Does Ganga Have Only Religious Significance?

The sadhus have been protesting against the overwhelming pollution in Ganga because they cannot take the holy dip during the Kumbh. It’s sad that they only think about this ancient river when they cannot carry out their religious performances, and such performances happen just a few times every year. Do they ever think of the river otherwise? And what about the citizens of this country?

Ganga, or the Ganges, is one of the ancient rivers of the world carrying mythological as well as civilizational significance. Thousands of generations have prospered around it.

Recently they were showing on TV that this great river has been reduced to a dirty nalla (a sewage) with all sorts of factories and industries continuously releasing pollutants into it and various government agencies drawing water from it. It’s far from sad; it’s tragic, it’s an ecological disaster.

The Pryag is a place where three holy rivers converge and become one. These three rivers are: Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. Saraswati is a mythological river, it does not exist geographically, or if it ever existed, it is not there now. The similar fate is perhaps in store for the remaining two rivers, because there is no water in Yamuna too. I haven’t seen Ganga, but I regularly see Yamuna, and you can just see a strange, deadly froth floating on it, or there is this endless mass of weed that chokes the life of the river. To put salt on the wound, you can always see plush cars parked on the bridge and some losers throwing polythene bags full of offerings to the holy river. I wonder what sort of sins they are taking care of by suffocating their “beloved” river.

Coming back to Ganga, is it just there to wash off your sins? What about the gross sin against the river itself? Not much effort is seen, neither from the government nor from the citizens to save Ganga. It’s dying, or perhaps it’s already dead and now people simply submerge themselves in a dead body, indulging in a necrophilic celebration. You can get a skin disease if you take a dip.

I love the times I live in, lifestyle-wise. Living is a lot easier now. But I wish I lived in the times when the rivers were clean and the forests were dense and the sky was clear. This is certainly not the price our next generations have to pay for the comfort of our lousy generation.