Resurrect Ganga

This is regarding the review of Victor Mallet's book River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India's Future (16-30 June, 2018). The self-cleansing property of the Ganga has been known not just to Indians, but also to foreign scientists in the distant past. British physician Hanbury Hankin (1865-1939) was the first person to observe that viruses in the Ganga ate pathogenic bacteria and kept the river clean. British physician C E Nelson found that water taken from Hooghly, one of the river's dirtiest mouths, by ships returning to England remained fresh throughout the voyage. So did renowned French microbiologist Felix d'Herelle, who coined the term "bacteriophage" to refer to bacteria-eating virus. To his great amazement, he found

that the water from the river destroyed the bacteria he raised in a culture of cholera and dysentery microbes.

In an empirical study conducted between 1982 and 1984, D S Bhargava, former environmental engineer at the IIT Roorkee, found that the Ganga reduces biochemical oxygen demand levels and cleans suspended wastes faster than other rivers. Today. river's "magical" powers are gone due to our modern civilisation which thrives on the failed and hedonistic Western theories like Environmental Kuznets Curve (economic growth first, environmental protection later). The holy river is now gasping for breath from multiple sources of pollution. It is time we collectively endeavour to resurrect the divine aquatic gift, otherwise there will be no Ganga left for us in the future. C V KRISHNA MANOJ HYDERABAD, TELANGANA