I was in Rishikesh last week to spend a few days at Parmarth Niketan, an ashram run by Swami Chidanand Saraswati on the bank of the Holy Ganga. This visit added to the cherished memories of several life-transformative events associated with my previous pilgrimages to Hardwar, Rishikesh, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Hemkunt, all of them located in that spiritually enchanting part of India known as Dev Bhoomi, now carved out as the separate state of Uttarakhand.

The Ganga is believed to flow down from the Milky Way (Akash Ganga) and originate from the womb of the Himalayas at Gangotri. Can there be a better place to experience the eternalness and cosmic connection of India?

Jawaharlal Nehru, who was born in Prayag (Allahabad), the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati, wrote in his will: “The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her 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 civilisation, ever changing, ever flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga . . . the Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running into the present, and flowing into the great ocean of our future ...”

There is only one description in this incomparable tribute which, unfortunately, is no longer true. It is no more the “ . . . the same Ganga,” for both the river and the land around it are suffering from unimaginable environmental degradation. Plastic and litter have invaded its pristine environs, and the Ganga, after Hardwar, becomes increasingly maili (polluted) in the course of its onward journey. How can we Indians tolerate this disgrace to what Nehru rightly termed as a beloved symbol of our hoary culture and civilisation?

... contd.