viii] The river’s path then continued through major population centers like Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi, where it was used as a makeshift disposal area. Without an advanced sewage or disposal system, the easiest way to get rid of waste was to funnel it into the river. This meant that large quantities of human waste, along with the byproducts of heavy industries, often went straight into the water.[ix] After examining the way that the rivers were utilized in the 20th century, their current state in the 21st century comes as no surprise.

Currently, the Ganga and Yamuna are considered to be some of the most polluted rivers in the world. In 2016, 90% of sampling stations along the Ganga had fecal coliform levels higher than the acceptable limits set by India's Central Pollution Control Board, with one site recording figures 300 times higher than that limit.[x] Researchers also detected harmful levels of pesticides like DDT, HCH, and organophosphates accumulating at the mouth of the river.[xi] These high levels of pollution directly damage the wellbeing of animals and humans along the rivers. Bathing, doing laundry or brushing teeth with the water from the Ganga and Yamuna increase an individual’s chance of being infected with water-borne diseases like cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid or even developing cancer.[xii] Furthermore, for the animals who live in the water, like the endangered Ganges River Dolphin, reduced water flow and dams have reduced the extent of their natural habitat. Toxins like mercury, lead, DDT and other immunotoxic chemicals have been found in their bodies and are linked to a decline in general biodiversity of the river.[xiii] If the rivers are left in this state, these problems, for all inhabitants, will only worsen.

Religion and Politics:

Despite the material pollution, these rivers are still considered sacred and pristine by many Hindus. Many believe that both their waters and the River Goddess they contain, despite the blatant pollution, are pure, and will always remain this way due to the Goddess’s power to cleanse even souls. Others believe that while material pollution may sully the water of the river, the Goddess is inherently pure and so can never be harmed by waste.[xiv] As a result of these disconnects between material and spiritual pollution, many believe that polluting the river is permissible as the Goddess’s sacredness will always be preserved.

These interpretations would have gone unchallenged in pre-colonial Indian society, as people generally lived harmoniously with the river; however, since the country has begun to experience the side effects of the regulation of its waters, people’s views are beginning to shift. Most recent administrations in India have tried to mount an effort to clean up the rivers. Many include a call to action by making connections between spiritual and material purity. Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi said in the 80s, “the purity of the Ganga has never been in doubt. Yet we have allowed the river to become polluted, a river that is the symbol for our spirituality.”[xv] Even India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi echoed this sentiment, saying that it is his “destiny to serve Maa Ganga,” and later launching the newest efforts to clean the rivers, ‘Namami Gange’.[xvi]However, for all the discussion about cleaning up India’s sacred rivers, there has been limited progress.[xvii]

Despite the billions of dollars spent addressing pollution in the rivers over the past three decades, the Ganga and Yamuna are still severely polluted. There have been efforts to start combating pollution, like the multipoint Ganga Action Plan or the Water Act of 1974, which outlawed the disposal of sewage and industrial waste into any body of water--however, they were outweighed by apathy, bureaucracy and necessity. Efforts to establish sewage treatment plants have been plagued by corruption, while a lack of enforcement has allowed industries to continue to pollute the waters[xviii]. Furthermore, irrigation diversions are now too integral to India’s agricultural sector to be removed. As concerns about greenhouse emissions and India’s energy demands increase, the likelihood of removing the hydroelectric dams that constrain the Ganga and Yamuna only shrinks.[xix] Without developing realistic and enforceable alternatives to the ways that people currently use them, the government’s efforts to clean its rivers will never be completely successful.

In his will, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister said, “The Ganga, especially, 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 age-long culture and civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing and ever the same Ganga.”[xx]  However, more than half a century later, the Ganga is not the same. Despite the traditional view that the Ganga is invincible and ever pure, the physical state of her waters is polluted and dangerous. A political and cultural shift is urgently needed to overcome the forces, set in motion in the 20th century, that are destroying the Gangetic river systems. For thousands of years, Hindus have revered the Ganga for its ability to cleanse the sins of people; however, now, more than ever, the Ganga needs its people to cleanse and preserve its waters. 

*Illustration by Ainav Rabinowitz

[i] Reuters. “The Race to Save the River Ganges.” Accessed October 28, 2019. https://graphics.reuters.com/INDIA-RIVER/010081TW39P/index.html.

[ii] David L Haberman. River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India. (Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 2006), 6.

[iii] Kelly D. Alley.. On the Banks of the Gaṅgā: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 55-56.

[iv] Nick Robins, The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational. 2Nd ed. (London: Pluto, 2012), 90-100.

[v] Pallavi V. Das, Colonialism, Development and the Environment: Railways and Deforestation in British India, 1860-1884, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 25.

[vi] Barbara Daly Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf. A Concise History of Modern India. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 251.

[vii] Haberman. River of Love, 7.

[viii] Ibid, 84.

[ix] Ibid, 172.

[x] Reuters. “The Race to Save the River Ganges.”

[xi] “Emerging Contaminants in Ganga River Basin with Special Emphasis on Pesticides.” Indian Institutes of Technology, December 2011. http://cganga.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/11/013_EQP.pdf.

[xii] “State of Health in the Ganga River Basin.” Ganga River Basin Management Plan: Indian Institutes of Technology, December 2013. http://cganga.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/11/044_GBP_IIT_SEC_ANL_06_VER-1_Dec-2013.pdf, 44.

[xiii] Ravindra K. Sinha, and Kannan Kurunthachalam. “Ganges River Dolphin: An Overview of Biology, Ecology, and Conservation Status in India.” AMBIO 43, no. 8 (December 1, 2014): 1029–46.

[xiv] Haberman, River of Love, 133-135.

[xv] Alley, On the Banks, 36.

[xvi] www.narendramodi.in. “Namami Gange.” Accessed November 3, 2019. https://www.narendramodi.in/namami-gange-398380.

[xvii]  Reuters. “The Race to Save the River Ganges.”

[xviii] George Black. “What It Takes to Clean the Ganges,” July 18, 2016. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/what-it-takes-to-clean-the-ganges.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Nehruvian. “Will And Testament Of Jawaharlal Nehru,” January 26, 2019. http://nehruvian.com/article/will-and-testament-jawaharlal-nehru.