JOIN USThousands of years ago, the majesty of the mighty Sarasvati river was in full bloom. It later dried up, perhaps, in a desert. But in the last one year, its virtually flowing in Haryana, albeit symbolically but in a big way on the same course where it left its imprints centuries ago.
It's “man-made” version on the course scientifically established to be that of the erstwhile mighty river. Years of collaborated efforts have started yielding results. A carved-out 153-km stretch in Haryana has water flow and is deemed as the Sarasvati river course.
Geologists reveal the Sarasvati glacier branch of the Sarasvati flowed through Yamunanagar and Kurukshetra districts in Haryana before it joined the Ghaggar River at in Patiala district of Punjab.
The project to rejuvenate the lost Sarasvati has left many excited. It's a passionate task, Sarasvati Heritage Development Board Deputy Chairman Prashant Bhardwaj told DH. It was in April last year when the digging started in Yamunanagar. As explored, it showed signs of being a river bed beneath. It was a heartening site. A 150-km plus stretch was dug up from Adi Badri, a place believed to be the starting point of the lost Sarasvati in Yamunanagar close to the Shivalik foothills, to Sirsa in Haryana. That done, 100 cusecs of Yamuna water from the feeder canal was released in the dry course.
“It was no less moment of glory for us. But a lot more is still to be done” Prashant Bhardwaj said. A 500-km plus course will complete all the designated tributaries of the lost river in Haryana. It's a unique initiative that is loaded with mythological overtones. It is intended to be a part of the religious circuit as well.
For the BJP government in Haryana, the project of reviving Sarasvati is close to its heart. Denying the Congress Party of its share of glory in the project will be unfair. The foundation for project to revive the river was laid by the Congress government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda in 2009.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had termed the project a “mission to keep alive the soul of a community”. The government dedicated the Sarasvati Heritage Development Board with Khattar as Chairman.
For Khattar, the mission to revive Sarasvati has a special significance. Here's why? Way back in 1985, Manohar Lal Khattar, then a RSS Pracharak, was among a group of experts which travelled from Adi Badri to Gujarat for three days after Dr V S Wakankar, an archaeologist and Padma Shri awardee, made claims of having traced the basin of the Sarasvati from Adi Badri to Kutch in Gujarat. Never would have Manohar Lal realised that decades later, it would be under his command as the chief minister that the revival of the lost Sarasvati will take place.
So what's the authenticity of the Sarasvati course flowing in Haryana and other parts. Prashant Bhardwaj says there are documented evidence to justify everything, which is why such an elaborate exercise has been undertaken by the state government to fill dried course of the lost river.
He said the revenue records that date back to the Mughal period mention it as Sarasvati. The Survey of India topo-sheets mention it as Sarasvati. The Indian Space Research Organisation has established the course through geographic information system mapping. Rig Veda scripts mention scores of civilisations thriving around the basin of the river. Pieces of pottery that were recovered from the excavation site hinted at the possibility of a civilisation here.
Bhardwaj says inherent in the project to revive Sarasvati in Haryana are a host of other measures, like religious tourism, flood protection, ecology, water conservation et al, that will benefit the state. Dams and water reservoirs too have been planned to ensure perennial flow of river independent of water inflow from feeders. The incumbent regime has earmarked Rs 50 crore for the Sarasvati project. While research has been going on for several years now, sometime ago, a sudden gush of water from below the surface near four separate temple sites in Haryana left geologists overwhelmed.
Research and exploration then underlined the existence of numerous paleo-channels of the river, deep aquifers further below and buried remains of the river. And the buried channels still exist in Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Dr A R Chaudhary, chairman of the Geology Department, Kurukshetra University and a pioneer in research, has maintained that satellite imageries suggest the presence of several paleo-channels indicating a major river flow that once existed. “Laboratory analysis of sediments collected from the water that came out of these two sites suggest a dense mineral content of higher Himalayan hills, which only reinforced our theory,” he has held.
In Haryana, nearly 103 early Harappan (2500-2200 BC) archaeological sites related to the Sarasvati river civilisation have been identified. These sites are spread across various districts of Haryana.