Indian guru on drive to save nation’s rivers ▶ Jaggi Vasudev wants to plant trees along every waterway,
The Mercedes G63 SUV, painted bright green and blue, is a week into a month-long drive across India, from south to north. Inside sits Jaggi Vasudev, a turbaned and bearded spiritual guru to millions, who is trying to rally Indians to save their rivers.
It is a noble aim. India’s polluted and mismanaged waterways are in dire need of saviours.
But experts say the solution Mr Vasudev is proposing is misguided or outright wrong and that he and the backers of his campaign have been embroiled in breaches of environmental regulations.
Mr Vasudev leads the Isha Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes its own form of yoga as a way of “cultivating human potential”. He started his Rally for Rivers campaign on September 3, the day he turned 60.
The foundation has a sprawling campus in the south Indian city of Coimbatore and claims to have seven million volunteers who help to run its operations around the world.
Fondly called “Sadhguru”, or “true guru”, Mr Vasudev has many of India’s most celebrated actors, politicians, cricketers and journalists among his followers. Several publicly stated their support when he announced his plan to drive 7,000 kilometres, from the southernmost tip of India through 16 states to the Himalayas in the north, to raise awareness for his campaign.
India’s major rivers are rapidly drying up or turning toxic with pollution, Mr Vasudev said. Statistics he provides show “25 per cent of India is turning into a desert”, and “by 2030, we will only have 50 per cent of the water we need for our survival”.
“Four decades ago, the rivers in my native village were flowing in full capacity and they were a sight to watch,” said retired Indian cricket star Virender Sehwag, as he launched the rally week. “I want to see that again and that is the reason I support this cause.”
On his journey, Mr Vasudev is encouraging people to call the campaign’s phone number to show their support. He hopes to use this petition when he presents the Indian government with his solution – to plant a kilometre-wide belt of trees on either side of every major Indian river.
“Forest trees can be planted on government land and fruit trees on farmland,” the Isha Foundation proposes. “This will ensure our rivers are fed throughout the year by the moist soil. This will also reduce floods, drought and soil loss, and increase farmers’ incomes.”
On Saturday, as Mr Vasudev’s caravan passed through Bengaluru, capital of the south Indian state of Karnataka, it was announced that his foundation and the state government had signed a deal to plant 250 million trees along riverbanks.
Mr Vasudev commands a huge audience, and his campaign is bound to raise levels of awareness about India’s severely stressed rivers.
But his solution ignores how complicated rejuvenating rivers can be, said Veena Srinivasan, a researcher into hydrology and water resources in Bengaluru.
A comprehensive effort to tackle the problem would have to include detailed hydrological studies, cutting down on water pollution, recharging overdrawn groundwater resources and changing how river water is diverted or used for irrigation and dams.
“This is not the first largescale effort at tree planting,” Dr Srinivasan said.
“My own experience with this is only with eucalyptus, which was actively promoted in the 1980s through social forestry programmes.”
Research showed that trees such as eucalyptus, which are commonly used in forestation drives, tend to suck up groundwater supplies instead of helping to recharge them, she said. Trees can certainly help to prevent large-scale erosion of riverbank soil but only in locations that are prone to flash floods.
Regulations already exist to control pollution in rivers but they need to be properly enforced, said Rakesh Jaiswal, an environmentalist in Kanpur who has been campaigning for decades against pollution in the Ganges.
“Not a single person has been penalised for polluting the river, despite court orders,” Mr Jaiswal said. “There is lack of dedication and honesty at every level.”
The credibility of Mr Vasudev’s campaign – which is being conducted, as several Indian media outlets have pointed out, in a petrolguzzling SUV – is also shaken by the environmental reputation of the Isha Foundation and its backers.
The Tamil Nadu government has acknowledged that several buildings on the foundation’s campus were built illegally. A Chennai environmental group has also petitioned the National Green Tribunal to stop the foundation from holding large cultural festivals that affect or encroach on adjoining forested land.
One of the sponsors of Rally for Rivers is the Adani group, a conglomerate based in Gujarat. In 2014, an environment ministry committee found that an Adani port project had broken several rules and proposed a penalty of 2 billion rupees (Dh115 million).
But last year the government, under prime minister Narendra Modi – who is close to the group’s chairman, Gautam Adani – waived the penalty.
Experts say the solution Jaggi Vasudev is proposing is misguided or outright wrong