GRIME AND THE GANGA
So many rivers of ink have flowed on that eternal Indian paradox—the sacredness of the Ganga and its shockingly filthy state—that I started reading Victor Mallet’s latest book with a strong sense of déjà vu. The facts about staggering domestic and industrial pollution, falling water levels, floods and droughts in the Ganga basin are well known. Equally familiar is the story of government apathy and ineptitude: despite loud proclamations of Action Plans, governments have achieved next to nothing. Soon after being elected from holy and heavily polluted Varanasi, Prime Minister Modi said: “From her source to her end, Ma Ganga is screaming for help. She is saying, ‘There must be one of my sons who will come and pull me out of this filth.’” More than two years after announcing his dedication to Ganga’s cause, Modi’s party at the Centre and in the state of Uttar Pradesh presides over a river so filthy that it should make every Indian hang their head in shame. The value of Victor Mallet’s book is that it marshals familiar facts so compellingly that one comes away with a clear sense of what’s to be done and why we have failed to do it.
River of Life, River of Death draws upon Mallet’s news stories for the Financial Times as well as other historical and contemporary sources. Its themes include climate change in the high Himalaya, dystopic urban environments, the pathologies of dams and irrigation systems, population pressure, the burden of disease and ecological distress. In this grim compilation of the state of the Ganga basin, Mallet probes why, even though the Indian govern-
ment can do extraordinary things like sending a satellite to orbit Mars, organising not only Kumbh Melas but national elections, it has so signally failed to save the river. There is, of course, the sheer scale of the problem: an area the size of Egypt, so populous that if it were a separate country, it would be the third largest in the world. This is compounded by a confusion of agencies, each mired in red tape, incompetence and corruption. Neither this enduring institutional inertia nor the time horizons of elected politicians enable effective action. Add to this the pseudo-science and faith-based fictions that our current leaders rely on to assert that the Ganga is eternally clean. But perhaps even more disgraceful is that millions of ordinary people, those who claim to revere the river, fail to hold their leaders to account.
Mallet’s love for the river and its wildlife, his wonder at the incongruities of everyday life on its banks, reminds us yet again of all that is vital and beautiful about the Ganga. When one thinks of the colossal missed opportunity to create millions of jobs in river clean-up and conservation, the despair deepens.
Millions of people who claim to revere the river fail to hold their leaders to account